Reproductions of Laura Woodward’s work can be seen at the Boynton Beach City Library, 208 S. Seacrest Blvd., through April. A similar exhibit at the Delray Beach Historical Society, 3 NE First St., runs through May.
By Ron Hayes
In the 1890s, that golden Gilded Ager, Henry M. Flagler, enticed his fellow multimillionaires to discover the subtropical splendor of Palm Beach.
But who enticed Flagler?
In the beginning, she bowed to Victorian modesty and signed herself simply, “L. Woodward.”
From 1890 until 1919, Laura Woodward painted Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale, Jupiter, Miami and the Everglades. In oil and watercolors, she captured the bloody reds of the island’s hibiscus blossoms, the cool blue shade of its jungle paths, the palm trees beside Lake Worth.
She came to Palm Beach four years before Henry Flagler, and when she carried paintings of its flaming royal Poinciana trees back to St. Augustine, the Standard Oil tycoon came after, and built a huge hotel he dubbed the Royal Poinciana, where Laura Woodward lived and painted for the next quarter-century.
“She was Florida’s most important 19th-century woman artist,” says Deborah Pollack, “and one of its greatest publicists.”
Pollack, a Palm Beach art historian and dealer, is the author of Laura Woodward: The Artist Behind the Innovator Who Developed Palm Beach, a beautifully illustrated biography, published in conjunction with the Historical Society of Palm Beach County.
To mark the book’s publication, two local exhibits featuring reproductions of Woodward's work are running concurrently at the Boynton Beach City Library and the Delray Beach Historical Society.
“She was an entrepreneur,” Pollack told a recent gathering at the library. “Not rich, but very gutsy. She perpetuated the notion of Florida as a tropical paradise.”
Born in 1834 in Mount Hope, N.Y., Woodward was in her fifties and already an established member of the Hudson River School of nature artists when she first came to St. Augustine in the mid-1880s. But ultimately, St. Augustine proved too tame, so Woodward came south, settled into the Coconut Grove House in what was then called Lake Worth, and painted. And painted.
“Frequently the wild animals interfered with my work,” she once said.
She painted the original Bethesda-by-the-Sea church, the Jupiter lighthouse, the black community in Palm Beach. At 61, she painted the Everglades.
Might she have painted Manalapan or Gulf Stream?
“There’s no documentation of her doing any work between Palm Beach and Delray Beach,” Pollack says, “but it’s highly likely. We know she painted in Fort Lauderdale and Miami, and stopped along the way.”
Woodward sold her paintings from a studio at the Royal Poinciana and licensed their reproduction as “chromolithographs,” early post cards. She painted hundreds of works until 1919, when failing eyesight forced her to stop.
In 1926, she moved to join a caregiver’s family in St. Cloud, near Orlando, and died two months later.
Back in Mount Hope, the headline in the local paper read, “Laura Woodward Spinster Artist Dies At Age Of 92."
But to her biographer, the pioneer artist was no spinster.
“She never married,” Pollack concedes, “but she was in love with nature, and she was married to her work.”
I just followed my heart and let it take me on this amazing journey.
Sheree Ladove Funsch wears many hats. She’s the CEO of her company, La Dove, Inc., which is about ready to introduce a new high-end haircare product line. She’s a busy mother with two daughters, Samantha, 14, and Ashley, 8, and three step children, Dane, 21, Connor, 18, and Maclaine, 13. And because her business is here in Florida, and husband Daniel’s business is in New Jersey, she is back and forth between two homes. In addition, she’s the co-chair of the Lupus Foundation of America’s Butterfly Ball, to be held at Mar-a-Lago Feb. 27 and she hosted the pre-ball cocktail party in January. The goodie bag given to guests at the Butterfly Ball will contain her Label M, a line developed in London that was a sponsor of London Fashion Week. About her busy life, she said: “It’s been such an incredible adventure.”
Following her dreams is not altogether easy, she acknowledges.
“The children go to five different schools. Scheduling is definitely a challenge. I’m addicted to my calendar and my Blackberry.
“Time is so priceless — follow your dreams.”
Thinking back, she puts her dreams in perspective. “I was watching Connie Sellecca on TV when I was young. I remember thinking she is so beautiful. Now, she has been my friend for 16 years. It’s so bizarre to remember watching her and admiring her, and then doing a business deal with her and being her friend. It’s amazing. You can’t even imagine what you can accomplish or where your life will go.”
