TV & Movies
How Rich Are Logan Huntzberger & His Family On Gilmore Girls?
Logan’s family was inspired by a real-life media empire — just like the Roys on Succession.
It’s no secret that Rory Gilmore has some very well-to-do grandparents, but when she meets the charming Logan Huntzberger in Gilmore Girls Season 5, she’s introduced to an entirely different level of wealth.
Upon her first visit to Logan’s family home, she’s wooed by a Velazquez painting hanging on the wall (likely a multimillion-dollar piece of decor) and declares that her beau’s echo-y abode is “so cool.”
The Huntzbergers’ treatment of Rory is also cool — the bad kind. Logan’s grandfather brushes Rory off as an “unsuitable” partner, while his mom, Shira, says she “wasn’t bred for” Logan’s lifestyle and future responsibilities.
Later in Season 5, Shira puts it plainly to Rory’s grandmother: “Frankly, Emily, there’s your money, then there’s our money.”
So, just how rich are Logan Huntzberger and his family? It would take quite a large fortune to make the Gilmores seem middle-class in comparison.
The Huntzbergers’ IRL Inspiration
Upon learning Logan is a Huntzberger, Rory instantly knows his dad, referring to Mitchum Huntzberger as “the newspaper guy.” Clearly, the Huntzbergers are a big deal!
That’s by design: In 2014, Gilmore Girls creator Amy Sherman-Palladino told Vulture the Huntzbergers were based on the Sulzbergers, the family that has published The New York Times for over a century. (The family also served as partial inspiration for Succession’s Logan Roy and his kin.)
“It wasn’t even veiled — the word ‘berger’ is in there,” Sherman-Palladino said. “We weren’t trying to be clever. We just figured that was the kind of family [Logan] would be part of.”
Toward the end of Gilmore Girls, Logan starts working for the family business he’ll one day inherit, and that’s reflective of real life, too. A.G. Sulzberger took over for his father in 2017, in what The New York Times described as a “generational changing of the guard.”
Media Money
Now that we have a frame of reference for the Huntzbergers’ fortune, let’s get back to the money. It’s hard to determine specifics, but there are a few mind-boggling figures available.
In 2008, New York Magazine said the Sulzberger family’s personal holdings in Times stock amounted to about $200 million. HuffPost reports that the Sulzbergers’ stake in The New York Times was approximately $1.2 billion in the mid-’00s, and $95 million by 2009.
Upon his death in 2012, Arthur Ochs Sulzberger (whose Gilmore Girls analog would be Logan’s grandfather) reportedly had a $70.2 million estate, per the New York Daily News.
So if they’re anything like the Sulzbergers, the Huntzbergers’ wealth changed over time — but it was always, well, a lot.
Logan’s Lavish Lifestyle
Of course, you don’t need a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of the Sulzbergers’ fortune to know that the Huntzbergers lived lavishly.
Their main family home is a mansion that fans theorize might be in Greenwich, Connecticut — where homes like theirs go for more than $20 million. They also have a beachfront house on Martha’s Vineyard (perhaps another $10 million?), and Logan has residences in New Haven, New York, and London. And that’s just what we see!
Logan also treats his inner circle to everything from a six-month yacht trip (that ended with him sinking his dad’s boat) to an ostrich Birkin bag for Rory, which would cost more than $20,000 today... used.
If the theories are right and Logan is Rory’s baby daddy (he has to be), then the new Gilmore-Huntzberger will be born into a very wealthy family — all the more fodder for a potential Year in the Life Season 2.
