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How NOT to handle wills and inheritances?

I just read this fascinating piece on how one man structured his will nearly 100 years ago.

The article tells how early-20th-century multimillionaire timber baron Wellington Burt (pictured below) decided to go about leaving his fortune:

1) Ultimately, his money would be fully distributed to his family — but only 21 years after the death of his last surviving grandchild.

2) In the meantime his "favorite son" would get $30,000 a year but the rest of his children (and grandchildren) would get allowances roughly equal to those he gave his cook and chauffeur.

He did this under the guise of not "risk[ing] messing up his kids lives with a huge inheritance," according to a related article in The Wall Street Journal. But surely there was a better way — one that would strike a balance between the extremes of leaving a huge inheritance all at once and effectively skipping over two generations of his family.

Burt could have given all the children (except those who were clearly irresponsible) a reasonable amount yearly, perhaps requiring that they worked productively in the family business (or otherwise contributed productively to society). Or, in an effort to encourage generosity, he could have given them "x" dollars a year of which half had to be given to a charity. The options were limitless.

The WSJ article goes on to say, "Of course, skipping a generation is not unusual among rich parents who want to send a message to their kids (but somehow not their grandkids)." I think that's an interesting point, about the grandkids somehow escaping "the message."

Don't get me wrong, I don't have an issue with spreading out an inheritance to grand, great-grand, great-great grandchildren, and so on. And, obviously, I don't know all the details of Mr. Burt's situation. But it seems to me the whole process could have been set up in such a way as to stimulate generosity, hard work, and accountability.

I think that's the goal of these verses in the Book of Proverbs:

13:22 - A good man leaves an inheritance for his children’s children, but a sinner’s wealth is stored up for the righteous.

17:2 - A wise servant will rule over a disgraceful son, and will share the inheritance as one of the brothers.

20:21 - An inheritance quickly gained at the beginning will not be blessed at the end.

Had it been available, Wellington Burt would have surely benefited from Ron Blue's book Splitting Heirs: Giving Your Money and Things to Your Children Without Ruining Their Lives (maybe you would too?).

So let's suppose you have a multimillion dollar fortune to leave behind (or perhaps something much more modest): How would/will you structure it? If you have any "disgraceful" children (which I'm sure you don't, but apparently Mr. Burt did), would you omit them from your will? Do you like Mr. Burt's estate plan? What would you change about it?

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