She’s working on another dream, too. “This sounds kind of crazy, but I’ve always wanted to build an amazing family compound in the Bahamas, so we purchased a property and we are starting to draw plans. That will be something that will make me very happy.”
— Christine Davis10 QuestionsQ. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. I grew up in Palm Beach. Although I was an A student, school was not the biggest influence in my life. It did give me structure and goals to strive for. More importantly, growing up in Palm Beach, there was a lot of financial advantage and it always bothered me when young girls were more concerned about what designer labels for clothes, shoes, etc. they were buying to compete against each other. No consideration was made for how fortunate they were financially and how they could use some of those resources to truly help others less fortunate. I try to instill those values in my own two daughters.
Q. What professions have you worked in? What life accomplishments are you most proud of?
A. I was again very fortunate and grew up at my father’s company, La Dove Inc., a personal-care manufacturing company. I performed nearly every job from a very young age. Every summer, while my friends were at summer camp, I was filling bottles in the factory and developing new products in the laboratories.
I wanted to be a litigator and was on my way to Yale Law School after graduating from Rollins College in Winter Park, when my dad asked me to spend my last summer in the business. I had grown up in the business, and I thought, one more summer? Ugh. OK, fine. This summer changed my life. For the first time, we were launching a professional hair care line into the professional salon industry, and I became the liaison between our laboratory and the hairdressers. Hairdressers and chemists do not speak the same language, and there was a tremendous need for someone to get the two on the same page and create amazing products. This really intrigued me. I had a great time, and ended up not going to law school. Bed Head products were born! The rest, as they say, is history.
Although being a founding partner in Bed Head products at the age of 22 was an amazing accomplishment, selling it to Unilever last year was very rewarding. My greatest accomplishment was when I bought the company from my dad and his Wall Street partners nine years ago and became CEO.
Q. What is it about the Lupus Foundation that inspires you to become involved?
A. Anne Bright opened my eyes to lupus. She is an amazing woman. I've known her for a long time, since I grew up with her son. She is such a loving, caring, dear woman and when you know someone so amazing who’s touched by the disease, it touches your heart and you want to help. She is an inspiration to all.
Q. Tell us a little about your volunteer work. Why is it important to you?
A. I have been so blessed and I feel you need to give back when you are so blessed. The feeling it gives you to help people in need is like no other feeling of accomplishment.
When I visited a small village on a tiny out-island in Fiji last year. I was so moved by the beautiful people and so appalled by their devastating poverty. You might expect to see poverty like this in Africa, but it never crossed my mind that you would find it in the beautiful tropical paradise of Fiji. I actually spent months down there to help build a school for the children of the village and donated money for a desalination system so they would have clean water to drink.
Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today?
A. The only advice I have to give for young people is the same advice that I preach to my daughters: Follow your dreams. Do something that will truly make you happy everyday. Don't ever do anything purely for money or you will be miserable. If you love what you do, it will show. You will end up successful and money will come.
Q. How did you choose to make your home in Gulf Stream?
A. I chose to live in Gulf Stream because it is one of the few places left in South Florida that still has a small hometown feel.
Q. What is your favorite part about living in Gulf Stream?
A. You know your neighbors. You can take your children to the wonderful Gulf Stream School in a golf cart and it is so safe. I thought it would give my girls an idyllic childhood. We all just love it there!
Q. Who/what makes you laugh?
A. My two daughters — especially my little 8-year-old; she’s full of life and laughter — along with my husband make me laugh all the time. They all love to play practical jokes on me and we have such a fun happy house. I do believe laughter can get you through anything.
Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. I happen to be partial to Gwyneth Paltrow. Although she is very sophisticated, intelligent and well-traveled, she is also very accessible and grounded. These are qualities I admire.
Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions?
A. Follow your dreams.
Read more…
By Thomas R. Collins
A month ago I watched an adult film with my mother. Let me explain.
My mom has advanced dementia and lives in a nursing home. Her roommate has satellite TV, with the TV big enough to share, but she’s not so good at working the remote.
