Showing posts with label Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s. Show all posts

Monday, May 15, 2023

Short lived Winterhurst leaves Fort Lauderdale ice hockey legacy

 












Photo by Duckhunter6424, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons


By Jane Feehan

Winterhurst, Fort Lauderdale’s first ice rink had a short run in the mid-1960s. Its most enduring legacy, perhaps, was interest in the feasibility of Florida ice hockey.

Ohioans Doris and John Nolan announced in September 1962 that ground was to be broken for an ice skating facility at 2829 North Federal Highway (today site of a Tesla showroom and service center). They brought 12 years of experience operating ice rinks in their home state and had raised $575,000 for their Fort Lauderdale project.

The 16,000-sf space would house an 85 ft by 185 ft ice rink with seating for about 800. A snack bar, lockers, rental skates, blade sharpening and sports shop to sell skates would also be available. A lot went into construction of that ice rink: 10 miles of pipe encased in concrete and 120 tons of refrigeration. Sepper Construction built the facility with a standard size ice hockey rink, and refrigeration experts Ahrendt Engineering oversaw rink construction.

It seemed like a good idea. The Viking, an ice-skating arena/restaurant and cocktail lounge had opened with some fanfare that summer in Dania Beach with Don Granger as president. The Nolan’s project had the support of Fort Lauderdale Mayor Cy Young who was enthusiastic about adding to Fort Lauderdale’s tourist attractions.

Winterhurst opened February 8, 1963. An opening attraction, the Zamboni, “a mechanical marvel,” cleared and polished skating surfaces (versions still operate today). Weekly advertisements for the rink announced a seven-day morning and night schedule for individual skating and figure skating clubs.  

By October that year, sponsors such as Cars-A-Popin and Anaconda Realty rallied to organize the South Florida Hockey Association; it was headed by Steve Craig. The association introduced their teams (based on age divisions), players and the sport to Fort Lauderdale on October 28, 1963—the first competitive ice hockey game in Fort Lauderdale. (Ice hockey was already a thing in Miami by the early 1960s.) 

Winterhurst hockey tickets, according to advertisements, were a $1.10, including tax. The association organizers hoped to see a “full-fledged professional hockey league” in South Florida. They also envisioned Fort Lauderdale as “one of the world’s sports centers.”  

Whether spurred by the high cost of operating or low attendance, the Nolans began transitioning Winterhurst to a teen dance center in 1965. They wanted to take a couple of months off to melt the ice and open the doors to teens for part of the year.  Fort Lauderdale teacher David McKinley partnered with the Ohio couple to oversee a place for local kids to go. Winterhurst could host as many as 3,000 dancing teens and already had a powerful sound system.

By June 1965, the place was opened to large teen dances, a hootenanny with square dancing and pool tables (a note from parents was required to play) and pinball machines. The arena was also the site for band auditions and charity flea market sales. The first dance drew 500 teens; about 1,350 attended the second dance. Competition may have come from the Armory where teen dances had been held for three years by 1965. There were also teen dances at the War Memorial Auditorium during those years.

Winterhurst patrons were locked out in October 1965 by the building’s landlord. (Some history is missing here because first news accounts indicated the Nolans owned the building.) The couple said they had not paid rent for two months while ice melted at the rink.  Another hangout for teens, Code 1, followed the Winterhurst occupancy. The Nolans moved on to manage the Orleans Inn in Pompano.

And ice hockey? Is this a back-to-the future tale about the Florida Panthers? Not exactly. But it does point to the keen interest locals and new residents have held in the sport since the 1960s. 

The missing ingredient was money. That arrived with billionaire Wayne Huizenga. He founded the Florida Panthers in 1993 after the National Hockey League granted him an expansion franchise. 

The Florida Panthers played in Miami until 1998 until they moved to Broward County to play at the FLA live Arena in Sunrise.The Florida Panthers, still on the move, will open a training facility at the War Memorial in late 2023. Skating will be open to the public as well as restaurants and other amenities.  

A full circle tale …

 

Sources:

Photo of skates: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tubeskate.jpg (D

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 29, 1962

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 25, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 26, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 17, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News Nov. 3, 1963

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 23, 1964

Fort Lauderdale News, April 3, 1964

Fort Lauderdale News, June 2, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, June 11, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 15, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, July 22, 1966

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 18, 1967

https://www.flapanthersvault.com/panthers-history-highlights/

https://www.ftlwarmemorial.com/home-2023



Tags: first competitive ice hockey game in Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale ice skating, Florida Panthers


Friday, April 21, 2023

Surfside 6: TV show, houseboat, an inventor and a Fort Lauderdale link

Surfside 6 at Dania Beach
State Archives of Florida


 


 



The 1960 TV show Surfside 6 started off with a bang. It seemed like a solid concept: three private eyes, two female characters and a glamorous setting aboard a houseboat in Miami Beach. It was docked at Indian Creek across from the high-profile and beautiful Fontainebleau Hotel.

In the hour-long weekly series, the trio used a plane and a jet-powered boat in their escapades. Detectives were played by Troy Donohue, a feature film heart throb at the time (Sandy Winfield II), Lee Patterson (Dave Thome) and Van Williams (Ken Madison). The cast also included Diane McBain (Daphne Dutton) and Margarita Sierra (Cha Cha O’Brien) as their crime-solving sidekicks.

Despite the glamour and prior assessment as an overnight success, the Warner Brothers production, sponsored by General Motors, ended April 1962. Critics cited poor writing among the reasons the showed bombed. The show, however, did spawn another success story, that of the builder of the Surfside 6 houseboat.

That story, the tale of Larry Vitais far more interesting than the TV show. Vita was a Long Island builder who decided to take a vacation aboard the $80,000 houseboat he built in the late 1950s. Powered by three Mercedes engines, the houseboat he named Driftwood carried Vita down the Intracoastal to the dock across from the Fontainebleau late in 1959 or early in 1960. 

The 60 x 28 ft. boat was eye catching. It was also comfortable. It sported a 1,000-sq-ft sundeck, held three bedrooms, two baths, a full kitchen, rugs and a special sewage disposal. It also featured air-conditioning, heating, a brick fireplace, rotating TV antenna, telephone, and hi-fi throughout each room.  

Warner Brothers exec William T. Orr, vacationing at the hotel, spotted Vita’s impressive boat and asked about using it for the new show. A deal was made and a replica was constructed for in-studio shots. The show aired in October 1960.

