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| 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.
That story, the tale of Larry Vita—is 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
