Speyer was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the son of Germaine M. and Ernest A. Speyer. According to a 1998 profile in The New York Times, " mother is Swiss, and his father comes from one of the old Jewish families of Frankfurt" ; his father, a shoe manufacturer, fled Germany in 1939, established a business in Milwaukee, before moving to New York when Jerry was three months old. Speyer grew up in a cultured German-Jewish household on Riverside Drive. He graduated from the private Horace Mann School. At Columbia University, he majored in German literature and joined Zeta Beta Tau, a Jewish fraternity. "Speyer was one of those people who were solid, and even solemn, at an age when others are still flailing and unsure of themselves." Speyer graduated from Columbia College in 1962 and received an MBA from Columbia Business School in 1964.
In 1964, Speyer married Lynn Tishman, whose great-grandfather Julius Tishman founded Tishman Realty and Construction, of which Tishman Speyer is a spinoff. In 1987, they divorced. They had three children:
Valerie Hope Speyer Peltier works at Tishman Speyer as part of the Acquisitions and Development group. In 1993, she married Jeffrey Richard Peltier of Tipp City, Ohio. The wedding was officiated by Rabbi Peter Rubinstein at the RainbowRoom in New York.
Rob Speyer previously worked as a reporter at The New York Daily News but is now is a chief executive and the president of Tishman Speyer. In 2008, he married Anne-Cecilie Engell in a nondenominational ceremony in Copenhagen.
Holly Ann Speyer Lipton works as a television producer. In 1999, she married Jonathan Lipton. The wedding was officiated by Rabbi Peter Rubinstein at the Pierre in New York.
In 1991, Speyer married Katherine G. Farley, whom he had hired in 1984 to oversee international development. They have a daughter, Laura Speyer. Farley graduated from Brown University in 1971, and with a Masters of Architecture from the Harvard Graduate School of Design in 1976. She served as manager of new business development for East Asia and the Pacific for Turner International Industries before joining Tishman Speyer in 1984. She is a senior managing director at the Tishman Speyer, responsible for the company's real estate activities in Latin America and for the company's expansion into other emerging markets, chairs the company's Compensation Committee, and is a member of the Management, Investment, and Executive Committees. She is chair of Lincoln Center's redevelopment and is on the executive committee of the International Rescue Committee, a refugee relief and resettlement organization, and is chair emeritus of Women in Need, which helps homeless women and children in New York City. She is a vice president of the Brearley School, and a member of the Board and Executive Committee of the Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation. Farley has served on the boards of Lincoln Center Theater and the New York Philharmonic.