Viewer queries about the houseboat were hard to ignore. Vita, 42, decided there could be a market for houseboats. He was right.

He partnered with Fort Lauderdale resident Ralph Weidler, 49 (and Levittown, Long Island builder), to launch Surfside 6 Floating Homes, Inc. with $500,000. They built a factory at 2000 SW 20th Street in Fort Lauderdale. Weeks after the show aired, they had 30 orders. 

Advertisements enticed customers with a “new way of life” on a floating home that came with or without an engine, low-maintenance fiberglass hulls, and complete furnishings. Most were not sold with engines because a tugboat could haul one “for about $10 an hour” to the many dock sites available. 

Financing was offered by Broward National Bank with 25 percent down and payments over five years. Houseboats sold from $9,500 up to $50k plus. Surfside 6 Floating Homes, Inc. was the biggest, most famous houseboat company in the world, Vita claimed. Boxing champ Floyd Patterson bought one.

The TV show Surfside 6 ended but Floating Homes, Inc. had a much longer life. The company sold 400-500 for the next few years in the U.S. and the Caribbean. The original Surfside 6 remained at the Miami Beach location and Vita continued to live on his famous floating home. It appeared in the movie Goldfinger before Hurricane Cleo paid it a visit in 1964, causing extensive damage.   

The damaged Surfside 6 was hauled to Marina Bay in southwest Fort Lauderdale. It was bought and sold several times, serving as a restaurant in Dania Beach and perhaps, for a time, in Key West. In 1997, Vita said he thought it was in Jacksonville, FL; he had lost track decades ago.

The Larry Vita story continued after he left Floating Homes, Inc. in 1973 when concerns about waterway environment, obstruction of views and lack of dockage space affected sales.

Vita had other plans. He built 20 floating stations for the U.S. Coast Guard and 200 floating rooms for Marina Bay Resort. He was the first to use shipping containers for jail construction (about 1989).  

Vita also provided contract construction for the U.S government in Kuwait and other geo-political hot zones in the early 90s. It was this that reportedly negatively affected his finances and may have ended his run. 

In 2004 he was 88, living alone with his dog on the New River in a boat. He was still at it, thinking about ways to innovate. Vita was prescient. He submitted a design for an energy-producing wind turbine to Florida Power and Light in the '90s or early 2000s. Amazing. Larry Vita died in 2008, survived by two children Larry and Lorrie and other family. Quite a life.


Sources: 

Miami Herald, July 3, 1960

Miami News, Aug. 10, 1960

Miami News, Sept. 11, 1960

Miami News, Oct. 27, 1960

Miami Herald, Dec. 18, 1960

Miami News, Sept. 1, 1964

Miami News, March 2, 1966

South Florida Sun-Sentinel Aug. 24, 1989

Chicago Tribune, Sept. 21, 1997

Miami Herald, Aug. 1, 2004

 

Tags: Miami Beach history, Surfside 6, Houseboats, Larry Vita, Floating Homes, Inc., 1960s TV shows, Fort Lauderdale history





Sunday, March 26, 2023

Paddle Wheel Queen: a 30-year voyage with an unhappy ending

Paddle Wheel Queen
State Archives of Florida/ Florida Memory






By Jane Feehan

The Paddle Wheel Queen entertained five million visitors in its 30-year history in Fort Lauderdale. The vessel many are familiar with is the Paddle Wheel Queen II. The original boat operated from West Palm Beach beginning in 1942 and was captained by Lucille Colyer.

 Bruce Colyer, Lucille’s son, had the second Paddle Wheel Queen, also a Mississippi river replica, built in Dubuque, Iowa. He launched the 128-foot, three-deck Paddle Wheel Queen II in Fort Lauderdale in March 1965. It proved to be a popular 400-passenger entertainment venue that locals and area visitors equally enjoyed.

The boat sailed out of its dock south of the Oakland Park Boulevard bridge for two- or four-hour cruises and special events. A tour took passengers along the “modestly rich homes” along the Intracoastal in central Fort Lauderdale, Hugh Taylor Birch State Park, Bahia Mar, Port Everglades and to the once undeveloped area south of the port. With the  only charcoal galley of its kind, the Paddle Wheel Queen served  steak dinners that garnered favorable newspaper restaurant reviews (and an A+ from me). Meal prices started early in its history at about $9 and topped out by the time paddles stopped turning at around $12. Early fares for the trips were less than $10.

Colyer retired about 1989 and stopped operating the same year.  Lonnie Reeder and David Boyd bought the Paddle Wheel Queen II in 1992, remodeled and relaunched the business with blackjack bingo. The future looked promising. In December the same year, the boat was tapped the “Official Winterfest Boat” for the annual—and high-profile—Winterfest Boat Parade. Disney World dispatched Mickey and Minnie Mouse to take seats of honor on the riverboat.

Instead of a bright future, financial turmoil ensued. The business pulled up its gangplank May 31,1994 and sailed off to the Bayside Market Place in Miami for a brief “port” stop. It returned to Fort Lauderdale shortly after. The owners went $1.4 million into arrears and the Paddle Wheel Queen II was seized in March 1995 leaving ticket holders angered. The story ended in irony. Jerry Faber, president of Jungle Queen, a competing Fort Lauderdale tour boat that still operates today, assuaged ticket holders with a free ride (until a possible settlement) on his riverboat.

 

Sources

Fort Lauderdale News, July 2, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 11, 1972

Fort Lauderdale News, May 21, 1974

Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 24, 1978

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, July 8, 1991

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 30, 1992

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Dec. 16, 1992

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, April 1, 1994

South Florida Sun-Sentinel, March 28, 1995


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history,Fort Lauderdale tourist attractions, Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1990s


Monday, February 20, 2023

Fort Lauderdale and national news stories of 1966 not so different from today's

 

Sunrise Professional Building 1966
State of Florida Archives/Erickson, Roy

Local and national front-page and section news in 1966 was dominated by the Vietnam conflict. Other news of that year often defined what many of us remember of the decade. Stories from the Fort Lauderdale News include a few national topics that draw parallels to those of 2020-2023. If the headline didn’t offer sufficient details, context or additional information was inserted.

* Social Security taxes rise, but cuts in other areas save about a third

* Fashion watchers predict 1966 will be the year of the “Press Up Bosom” in women’s clothing, i.e., spillage (a few Fort Lauderdale Mai Kai staffers will remember using socks to acquire that look).

