DAVID WALENTAS

$2.5

BILLION  SELF-MADE SCORE: ) SOURCE: REAL ESTATE AGE: 81 RESIDENCE: NEW YORK CITY PHILANTHROPY SCORE: After a stroke left his father paralized, 6-year-old Walentas spent time on neighboring farms near Rochester, New York, as he puts it, “milking cows and shoveling s--t for my room and board.” Years later, in 1979, the hardscrabble developer borrowed $12 million to buy two million square feet in New York’s heavily industrial Dumbo neighborhood, now a hot location in Brooklyn. He credits his son Jed, the CEO of Walentas’ Two Trees real estate firm, with spearheading the company’s Domino Sugar Factory development, where Walentas says his new skyscraper at One South First has started leasing out apartments.