The roommate was surfing the channel guide, ended up in the adult pay-per-view section, and before I knew it, the “Confirm” button was highlighted on the screen. I got up to grab the remote before she hit “Enter,” but it was too late.
I won’t go into details, other than to say this: The cast members were beyond foreplay, it’s a 50-inch screen and the volume was high.
Pandemonium ensued until I finally got it off the screen.
Amid the debacle, though, there was something to treasure and to marvel over: My mom laughed.
At that time, she never smiled, let alone laughed.
Susan Clara Nivens, my mother, is only 62. She cannot reliably feed herself, does not walk, and usually cannot tell you the color of the sky if you ask, although she can surprise you. Her demeanor is usually expressionless. When she talks, it’s monotone.
Three months ago, she was in the St. Mary’s ICU on a breathing machine with pneumonia. She has clots in her leg and is on blood-thinners.
If the professionals are right, she is most likely in the last year of her life.
So it takes a real jolt to generate enough electrical activity in her brain to cause laughter. Apparently, spontaneous porn on a giant TV screen is enough.
I’ll take it.
Small pleasures are really all I have left with my mom.
•
In the 10th grade, I wrote an essay called A Mother Made of Steel, about the trials that my mom went through after a divorce from my father and then the death of her second husband. She had devoted her life almost entirely to my brother and me, working hard as an administrative assistant, keeping troubled marriages as much out of our view as possible, clipping coupons, wearing K-Mart clothes, splurging on absolutely nothing, saving for my college and always making sure that we knew, as we grew up in a Baltimore row house, that there was nothing in the world more important than us.
My heart always went out to the poor people of the world, the people I heard about on TV, not realizing we were pretty much poor ourselves. I gave the essay to my mom. She kept it for 20 years.
And things never got any easier for her.
When I went to college, my brother and his wife moved in with her, along with their two children, which became three. They had terrible substance abuse problems. I tried in vain, year after year, to persuade my mom to show some tough love and kick him and his wife out. She could never muster it. After college, I moved to Florida for a job. I ponder now what might have happened if I’d lived closer. I tell myself that my mom always really wanted me to do what was best professionally. But I wonder.
By the fall of 2008, seeing my mom’s mental condition declining and my brother’s substance abuse continuing, my wife and I brought my mother, brother and niece to live in Florida. (My brother’s other two children and wife had moved out.)
A month later, I got emergency custody of my niece, whom I’ve since adopted. I got guardianship of my mom. My brother moved back to Baltimore. He has since passed away. I haven’t told my mom.
•
My mom lived with us for a month. It was the strangest time of my life. She would come out of the bathroom with her underwear on top of her pants. Or worse, wearing no clothes at all, setting off a panic before she was redirected. She would constantly reheat coffee and not drink it. In the car, she’d ask 50 times where we were going.
It was impossible to care for my mom, raise my niece and work, too. I moved my mom to an assisted living facility. It was the most painful thing I ever did. But I knew I had no choice.
•
The younger a person is when dementia sets in, the faster it progresses. It’s like a roller coaster with a bunch of downhills but no uphills. Steep drop, plateau, steep drop.
In September, she started declining severely. She would pace relentlessly at the assisted living home, resting only fitfully in a chair in the TV room. Her speech grew quieter and quieter, then went away almost completely. I tried to capture voice fragments on a recorder.
She started having problems swallowing. One day, we got a call from the assisted living facility. My mom had fallen in the dining room at breakfast and turned blue. She was taken to St. Mary’s Medical Center. She had pneumonia because of food in her lungs.
She was there two weeks, much of it with a tube down her throat. I held her hand and stroked her hair for hours on end. She couldn’t respond to what I said. I kept asking her to “gimme a squeeze,” and she’d squeeze my hand every time. Every time, I was relieved.
She was eventually released, but the prospect of getting food in the lungs again hangs over us like a storm cloud.
I chose a nursing home, and she’s living there now.
•
I’d heard great things about Hospice of Palm Beach County. I called them and eventually I decided on palliative care, with more emphasis on comfort than anything else. My mom will not go to the hospital again. And she won’t go on a breathing tube or a feeding tube. When death is imminent, we have the option of bringing her home. For a while, I felt every minute I spent with my mom could be our last.
Her speech came back. She mostly says one word at a time. Her default word is, “Yes.” “How are you feeling?” “Yes.” “How was lunch?” “Yes.” Sometimes she gets out short sentences. They’re all bonus words, ones I might never have heard.