* Florida Attorney General Earl Faircloth, a Fort Lauderdale resident, to seek re-election

* High grocery costs blamed on the war (Vietnam). Labor shortages and labor costs also a problem. Beef and bacon prices particularly high.

* Denver-based food chain agrees to lower prices after members of Housewives for Lower Prices (HLFP) threaten boycott. Other stores ramp up grocery specials and discounts to avoid boycotts. (Where are they now?)

* Department of Defense defends not calling the Vietnam conflict a war. To declare it a war would add a new psychological element to the international situation since war in this century’s declarations of war have come to imply dedication to the total destruction of the many.

* 18,000 additional troops to be sent to Vietnam in July, bringing total to about 285,000 men.

* Severe cold temperatures to hit Fort Lauderdale; expect a dip into the 30s as “one of the worst winter onslaughts of the century” hits parts of the nation.

* Winn Dixie Kwik Chek reminds people in an advertisement about their “Man in the Red Coat” who is happy to advise on cooking problems (he’s in the meat section).

* Merger of Mackey Airlines and Eastern Airlines approved (Mackey was based at Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport at the  time).

* Sing Out 66 comes to War Memorial with a cast of 130. Sponsored by Moral Rearmament (a spiritual group).

* Boy Scout Jamboree brings 1,500 scouts to Holiday Park for two-night sleep over.

* Fort Lauderdale building permits down from previous year

Developer James S. Hunt, 67, taps Joe Taravella, 44, as new president of his company, Coral Ridge Properties, so Hunt can focus on additional land acquisitions. (Hunt died when he was 74)

* Pool closed at Swimming Hall of Fame “pier” because of permitting issues related to safety

* Traffic backed up from 17th Street bridge to beach due to electrical problem (bridge switches out)

* Heavy rainstorm (April) causes deluge of traffic accidents; worse around Fiesta Way and E. Las Olas Boulevard where there was a drag race.

* Artificial heart may be ready for use in one month, says surgeon Dr. Michael E. DeBakey from Tulane University in New Orleans.

* Tour plan combining air and see routes to link Port Everglades, New York and Europe.

* Private schools praised; will stay viable if able to rekindle public’s interest

* Broward teacher shortage looms

* Five Florida State Attorney candidates don’t know what the job pays

* Nation’s city riots blamed on wretched life

* Upsurge in U.S. crime puzzles Europeans

* $2 bill to face end alone

* Space chief sees 1968 as year of a moon landing

* National debt reaches nearly $330 billion

* Mickey Rooney takes sixth wife (they lived in Fort Lauderdale for awhile)

* One of largest bookmaking operations ($6000 a day) in Broward shut down in Fort Lauderdale at SW 52 Street.

* Early (Oct 15th) winter storm brings high winds and flooding to U.S. West and Midwest. Temps in Denver 2 degrees below record.

* Loopholes and the land boom: Florida in its second land boom of the century; evolved since the 1950s (first boom 1910-1926)

* Claude Kirk to campaign in Fort Lauderdale (October)

* Three newspapers endorse Robert High for governor, all critical of Kirk (who later served as governor for one term)

* Beautification group forms to improve run down look of Wilton Manors

* 1966 – 5 – 0 year of the Gator (U of F)  

* Porky’s Hideaway sues (Wilma Baines, wife of Porky, filed the suit)  to restore closing hours to 4 am. Porky’s paid Oakland Park $1000 since its 1957 opening to be able to serve until 4 am.

* Judge Richard M. Sauls replies to Porky’s: “Selling booze is not a right.”

* Old Fort Lauderdale High School property back on the market for $1.95 million

* Plan to build bridge over Middle River in Fort Lauderdale at 19th and 21st streets nixed


Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, 1966:

Jan. 2, 1966

Jan.30, 1966

Feb. 6, 1966

March 3, 1966

April 10, 1966

April 17, 1966

May 1, 1966

June 12, 1966

July 10, 1966

Aug. 17, 1966

Sept. 11, 1966

Oct. 16, 1966

Nov. 16, 1966

Dec. 15, 1966

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s, Fort Lauderdale history

Friday, September 30, 2022

Fort Lauderdale's Ocean World: Popular aquarium until ...

 

Dolphin feeding circa 1965
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory



By Jane Feehan

Ocean World opened in July 1965 with significant publicity.

The only aquarium in Fort Lauderdale, the attraction was marketed to tourists, residents and conventioneers. It occupied six acres on the north side of the 17th Street Causeway (once next to Tony’s Fish Market).

The center piece of the entertainment venue was a three-story, 90-ft circular tank, “Davy Jones Locker.” Its 17 feet of water was home to porpoises, sea lions and sea turtles. Wall aquariums held an assortment of fish; sharks swam in a moat surrounding the tank. Daily shows featured porpoises and sea lions performing tricks for a gallery that could seat up to 800, many of whom were encouraged to feed dolphins and other fish at designated times and places around the tank.

The man behind the operation was Charles “Charlie” Beckwith, a New York transplant who moved to Fort Lauderdale in 1963. He claimed he was an “idea man” for one newspaper interview. Before moving to Florida, he owned several flower shops under the name Idlewild Airport Florist at Idlewild Airport—later named John F. Kennedy International Airport. He was successful in acquiring a tax-free status for those shops, a relatively new concept at the time for U.S. airports.

Beckwith was also successful with Ocean World Inc. where he served as president and chair of the board. His brainchild, the marine park, often captured headlines for answering calls to rescue injured sea turtles, dolphins and sharks on local beaches. Some divers brought injured sea animals found in local waters to the aquarium. Most animals that survived injuries remained at the aquarium; a few performed. Its pantheon of live sea characters included Pegleg Pete, an old sea turtle missing a fin, Ginny, a porpoise, and Dimples the Dolphin (a porpoise). According to the park, Dimples was the only dolphin in the world who could perform a triple forward somersault in mid-air. Ocean World expanded its collection of wildlife to appeal to schools for their educational programs. They brought in parrots and an assortment of other birds. The park’s population grew to about 200 animals, including otters, an alligator and a monkey named Gilligan.

Dolphin at Ocean World Circa 1965
Florida State Archives/ Florida Memory,
Postcard collection

In 1984, Beckwith sold Ocean World. Education Management Corporation, who also owned the Fort Lauderdale Art Institute, acquired Ocean World. They operated the marine park until it closed August 31, 1994. EMC claimed declining attendance, revenue loss of $1.1 million in 1992 and insufficient space for expansion (but enough for developing several strip shopping centers) drove the decision. Not a destination attraction, Ocean World's demise did not affect the city of Fort Lauderdale.

