When Jane Goldman walked out of a Delaware courtroom after another day of testimony, she noticed her sister Amy and nephew Steven walking ahead of her.
“Wait a second,” she called out. “Family photo!”
They kept walking. Neither turned around.
It is difficult to imagine a scene more fitting for the Goldman family, one of the wealthiest and most secretive real estate families in the United States. The family once owned the Chrysler Building and the ground lease beneath the Plaza Hotel, and for nearly four decades it has run its vast business alongside an seemingly endless series of family disputes.
On one side is Jane Goldman, 71, daughter of the late real estate tycoon Sol Goldman and the woman who now controls the family business, valued at about $5 billion. Her personal fortune is estimated at $1.1 billion, and Forbes once described her as the person who controls the largest real estate portfolio held by a family in the United States.
On the other side are her sister Amy, 72, and nephew Steven Gurney-Goldman, 35, the son of her late brother. They claim Jane has been influenced too heavily by the machinations of the TV series “Succession” and that she used an artificially low valuation to tighten her grip on the family empire and push them aside.
The gap at the center of the court battle is more than $500 million, but money is only part of the story. Allegations of extortion, threats and ransom demands have also emerged, along with suggestions that someone was considering hiring a hitman.
Jane Goldman. She learned from her father how to drive up prices
(Photo Wikimedia Commons)
All of this is unfolding within a Jewish family whose name is largely unfamiliar to the public, but whose real estate holdings are hard to miss. Forbes once named the Goldmans the wealthiest real estate family in the United States. Today, they own at least 400 properties, including the land beneath The Mark and the Peninsula hotels and vast holdings along Fifth Avenue and Madison Avenue, including the Cartier building and entire blocks between 37th and 84th streets. The family also owns a 17% stake in projects at the World Trade Center site.
They owned the Chrysler Building, one of New York’s most recognizable landmarks, for about 15 years, as well as the ground lease beneath the Plaza Hotel, once owned by Israeli businessman Yitzhak Tshuva and now owned by Qatar.
Strategic land in the heart of Manhattan
In recent years, the family foundation has donated substantial sums to Magen David Adom, United Hatzalah, Leket Israel and the Jewish Agency, as well as, in the past, to Friends of the Israel Defense Forces. Amy herself served as chair of the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan and has been active in Jewish philanthropy for years.
The unusual feature of the empire is that the Goldmans do not necessarily have to own the building above the ground. In many cases, they own the land itself and lease it for periods that can run as long as 99 years. A developer builds, a hotel operates, a luxury store sells jewelry, but the land beneath it continues generating income for the family. It is a much less glamorous strategy than building gleaming skyscrapers in the family’s name, but it helped the Goldmans amass an enormous fortune while carrying relatively little debt.
At the center of it all was Sol Goldman, the son of a Brooklyn grocer who began buying foreclosed properties as a teenager. According to one family story, when he did not have enough money to buy a $500 plot of land, he borrowed $50 from the pharmacist, more money from a liquor store owner and kept going until he had raised the full amount. At his peak, he was estimated to own about 1,900 properties and was New York’s largest private landlord.
He was not an easy man to do business with, either. When a developer who needed a small Goldman-owned property to complete a major deal asked how much it would cost to buy it, Sol quoted $20 million, far above its value.
Why so much?
According to family lore, he replied: “Because I own it.”
When his lawyer once asked who would run the business after him — because, after all, women did not run real estate businesses — Sol answered: “I have a son. Her name is Jane.”
Jane was then the youngest daughter in the family. She worked with her father from an early age, spending time with him at the office and at dinners. She says she learned everything she knows about real estate from him.
Sol and Lillian Goldman
(Photo: Johns Hopkins University)
Years later, when she was asked during legal testimony what formal training she had received in the field, her answer was brief: “Sol Goldman.”
When Sol died in 1987 at age 70, he left behind an estate worth about $1 billion and four children, each of whom received an equal share of the business. Jane took a central role in running it alongside her brother Alan.
Since then, she has built a reputation for being unwilling to compromise easily. Developers who have done business with her describe negotiations in which she is willing simply to walk away from the table. As far as she is concerned, the deal can fall apart. She does not need it. Real estate developers told The Wall Street Journal that in almost every deal they made with her, they ended up paying more than they had planned.
Jane lives in an impressive Upper East Side townhouse purchased for about $25.5 million. She also owns a home in the Hamptons and another in Palm Beach, not far from Mar-a-Lago.
