Will Ziegler

Will Ziegler was born William Conrad Brandt. When he was 3-years-old, his mother left the family, running off with a local pastor. At the age of five, he was adopted by his father’s half-brother and renamed William Ziegler, Jr. As a Rhodes Scholar, he attended Wadham College in Oxford. During this time that he distinguished himself as an athlete in the hammer throw and shot put, representing the University of Oxford at various athletic meets including the Oxbridge Meet. Just like Ray Lange, another Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, Ziegler was registered for the 1912 Stockholm Olympics but did not compete.

Ziegler later graduated from Columbia University and then Harvard University. Following his father’s death, he inherited half of a $30 million fortune. He served as president of the Royal Baking Powder Company until 1929 and held the position of chairman of the board for a variety of other companies, mostly in the food and real estate sectors. After his mother’s passing, he continued to publish her Matilda Ziegler Magazine for the Blind and other charity activities.

Having lived on an estate in Noroton, Connecticut, at the Long Island Sound, he then purchased the Burrland Farm in Middleburg, Virginia. There, he commissioned the extension to a manor house in 1927 designed by William Lawrence Bottomley. Around the same time, Bottomley also designed a residence for the Ziegler family in Manhattan. Both Neo-Georgian buildings are now protected as historic landmarks. As a successful owner and breeder of thoroughbreds, Will Ziegler owned American Championship horses that achieved success in 1937 and 1938. He also owned “Bounding Home”, the winner of the 1944 Belmont Stakes.

Ziegler was an avid polo player and yachtsman. In 1912, he married his first wife, Gladys Virginia Watson, with whom he had two daughters. Following their divorce, he married Helen Martin Murphy in 1927. The couple had another daughter and a son. His daughter Helen later married gold-medal winning equestrian Bill Steinkraus. After Ziegler’s death, the deafblind author and disability rights advocate Helen Keller called his death an “irreparable loss” for the American Foundation for the Blind.