Its run of 29 years was a good one but not without controversy.

Ocean World filed a suit in 1975 against nearby Everglades Marina, Inc. and its insurance company for a fire that produced smoke they claimed killed Dimples. In 1976, four parrots were stolen.

Animal activism gained advocates during the 1990s. In 1992, the USDA closed the park for nearly two weeks in June, accusing Ocean World of animal abuse. A dolphin had died after being dropped accidently by staff, breaking its tail. The park paid a $20,000 fine. During that decade, two attendees sued,  claiming a dolphin had bitten them during feeding. One claimant was awarded $20,000.

Alligator wrestling, circa 1965
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory
Postcard collection

Beckwith and wife Lois moved to the US Virgin Islands after selling Ocean World. They returned stateside to live in Palm Coast, Florida. He died in 2016. And the animals? At closing, EMC offered many to other marine parks; an accounting of their subsequent residences and fate are unknown to this writer.

During the past few years, there had been talk (silence now) about launching a marine park or exhibit near or in the Galleria. The push to develop every square inch of land in this city for expensive housing and Galleria re-development plans may have thrown water on that idea. Can’t say another park of confined animals will excite as many as Ocean World once did. We’re in a new paradigm of animal welfare for which I, for one, am grateful.

 

Sources:

Fort Lauderdale News, May 29, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, Sept. 12, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 15, 1966

Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 6, 1965

Fort Lauderdale News, March 19, 1972

Fort Lauderdale News, May 14, 1972

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 29, 1972

Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 10, 1994

Orlando Sentinel, July 5, 1994

https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/news-journalonline/name/charles-beckwith-obituary?id=15053748


Tags: Fort Lauderdale attraction, Fort Lauderdale marine park, Fort Lauderdale aquarium, performing dolphins, Ocean World, Charlie Beckwith, Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County History

Thursday, September 8, 2022

Bahia Mar: "more business, publicity to Fort Lauderdale than any other man-made attraction"

 

Bahia Mar circa 1960s,
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory








Bahia Mar
801 Seabreeze Boulevard
Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316


By Jane Feehan


The following about Bahia Mar does not serve as an historical account of the business transactions that have shaped it over the years, though some will be mentioned. In 1949, the Miami News claimed Bahia Mar was the only land in Broward County that had not been privately owned; that may explain its complicated history.

Some would say its history began in the 1870s.

The United States government built a string of five Houses of Refuge in 1876 in Florida from Cape Florida to the Indian River to provide shelter for the shipwrecked. One refuge, New River House No. 4 was moved in 1891 from its first site near Hugh Birch State Park (Bonnet House) to the beach across from today’s Bahia Mar where the third Fort Lauderdale was built.

The United States Coast Guard operated from the site, a gathering place for social activities into the early 1900s. It served as Coast Guard Station No. 6 during World War I. From the inland waterway—today’s Bahia Mar—the base played an active role in World War II defense activities in South Florida. 

After the war in 1946, the federal government declared the site as surplus, placing it in the public domain.
Bahia Mar 1951
Florida State Archives/
Florida Memory
The city of Fort Lauderdale purchased the property for $600,000 but did not have enough funds for its development.

Private investors, led by Ohioan and developer William E. Schantz* raised funds to build a yacht basin that opened in December 1949. It offered 450 boat slips, shopping, a restaurant with cocktail lounge (Patricia Murphy’s Candlelight Restaurant did not open there until 1959) and 650 parking spaces.

Newspapers lauded the $2.5 million project. Some claimed the marina, with “three miles of docks," brought more publicity, recognition and business "than any other man-made attraction” to Fort Lauderdale. It led to declaration by city boosters that Fort Lauderdale was the “yachting capital of the world.” One news account reported Bahia Mar was the first yacht basin in the nation to be listed on Coast Guard navigation charts.

Not long after opening, the developers declared bankruptcy and the site reverted to the city. The city leased it back to the private sector in 1962 (yes, it’s complicated). Since 1959, Bahia Mar has served as home to the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show featuring some of the most spectacular luxury yachts seen anywhere. About 100,000 pay to see the display in late October, early November each year. Today the yacht basin holds 250 boat slips (some land now operated by the adjacent International Swimming Hall of Fame houses 40 slips), the Double Tree Hotel, yacht brokers, shopping and restaurants and other amenities.

Bahia Mar now faces a major transition. Value of the 38.65-acre Bahia Mar property is estimated (in 2022) at $256 million as Fort Lauderdale oceanfront land has fallen piece by piece to developers. The city signed an initial 50-year lease in 2022 with Jimmy and Kenny Tate of Rahn Bahia Mar Hotel. It could be extended another 50 years (status of this arrangement unclear).Their $1 billion plan for Bahia Mar includes, at this point, replacing the current 296-room hotel with a new one and building condos and commercial space. Developers plan to share revenue with the city derived from operations (hotel, marina, condos).

Plans were approved by the city  commission in 2023 for a hotel and three condo towers as controversy swirls around the project's scope.

Resident support is mixed. Some fear the project’s impact on beach traffic and its impact on the boat show; others welcome the needed revamp. Stay tuned …

 

Bahia Mar 1968
Florida State Archives/ Florida Memory

Sources:

Weidling, Philip and Burghard, August. Checkered Sunshine. Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966. 

Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale: The Venice of America. Charleston: Acadia Publishing, 2004.

Fort Lauderdale News, March 7, 1949

Miami News, Sept 1, 1949

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 3, 1949

Fort Lauderdale News, April 10, 1955

New York Daily News, Jan. 27, 1957

New York Daily News, June 15, 1958

Sun-Sentinel, March 30, 2022

Real Deal, April 6, 2022

https://www.marinalife.com/marina?slug=bahia-mar-resort-and-yachting-center

https://bahiamaryachtingcenter.com/?utm_source=gmb&utm_medium=yext

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2014/03/houses-of-refuge-fort-lauderdale-and.html

For more on Houses of Refuge, see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2014/03/houses-of-refuge-fort-lauderdale-and.html

For more on William E. Schantz* see:

https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2021/06/bahia-mar-yacht-basin-cabbage-palm-logs.html


Tags: Bahia Mar Marina, Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, yachting capital of the world. Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, Fort Lauderdale history

Sunday, November 28, 2021

Fort Lauderdale's Kona Kottage: Once "one of most beautiful homes in the world"

 

Kona Kottage 1967 Fort Lauderdale
Florida State Archives

By Jane Feehan 

Not built as a tourist attraction, this famous house drew interest of Fort Lauderdale tourists and residents for more than 15 years. Described in this postcard (above) as “a fabulous Polynesian … type home known around the globe as one of the most beautiful homes in the world,” Kona Kottage was built by Loflin W. Smalley in 1961.

