At a time when wealthy families dominated commercial real estate, two Wall Streeters had a novel idea: What if everyday investors could own a piece of the market? Robert Steers and Martin Cohen decided in 1986 to disrupt the Dynasty era and do just that by creating the first investment company to specialize in listed real estate. The duo that had met a decade earlier weren’t “real estate guys.” They recruited their wives to work—without compensation—in a 1,200-square-foot New York office, where they all toiled away from the cheapest black Formica furniture that still looked legit, Steers recalls.