The story of Toby and the Wendels is an equally fascinating one. He was the fourth (or fifth, accounts vary) of his name, and the beloved pet of one of the wealthiest women in New York City.

Ella, along with her six siblings, had inherited a property portfolio that would be worth billions of dollars today.

Their father was a daring speculator, whose grand 5th Avenue home was a hub for Gilded-Age high society, but his children seemed unwilling to take any risks, financial or personal.

They never sold property or borrowed money to make investments; they stuck mostly to the same tenants in the same increasingly dilapidated and old buildings.

Distrustful of fortune seeking strangers, they never married and had few friends. By the start of the 1930s, Ella was the sole survivor of the Wendel clan, living in the family home with Toby and a handful of servants.