This son of a Georgia farmer came to Fort Lauderdale in 1925 with less than $10. He worked at the Broward Hotel as a busboy and eventually became hotel manager. Fort Lauderdale was booming in the 1940s so he looked for entrepreneurial opportunities. Smalley bought a Hertz car rental franchise and also a tree-removal business.

The palm trees he removed and often kept to save them from the dump, may have inspired his vision for the house he and wife Mildred built and moved into in 1962 and for their Hawaiian Village, a fantasy island for children, on a lot across the street. He did not visit Polynesia until a few years later.

Kona Kottage, designed by Robert E. Hansen, was built atop a concrete and steel hill on Navarro Isle (212 Gordon Rd.) off East Las Olas Boulevard. The four-story structure, which sat along 210 feet of water, included three fireplaces, a “dream kitchen” with built-in cutting boards, three waterfalls and a large bomb shelter (a popular feature of 1961 Florida houses). Surrounded by palm trees, a variety of other tropical flora and about 1,000 orchid plants, the Kona Kottage became a traffic stopper. The tour boat Queen of Venice (shown in postcard) advertised the house as one of its key sight-seeing stops.  

Smalley continued to expand his business interests. He opened Tea House of the Tokyo Moon in 1964, a soon-to-be-popular restaurant noted for its Japanese décor (423 Seabreeze). The restaurant had its own boat. Some news accounts describe restaurant patrons riding to the Kona Kottage on that boat to see the Christmas lighting display. The display created traffic snarls off Las Olas; the lights were eventually turned on only for people who came in tour boats to discourage sightseers in cars.

Smalley’s world ended in January 1967. 

After his wife reported him missing, Smalley's body was found a day later floating a mile away from his home. Cause of death was recorded as drowning but he had also been shot at close range. A gun, which once belonged to someone he knew but had died in 1955, was also recovered in a canal. Smalley's death, ruled a homicide, remains a mystery. It was once referred to as “Florida’s No. 1 Murder Mystery.” Robbery is thought to be the motive; he often carried business receipts in his car.

Smalley’s estate listed the house for sale in September 1969 for $79,500. In 1969, new owner Morton L. Browne spent $200,000 to rebuild the once-famous dwelling. Browne tired of waking up each day to people on his property taking photos, looking in windows (which he blackened) and picking orchids. First to go were the “insect bearing trees,” then the concrete and steel mound the house sat on, followed by the bomb shelter. The shelter was converted into a large recreation room. Tourists and residents stopped visiting the once-famous site; few remember it today.

Contrary to some tour boat stories and many resident rumors, Johnny Weissmuller did not live at Kona Kottage – though a fitting setting it would have been for Tarzan.

 (See: https://janeshistorynook.blogspot.com/2013/09/fort-lauderdale-and-johnny-weissmuller.html).

 Sources:

 Fort Lauderdale News, April 4, 1962

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 24, 1962

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 26, 1964

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 29, 1964

Fort Lauderdale News, July 30, 1967

Fort Lauderdale News, Oct. 7, 1967

Fort Lauderdale News, September 12, 1967

Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 24, 1968

Fort Lauderdale News, May 15, 1969


Tags: Kona Kottage, Fort Lauderdale Polynesian house, Las Olas Polynesian house, Fort Lauderdale history, History of Fort Lauderdale

Saturday, January 30, 2021

Fort Lauderdale's Spring Break Days: When they were asked to leave

 

Spring break crowd 1962 Fort Lauderdale
Dept. of Commerce
Florida State Archives/Florida Memory
By Jane Feehan

College students first came to Fort Lauderdale in 1935 as part of the Collegiate Aquatic Forum held at the Casino Pool during 10 days in December. The city extended an invitation to swimming coaches and students at 23 institutions the first year. By the 1950s, between four and five thousand students made their way to Fort Lauderdale during the annual swimming event and for Spring break; the city welcomed their business.

Things changed in 1961.

The movie, Where the Boys Are, released in December that year, linked Fort Lauderdale and Spring Break in the news and in the national consciousness. Crowds surged and a riot in March spurred Mayor Edward Johns and Police Chief Lester Holt to demand that the students “get out of town.” Miami News reporter Henry Jones wrote that the “students … have given Fort Lauderdale a national reputation as the site of a spring orgy rivaling the exuberance of the Romans.”

Students ignored the order to get out of town and continued to flock annually - at times hundreds of thousands of them - to Fort Lauderdale. In 1982, two Yale graduates, Bruce Jacobsen and Rollin Riggs had a lot to say about Fort Lauderdale in their book, Rites of Spring: Students’ Guide to Spring Break in Florida. (Priam Books, 1982):

Fort Lauderdale is as loose on its morals as it is tight on its laws.

The town deserves its meat-market reputation: people are constantly sizing you up, weighing you and determining how much you cost with all the authority and insensitivity of a butcher.

A popular daytime diversion is to sit in lounge chairs or on a fence and heckle passersby.

Fort Lauderdale has as much dignity as pro wrestling or roller derby but provokes the same illicit sense of pleasure. If you can keep up with the great pace for a few days at a time, you’re bound to return with some great stories.

Jacobsen and Riggs listed places to stay:
Bahama Hotel, Fort Lauderdale Motel, Holiday Inn (Las Olas), Jolly Roger, Lauderdale Biltmore, Wish you Were Here Inn and the Xanadu.  Bar recommendations included: the Button, Elbo Room, Bojangles, Candy Store, and Mr. Pips. For dining they pointed to the Mai-Kai, Yesterday’s, Durty Nellie’s and the Crab Pot.

Most of those places are gone now – and so are the rowdy students. Fort Lauderdale clamped down the annual event in the mid 1980s with open container laws and traffic re-routing. The annual swim meet, the granddaddy of it all, has moved from Fort Lauderdale. The International Swimming Hall of Fame (www.ishof.org), a museum, remains. The new Fort Lauderdale Aquatic Complex opened January 2023.