I’ve taken to talking to my mom at extremely close range, often with our foreheads touching, looking her in the eyes so closely that she has nothing but my eyes in her field of vision. We are like lovestruck 18-year-olds.
I tell her, “I love you,” to which she almost unfailingly responds — repeats? — “I love you.” Sometimes, she gives the more reassuring, “I love you, too.” Sometimes, I strive for more acknowledgement: “I love you very much, mom. You know that, right?” “Yes,” she says.
I press my hands to her cheeks to feel her warm skin. I know it will not feel warm forever, and that haunts me. I hug her repeatedly. I ask her for pecks on the cheek and she always delivers.
A change in her heart medication has helped make her more aware, but I know it’s not helping the actual dementia.
Our visits mainly consist of my pushing her to a pond on the nursing home grounds, hoping to see a wading bird or two, then visiting the nursing home chapel, and watching TV. If she sees a bird fly away and follows it with her eyes, or gets through two lines of a prayer without stumbling or is able to give me the name of the TV show we’re watching, it’s a great day.
I still ask her to “gimme a squeeze.” Sometimes, she doesn’t, and says, “Yes” instead.
A few weeks ago, my niece, my wife and I were in the activities room with her, playing the piano, and holding her hands and doing silly dances in front of her as she sat in her wheelchair. My mom started laughing and smiling ear to ear. My heart swelled.
A week or so later, I visited her alone. We again went to the activities room and I danced for her again. She started smiling. I kept dancing. Then she blurted, “Get me outta here.”
My blood ran cold. “What?” I said. “Get me outta here,” she repeated.
I didn’t know whether this was really coming from her or whether another resident had screamed, “Get me outta here” recently and she was repeating it. But she seemed to be having a relatively good day and I worried that, at that moment, she was indeed thinking clearly.
I explained to her that if her health were better, everything would be different. I have no idea whether she understood.
I can only hope.
I can only look in her eyes, tell her I love her and caress her warm skin again.
Thomas R. Collins is a freelance writer who lives in West Palm Beach. He is a frequent contributor to The Coastal Star.Read more…
By Christine Davis
The 2010 Red Cross Designers’ Show House takes up residence at CityPlace South Tower in West Palm Beach through Feb. 20. This year, 18 designers transformed four units on the 19th-floor middle-penthouse level of the 20-story luxury tower.
Two designers are from Delray Beach. One of the four units, a 1,968-square-foot, two-bedroom, two-bath unit with a den houses Excentricities South’s boutique, organized by Frank Maguire, and Virginia Courtenay decorated the living room, dining room and kitchen in one of the other three units.
Frank J. Maguire, co-owner of Excentricities South, has organized the Red Cross Designers’ Show House boutique for the last four years. In the past, he’s set his space up in a garage and in a lobby. This year, though, he has an entire apartment to display furniture, art and accessories, as well as offering a little bistro catered by Tim Trill.
Since the boutique is set up in a unit just under 2,000 square feet, it affords the perfect opportunity to see how best to display furniture and items in a smaller space, he said.
Maguire’s tips:
• Don’t overload. Keep it as simple as possible and use a tape measure.
• A spot of color is good. If you paint your farthest wall a color, for example, it can give the room a little depth, and even exaggerate the size.
• Sometimes, in a smaller space, big works better. A mirror will make a room appear larger. Don’t choose a little tchotchke one, though, he warns. Use a big, framed, hunky mirror — that will hit the spot.
Virginia Courtenay’s imaginary green-conscious cosmopolitan snowbird clients decorate their first Florida home with pieces that they love and, over time, will move with them.
“They are coming here to see if they like Palm Beach and to see if they fit in,” Courtenay said. “This is a chic address, and it’s is a good place for them to start out. If they like the area, they want to move easily to another larger home, so their choices of furniture and art for this apartment are pieces that they plan to take with them.
Courtenay’s tips:
“Since they are green-conscious, they chose a sofa with soy cushions. Fabrics are 100 percent wool. And you can’t get any greener than 18th century antiques: They’ve been saved through the ages.”
