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| Jackie Gleason circa 1950 State of Florida Archives |
By Jane Feehan
All-State Properties was selected to construct an American house for the U.S. Exhibition in Moscow in 1959. Herbert Sadkin, the company’s president, tapped architect Stanley H. Klein to design a home representative of the American middle class. The $13,000 “Splitnik” contained one and a half bathrooms, three bedrooms, two patios and an L-shaped living room. The Russian state news agency, Tass, ridiculed the house, saying it was as typical of the American worker’s house as the Taj Mahal was typical of the Bombay textile worker’s house.
That didn’t stop Sadkin from building the same model on Long Island. There, he discovered the house wasn’t luxurious enough for the American worker. He continued to upgrade. In July, 1959 Sadkin opened his first Florida development on 1,300 acres he purchased for about $1 million near the Sunshine Parkway (now Florida's Turnpike). Located in Broward County, the new city was chartered as Lauderhill. Sadkin went on to build about 1,000 more homes in the area that also became known for its Inverrary Country Club and golf course.
Cut forward to 1972. Actor-comedian Jackie Gleason (1916-1987), a resident of the country club in Lauderhill, kicked off the first Inverrary Classic bearing his name. Those were the glory days of golf legends Tom Weiskopf, Lee Trevino, Jack Nicklaus, and Johnny Miller; they each played the Jackie Gleason Inverrary Classic. Gleason’s involvement ended in 1980 when CBS-TV cut the Inverrary Classic from the event list for the 1982 broadcast season. Tournament officials sought a big-money corporate sponsor and planned to ease Gleason aside.
“I’m not going to have my name associated with some car company,” said Gleason who died at his Inverrary home a few years later. “The only reason I wanted to be involved in the first place was to raise money for charity.” Gleason’s name attracted celebs to play in the pro-am. He and President Gerald Ford were golfing friends. He had planned to invite President-elect Ronald Reagan to play in 1981 but decided against it given the circumstances.
Today we know the golf tournament as the Honda Classic, now played at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens. The Inverrary Country Club and its golf courses in Lauderhill closed June, 2020. And Sadkin, a Fort Lauderdale resident, went on to build Bonaventure and other South Florida projects before he died in 1972. Copyright © 2012 2020 All rights reserved. Jane Feehan.
Sources:
Miami News, July 14, 1959
Palm Beach Post, Nov. 1980
New York Times, Feb. 18, 1989
http://www.jackiegleason.com/bio.html
Tags: Lauderhill history, Jackie Gleason, Russians, Fort Lauderdale in the 1960s, celebrities in South Florida, Fort Lauderdale history