©2011, 2021

__________ 
Sources:
Miami News, Dec. 24, 1935
Miami News, March 28, 1961
Jacobsen, Bruce and Riggs, Rollin. Rites of Spring: Students Guide to Spring Break in Florida. Priam Books 1982


Fort Lauderdale history, Spring break history, Collegiate Aquatic Forum Fort Lauderdale, college students, Fort Lauderdale spring break

Thursday, December 17, 2020

Fort Lauderdale beach "skyline" 1965 ...


Fort Lauderdale Magazine, November, 1965 
Courtesy of Broward Historical Commission








This cover provides a great panorama of the Fort Lauderdale coast in 1965. The tallest buildings then were those aggregated at the entrance to Port Everglades, including Sky Harbor East and Breakwater Towers. 
Point of Americas was not yet part of the horizon; it was completed in 1969.

Top stories in this 1965 issue: "The General Builders Story," and "The New City: Coral Springs.

The more recent photo below (and continuously changing view) of the same coastline from the north (near Oakland Park Boulevard), shows a city now dominated by tall buildings.
Galt Mile 2019

 
Beach from Oakland Park south view 2010




        
Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s, Fort Lauderdale beach


Saturday, August 8, 2020

Arrests for bicycle sirens in Fort Lauderdale?


Posted by Jane Feehan

Kids have always managed to find mischief. These days arrest-worthy shenanigans may be computer, drug or gun-related. During the mid-1940s in Fort Lauderdale, law enforcement was concerned about kids on bicycles.

Bikes weren't causing problems; it was the sirens youngsters mounted on them that sounded like ambulances, fire trucks and police cars.

The Fort Lauderdale Daily News found the problem noteworthy enough to publish a brief front-page story about it June 5, 1945 when law enforcement announced an initiative to do away with sirens.

"Owners of bicycles with sirens will be arrested," said Police Chief R.A. Addison.  He warned the public that sirens were to be used  only by emergency vehicles and police cars.

"I don't like to arrest a bunch of kids," said Addison, "but these unauthorized sirens cause too much trouble."

Those halcyon days ...

Fee-based license tags were required for bicycles in the 1940s and into the 1960s. In 1945, 2,608 bike tags were purchased for about a dollar each at local police stations or schools. By August of the following year, sales slumped to 1,138. By the early 1960s, tags were issued for $10 for two years. Today, registration is required but there is no fee. The Fort Lauderdale Police Department recently reported nearly 2,400 bicycles have been stolen over the last five years; that number does not include thefts of unregistered bicycles. 

And ... there have been no published reports of arrests for nuisance bicycle sirens, no doubt a short-lived fad.


Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale crime in the 1940s, Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale history


Sources:
 Fort Lauderdale Daily News, June 5, 1945
Fort Lauderdale News, July 26, 1946
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Aug. 20, 1946
Fort Lauderdale Daily News, Feb. 18, 1950

Saturday, July 11, 2020

Why are life rafts orange? There's a Fort Lauderdale connection



Ever wonder why many life rafts, floats and other buoyant apparatus around the world are colored international orange?

There’s a Fort Lauderdale connection.

In 1960, the five-member vacationing Duperrault family left Bahia Mar on a 60-foot charter boat, the Bluebelle, captained by Julian Harvey. A few days later, Harvey was picked up on a life raft with the body of young girl, a member of the family. He told the U.S. Coast Guard that all the Duperraults had perished in an accident on the boat.

While Harvey was telling his story to the Coast Guard, word came there was a survivor. Eleven-year-old Terry Jo Duperrault had floated on a small white cork device for three days before being picked up in the Bahamas by the Greek ship, Captain Theo. Other ships may have mistaken the float for a white cap and sailed past the girl.

Hours after hearing news of the rescue, Harvey killed himself in a motel room. The subsequent investigation and interview with Terry Jo revealed the family was murdered by Harvey. 

It also seems Harvey had a cloudy past. A former pilot in the Air Force, Harvey was reportedly also a survival expert. He had been involved in two other ship sinkings and an air crash. He collected insurance proceeds on two vessels, according to news accounts in 1961. The same account indicates his second wife and her mother were killed in a car he was driving that went off a bridge in 1949. Harvey survived.  

In closing the investigation in 1962, the Coast Guard recommended “that the body of buoyant apparatus, life rafts and life boats … be painted or otherwise colored international orange.” This regulation was adopted and implemented by the Coast Guard.

Afterward, the practice was embraced world wide; orange is used today as a life raft safety precaution aboard many boats and ships across the globe. Thus, one girl's three-day ordeal at sea served as catalyst for the adoption of a new, international marine safety standard.

Sources:
US Coast Guard at http://www.uscg.mil/history/
Fort Lauderdale News, Nov. 22, 1961
Logan, Richard and Fassbender, Tere Duperrault.  Alone, Orphaned on the Ocean. Green Bay: Title Town Publishing, 2010.



Tags: Marine safety standards, international orange, Bahia Mar, Fort Lauderdale history




Thursday, July 9, 2020

Fort Lauderdale rises ... first high-rise condominium? First co-op?



By Jane Feehan


Residential high rises rule Fort Lauderdale’s skyline these days. For some it’s hard to remember what the city looked like before them. Rental apartments and cooperatives--or co-ops – were the beginning of the skyward push. 

According to the Fort Lauderdale News, the first two high-rise buildings in town were built by Col. T.J. Murrell during 1956-1957 and opened in 1958: Spring Tide at 345 N. Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard and Sea Tower (soon after a co-op) at 2840 N. Atlantic Blvd. Birch Towers at 3003 Terramar went up in 1958. The skyward push included 23 high rises constructed between 1956 and 1965. Several were converted to condos or co-ops over the years.

Among the first co-ops was the Edgewater Arms* on the Galt Mile, with ground broken in late 1959 (88 units).  Another, the Breakwater Towers, near Port Everglades offered units for sale in 1960 (and was completed around 1962). This 16-story co-op was once the largest residential building in Broward County. It couldn’t make that claim for long. The first Coral Ridge Towers, a co-op across from the Galt Mile opened with 330 units in 1963 (my family among its first residents). The Illini, a co-op at 535 S. Fort Lauderdale Beach Blvd. with 52 units was ready for occupancy in late 1962.

The first high-rise condominium in Fort Lauderdale was Sky Harbor East, announced in 1963 and completed in 1964 (as were a few other projects those early years, so the claim of first may be first announced or first completed or written up as such by the New York Times and local media). A few blocks from the Breakwater on South Ocean Drive, Sky Harbor East also reaches 16 floors, and holds about 186 units.

