Leona's Restaurants history

Born in 1835 in Speyer, Rhenish Bavaria, Villard was educated from a young age and quickly went on to study at universities in Munich and Würzburg before emigrating to America.

In 1886, the Villard Houses were sold to Whitelaw Reid, who was the owner of the New York Herald and Tribune, who began to transform the rooms to what Villard had only dreamed of.

Helmsley was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1909 to a family of modest means.

White transformed the Gold Room into a glorious study “with a ceiling bookishly adorned with the colophons of publishers,” and the room held one of the most outstanding events on property: The Grand Ball for Edward, Prince of Wales, in November of 1919.

(1920-)The Helmsley Palace Hotel

Following graduation from high school in 1925, he obtained a job with the small Manhattan real estate brokerage of Dwight, Voorhis and Perry, serving first as a mail room clerk for $12 a week.

Around the time of the 1929 stock market crash, Helmsley began free-lancing; that is, although he had no money of his own and his firm had none to spare, he began snatching up prime foreclosed properties by convincing banks the investments were sound and that he would manage the properties for them.

1938: Harry Helmsley assumes ownership of first property.

After working as a model for a number of years—Helmsley would be one of several Chesterfield cigarette girls to grace that company's print ads—she married attorney Leo Panzirer in 1939, and had a son, Jay.

The Gold Room also became a “consultary for the Cardinal” when the property was bought back by the Archdiocese in 1948.

1949: Helmsley enters partnership with Lawrence Wien.

1955: Helmsley purchases Spear and Company, which becomes Helmsley-Spear.

Helmsley himself won early recognition in 1958 when he was named Realty Man of the Year by his peers.

In 1960 Leona decided to retire, and she sold her pizzeria to Ben and his brother Jack.

One of the most complex--and certainly the most famous--of the Wien-Helmsley deals was the sale-and-leaseback of the Empire State Building involving Prudential, which eventually was completed in 1961.

In 1962 she got a job as a receptionist at the New York real estate firm of Pease & Elliman, working under the name Leona Roberts.

1967: Founded real estate firm Sutton & Towne Residential.

From there, Leona founded her own firm, Sutton & Towne Residential, where she again proved her abilities, earning as much as $400,000 in sales commissions during a single quarter of 1968.

After fashioning Helmsley-Spear into the largest real estate management company in the United States by 1970, Helmsley turned his attention to the luxury hotel business, to which he had first been exposed years back when he purchased the St Moritz with Wien.