In 2015, she paid $31 million for the historic Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach, known as the “Winter White House,” where JFK often stayed and worked on his inaugural address. After renovating it, she sold it in 2020 for $70 million.
That list of properties was joined by a major inheritance, further increasing the number of things the family could fight over.
The nephew who flew economy
Even before Sol’s death, his wife, Lillian, sought a divorce. She alleged that he had abused her for years and had once hung her outside a window of their 31st-floor suite at New York’s Waldorf Astoria. Sol denied the allegations.
Steven Gurney-Goldman
(Photo: from Stephen Gurney-Goldman's LinkedIn)
After his death, Lillian waged a legal battle with her children over her share of the estate. When asked how she felt about her children, she replied: “I love them very much, but I don’t like them.”
Three decades later, the battle reached the next generation.
Steven, Alan’s only son, joined the family business in 2013, immediately after graduating from Vanderbilt University with a degree in political science.
Jane says he did little of significance there. His representatives say he introduced an online rent payment system, helped negotiate contracts, explored development opportunities and handled thousands of housing violations.
He is described as the polar opposite of his aunt.
Jane flies on private jets. He flies economy.
She believed in the family’s old strategy of holding properties and collecting rent. He wanted to buy, develop and expand.
For years, he played poker competitively. In recent years, he has focused mainly on Catan, a game based on accumulating resources, making deals and forming alliances. He even won a Masters tournament.
The breaking point came in January 2022.
'Succession.' The intrigue of the fictional series spilled over into the family lawsuit
(Photo: Jamie McCarthy/GettyImages)
His father, Alan, who suffered from Parkinson’s disease and by then had difficulty standing, walking and eating on his own, traveled to Russia to explore stem cell treatment. He died at age 78 in an intensive care unit at a hospital in St. Petersburg.
The family also disagrees over what happened there.
Steven said that while in Russia he became suspicious that something was wrong and demanded updates about his father. Jane believed Alan’s children had opportunities to intervene earlier.
For a brief period, the family united around a single task: bringing his body back to New York.
Jane used connections with a travel agency catering to ultrawealthy clients and with people close to Moscow’s chief rabbi. About two weeks later, Alan’s funeral was held at Temple Emanu-El in Manhattan.
After the funeral, Steven went to his aunt’s office. As executor of his father’s estate, he requested documents and money and also raised the possibility of taking a management role in the business.
Jane thought he was young and inexperienced.
At the same time, another dispute was already underway between Jane and her sister Amy. Amy sought to cash out part of her stake in the company. According to her valuation, she was owed more than $125 million. Under the valuation supported by Jane, she was entitled to only about $91 million.
The dispute ended up in court.
Steven and Amy argued that the valuation improperly reduced the value of the family’s assets by more than $500 million. In their lawsuit, they compared what was happening to “Succession,” arguing that Jane was trying to cement her control over the empire.
Her lawyer responded that the comparison was accurate in only one respect: He said both versions were fictional.
Jane denies improperly interfering with the valuation.
Then came the allegation of extortion.
Amy Goldman
(Photo: New York Restoration Project)
According to Jane’s testimony, Steven said that if he did not receive a quarter of the business, he would give Amy information that would “make her look bad.”
She said she thought he was bluffing and even linked the threat to his past as a poker player.
Steven called the allegation “ridiculous,” saying he was merely talking about information he had received from employees concerning the valuation.
The conversations in family group chats also deteriorated.
In Amy’s diary, which was disclosed as part of the proceedings, she wrote that Jane’s daughter had told her that her mother said she wanted to hire a hitman to kill Steven.
A spokesman for Jane said she has no memory of saying this and that, if she did, it was clearly a joke.
Steven alleged that during a break in the proceedings, Jane yelled at him and said things he interpreted as a threat to his life.
Her lawyers countered that she had merely said that if he was lying and believed in God, karma would come back to him.
At one point, Jane arrived at testimony carrying her brother Alan’s autopsy report and photographs of his body.
“I want to make sure the photographs are entered,” she said, making clear that she believed his children were responsible for his condition.
Meanwhile, the battle is already changing who will manage the family’s money in the next generation.
In July, Jane stepped down from a management position at one of the family’s key holding companies. Her son Michael, 34, took her place. He previously worked at investment giant Blackstone before joining the family business.
Steven, who has spent years fighting for his place in the empire his grandfather built and his father helped manage, was not even notified by his aunt about the appointment.