The Four Seasons off Las Olas at 333 Sunset was built as a co-op in 1958-1959 but was purchased after lengthy litigation by Tennessee oil man Calvin Houghland. He converted the building into rental units in 1963.  

In 1963, condos at Sky Harbor were going for $14,900 to $29,430. Today the same units (956 -1,474-sf) ) sell $500,000 to $700,000 and up. South Ocean Drive is still one of the most beautiful parts of the city. The two Points of America buildings there overlook the harbor entrance. The widow of Jackie Gleason, Marilyn Taylor, once lived in Points of America II. After her death in 2019, her two-bedroom penthouse condo was listed for $1.165 million (July, 2020).

And so it went from the late 1950s and 1960s, condominiums reaching for the clouds, from Port Everglades to Las Olas and northward to Galt Ocean Mile. Only Lauderdale-by-the-Sea pushes back with its height limits for new construction … for now.

* Plans for the Ocean Manor Hotel also on the Galt Mile, indicated co-op units would be included, but when it opened in 1958, it was announced by the Fort Lauderdale News that the building held 114 hotel rooms and suites and 84 efficiencies and apartments, no mention of co-op but it may have been one.
   

Downtown Fort Lauderdale 2023, the new construction frontier



Copyright © 2020, 2023. All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.

Sources:
New York Times, Jan. 12, 1958
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 20, 1958
Fort Lauderdale News June 10, 1962
Fort Lauderdale News, Sept 15, 1962
Miami News, Feb. 13, l963
Fort Lauderdale News, May 16, 1965
Sun-Sentinel, July 9, 2020
Gillis, Susan. Fort Lauderdale, The Venice of America. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2004




Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Broward County history, Fort Lauderdale condos, aerial view of Fort Lauderdale, Fort Lauderdale development

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

Trailblazing Jolly Roger Hotel, Jayne Mansfield and an adventure


Jolly Roger, now Sea Club



By Jane Feehan

Builder-turned-hotelier George “Bob” Gill developed six properties during the 1940s, 50s and 60s along Fort Lauderdale beach including the iconic Jolly Roger.

The Jolly Roger Hotel (now the Sea Club), designed by Miami architect Tony Sherman, opened in 1953. It was first in the area to “offer in-room air conditioning.”

Actress Jayne Mansfield* and husband Mickey Hargitay (mother and father of today’s Law and Order: Special Victims unit Mariska Hargitay) stayed at the Jolly Roger in February, 1962 when other hotels were booked. Mansfield, who was 28 then, obliged the press with a photo session at the hotel pool deck before their ill-fated trip to the Bahamas. 

They were briefly shipwrecked on a small island when their boat, piloted by Gill’s public relations man Jack Drury, broke down. Rescued the next morning, the trio made headlines worldwide over their lost-at-sea adventure.

The Jolly Roger drew tourists – and college students – for decades. And who among the locals could resist claiming the pirate’s skull and bones flag waving to us from the roof? Today, as the Sea Club, it remains a favorite beach hotel with European tourists. In 2009, the hotel was granted historic status by the Fort Lauderdale Historical Society.
Jolly Roger now Sea Club

Mansfield and Hargitay divorced in 1963. She married director Matt Cimber in '64 and had another child. Mansfield was killed in an auto accident in 1967 on her way to an appearance in Biloxi. Her three children, including Mariska Hargitay, were with her and survived.


Sources:

Sun-Sentinel, Jan. 29, 2009
Sun-Sentinel, Feb. 26, 2009
Drury, Jack. Fort Lauderdale, Playground of the Stars (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2008).

Tags: Jolly Roger Hotel, Fort Lauderdale in the 1950s, Bob Gill, Gill Hotels, Fort Lauderdale history, Mariska Hargitay, Jack Drury, film industry researcher

Saturday, June 27, 2020

Yankees come to Fort Lauderdale in 1962 until ...

Yankees with Gov. Bryant, 1962 Spring Training FTL
Fl. Dept. of Commerce photo


By Jane Feehan


The Yankees ball club had won their fifth consecutive world championship by 1953. In 1961 they had chalked up their 19th world championship in 39 seasons. Mickey Mantle, Joe DiMaggio, Roger Maris, Whitey Ford and Yogi Berra were  names known in most American households whether their baseball games were watched or not. In 1962 they moved their spring training camp from St. Petersburg to Fort Lauderdale.  

Fort Lauderdale hotelier George “Bob” Gill encouraged friend Dan Topping, Sr., major owner* of the Yankees, to bring the team to his town. Topping owned homes in Miami and Palm Beach; the move would make sense. A proposal to construct a stadium for $450,000 (with a seating capacity of 8,340) was introduced to the city in 1960. A Yankee spring training presence would bolster the area as a camp site. The Baltimore Orioles were already in Miami; the Los Angeles Dodgers practiced at Vero Beach and the Kansas City A’s were in West Palm. 

The inaugural game March 10, 1962 proved to be a Fort Lauderdale hit. The Yankees played the Baltimore Orioles before 7,584 fans at the new ball park off  NW 55th Street. Cletis Boyer, “of all people,” hit the first ball out of “Little Yankee” stadium. Boyer, batting eighth in the Yankee lineup, hit only .244 the previous season. He popped a Billy Hoeft ball over the left field wall at the 350-foot mark in the second inning.   

But the crowd reserved their biggest cheers that day for Mickey Mantle when he crashed a 400-foot home run with Roger Maris on base, scoring two more runs. The Yanks topped the Orioles 4-1 during that inaugural game.

The Yankees trained at Fort Lauderdale Stadium - and were seen about town - until 1995. Their contribution to the city’s place as a tourist destination – and great place to live – was invaluable.

* Del Webb was also a Yankee club owner at the time.

For more on the Yankees in Fort Lauderdale, see:


Sources:
Palm Beach Post, Oct. 18, 1960
Miami News, Mar 11, 1962
Drury, Jack. Fort Lauderdale, Playground of the Stars (Charleston: Arcadia Publishing, 2008).



Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Yankees Ball Club history, spring training in Fort Lauderdale, Bob Gill, Dan Topping, Sr., Cletis Boyer, Mickey Mantle, 

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Fort Lauderdale in the news 1966





By Jane Feehan

The Vietnam War dominated national headlines in 1966 and at times worked its way into sad local stories, but other topics appeared in Fort Lauderdale news. A Man for All Seasons won Best Picture for that year and many who saw Dr. Zhivago, released December 1965, probably did so in 1966. The International Swimming Hall of Fame was inaugurated in 1965 and Parker Playhouse opened in February 1967, two big local stories many will recall, but 1966 held other news.

Summarized below are a few of those local headlines. Some advertisements also referenced.

Merchants protest a proposed Las Olas Boulevard interchange off I-95. A few politicos envisioned it as a route to downtown. Merchants won that one (Fort Lauderdale News, March 6, 1966).

It is first suggested portions of A1A serve as one-way, parallel thoroughfares. So it is today. (Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 4, 1966).

Actor and heartthrob Gregory Peck (1916-2003) speaks at the Coral Ridge Yacht Club on behalf of the American Cancer Society. He was given the keys to the city of Fort Lauderdale at the event. His wife, French journalist Veronique Passani, accompanies him (Fort Lauderdale News. Mar. 25, 1966).

Fort Lauderdale police find a 9.5 ft hammerhead shark tied to a bench at A1A (Atlantic Boulevard) and 15th Street. The 400-pound creature, probably left by spring breakers, is incinerated by the city (Fort Lauderdale News. Mar. 25, 1966).

On Jan. 10, 1966, John J. Yuscius, chef at Fred Wenner’s restaurant on North Federal Highway, is named Chef of the Year for 1965 by the Epicurean Club. Yuscius is the first to receive that honor from the club.  (Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 10, 1966)

The body of self-proclaimed messiah, Stephen Solomon Berenbaum, 28, is found in the Intracoastal near the International Swimming Hall of Fame. According to his brother, he had jumped into the waterway near the Las Olas Bridge, stood at the bottom with arms stretched upward and soon disappeared. Police hint LSD (Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 4, 1966).

Jordan Marsh, at the Sunrise Shopping Center, announces Jan. 1, 1966 it will add two floors, one for a restaurant and bar and another for an auditorium (Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 1, 1966)

Coral Ridge Properties begins construction on Coral Ridge Towers South, west of the Galt Mile. Resident count of the four-building project rises to 1,350 (Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 1, 1966).

“An authentic history of Fort Lauderdale,” Checkered Sunshine, is published by University of Florida Press. Authors Philip Weidling and August Berghard hold a book signing at Birch State Park on Dec. 4. (Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 4, 1966)

Vic Tanny International Gym and Health Clubs advertises 20 visits for $20 at its 3425 North Federal Hwy location (Fort Lauderdale News, throughout 1966).

The Royal Admiral, an apartment building on the Galt Mile, advertises $155 rent for a one-bedroom unit.


Tags: Fort Lauderdale history, Fort Lauderdale news 1966, Coral Ridge Properties, The Royal Admiral, Coral Ridge Towers South, Las Olas Boulevard, Gregory Peck, Jordan Marsh



Thursday, December 6, 2018

Heilman's in Fort Lauderdale ... and the stuntman






By Jane Feehan

Those who were lucky to live in Fort Lauderdale when restaurants were top notch, exceptional establishments—the 1960s and 70s—with celebrities among their patrons will remember Heilman’s.

Opened by Hubert (Hubie) Heilman in 1958 after relocating to Florida from Lorain, OH, Heilman’s at 1701 U.S. 1, was lauded for its food, drinks and occasional entertainment. Signage for the restaurant, reflecting the owner’s celebrated sense of humor, claimed the eatery “is recommended by Hubert Heilman.” The beverage menu boasted the “world’s second best martini.” Customers—and Heilman—raved about its Back to the Farm fried chicken. Wife Dorothy helped manage the 285-seat restaurant where entertainer Milton Berle once stirred up some laughs waiting on tables and greeting a shocked customer by name.

In 1975, at age 60, Heilman sold the restaurant (but remained president of the Broward County Restaurant Association) to George and Nick Telemachos, owners of a steak restaurant in Melbourne, FL. Heilman’s was renamed at Hubert’s request and became Helman’s. A poetry enthusiast, Heilman went on to attend writer’s workshops in the U.S. and England; he earned a second bachelor’s degree (the first from Cornell University)  at Florida Atlantic University. Dorothy, who he met at Cornell, died in 1990. Hubert Heilman died in Fort Pierce in 2005 when he was 90.

The Heilman’s Fort Lauderdale story includes the colorful—and short life—of Hubie’s son, Ross. After graduating from Fort Lauderdale High School, Ross joined the marines. Following his service, Ross visited South America where it was reported he became a “big game hunter.” He then opened a crocodile farmhome to more than 1,200 of the reptilesin Jamaica on the north coast between Ocho Rios and Montego Bay, where it became a noted tourist attraction. 

The farm was also the site for scenes from the movies Papillon and the James Bond flick, Live and Let Die, both released in 1973Ross was tapped as a double for Roger Moore in Live and Let Die and scenes included running atop the backs of hundreds of crocs in water. He sustained an injury requiring nearly 200 stitches according to one news account. Heilman or Kananga, his desired professional name, was paid $60,000 for that gig.

Wanderlust seemingly behind him, Ross returned to Florida where he wrestled alligators at Flamingo Gardens. He bought some land in the Everglades for another enterprise and drained it by himself. In January 1978, while spearfishing in the Everglades in a canoe, Ross and a friend fell into the water. His friend swam to shore but Ross was not found until the following day. It was reported he died from cardiac arrest due to the very cold water; Ross William Heilman was 32.  In addition to his parents he was survived by siblings Robert, Lynne and Becky.

The Heilman restaurant tradition, which began in 1907 in Ohio, continues. Robert, Hubie’s brother, opened Heilman’s Beachcomber in 1948 in Clearwater. Today, son, Robert Heilman, Jr., operates Bob Heilman’s Beachcomber Restaurant (heilmansbeachcomber.com) in there.

Sources:
Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 17, 1963
Fort Lauderdale News, May 28, 1969
Fort Lauderdale News, May 14, 1970
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 14, 1970
Fort Lauderdale News, June 14, 1972
Fort Lauderdale News, Dec. 7, 1975
Fort Lauderdale News, Jan. 29, 1978
Fort Lauderdale News, Feb. 1, 1978
Sun-Sentinel, March 7, 1990
Sun-Sentinel, Sept. 1, 2005

Tags: Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s, Fort Lauderdale restaurants in the 1960s, Fort Lauderdale restaurants in the 1970s, Fort Lauderdale history, Jane Feehan, film researcher