• Don’t overlook, or be fooled by, scale and proportion. One entire wall features a grouping of Richard Tobias’ water photography (water is our most precious commodity). Groupings are nice in small spaces, but you can go big, too. In the dining room, one large Tobias piece fits just as nicely.
• Edit. In the living room, what fits are one loveseat and two chairs. Stop right there. That does the trick. • Rugs. The right size for a small place can be moved to a larger home. So, not to worry.
The show house is at 550 Okeechobee Blvd. in West Palm Beach and runs through Feb. 20. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday, and noon to 4 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are $30. For more information, contact Maura Nelson at 561-650-9131 or nelsonm@redcross-pbc.org, or visit www.redcrossshowhouse.org.About the American Red CrossFor more than 90 years, the American Red Cross Greater Palm Beach Area Chapter, which includes Glades, Hendry, Okeechobee and Palm Beach counties, has provided relief to victims of disasters at home and abroad, taught life-saving skills, and supported military members and their families. The American Red Cross, a charity and not a government agency, depends on voluntary contributions of time and money to perform its humanitarian mission. To learn more about the work of the Red Cross or to make a donation, call 561-833-7711 or visit www.redcross-pbc.org.Read more…
By Mike Readling
The unprecedented cold temperatures that sent shivers up the spines of South Floridians in early January did a lot more than provide intriguing video of chilled iguanas falling out of trees.
Waters from the Keys north absorbed the more than a week of blistering north winds and temperatures dropped to levels not seen in recent memory. The result was a fish kill that choked up waterways with bloated fish carcasses across the state.
In South Florida the major victims of this kill were snook, tarpon, snapper, lookdowns, catfish and black drum.
The threshold for these tropical species is right around the 55-degree mark. Once the water temperatures dips below that number, the fish become lethargic, cold-stunned and eventually die. Inshore waters in Palm Beach County were measured at 51 degrees during the cold event.
Realizing the effects the weather had on the inshore gamefish population, the Florida Wildlife Commission made the unprecedented move of closing the harvest of snook, bonefish and tarpon less than a week after the cold weather abated.
The closure was ordered on Jan. 14 and went into effect at midnight of that day. It extended the closed season on snook until September. Snook season would have opened on Feb. 1 on the East Coast. Tarpon and bonefish are closed for harvest until April 1.
The swift reaction by the FWC took many anglers by surprise and the organization released a statement two days later clarifying the rules simply regard the harvest of these species. Catch and release is still permitted. It is estimated that more than 1.5 million snook alone died during the week of cold weather.
Snook Foundation executive director Rick Roberts said now is the time for Florida’s anglers to band together to ensure that state authorities get an accurate count. Otherwise, he said, unproven and archaic formulas will be used and there is a high probability that stricter guidelines regarding the harvest of fish will be implemented.
“Unless the sleeping giant that is the recreational fishing community acts to demand protection for shrinking habitat in Florida, they can expect to experience a significant drop in the fishery,” Roberts said.
The Snook Foundation immediately implemented the Angler’s Action Plan. It is designed to gather real information from anglers across the state, including number of fish, size of fish and the general location where a fish was caught. These numbers, Roberts said, will be more accurate than any other figures the state has ever received and will allow anglers to lobby for regulations that are more consistent with the actual state of the environment.
The FWC has also been busy assessing and closing offshore fisheries, though that closure had nothing to do with the cold weather.
The commission stepped in a shut down the recreational and commercial harvest of shallow-water groupers, including gag, black and red grouper, rock hind coney, graysby, yellowfin, yellowmouth and tiger grouper. The closure, which runs from Jan. 19 through April 30 in the Atlantic Ocean and Monroe County state water (inside of 3 miles from shore), was implemented due to what the FWC determined was overfishing.
The new rules fall in line with regulations in federal waters and also decrease the aggregate bag limit from five to three grouper per boat, require the use of a dehooking device and established a zero bag limit for captains and crew of charter boats.
The new rules re likely to be felt in local restaurants where grouper was a mainstay on the menu. They will also severely limit the local charter boats in the Palm Beach County area. Many of those boats rely on grouper fishing to sustain their business through the winter and have reefs they have targeted for years marked with the best grouper spots.
More information on the Angler’s Action Plan can be found on the Snook Foundation Web site, www.snookfoundation.org.Read more…
By Mary Katherine Stump
OCEAN RIDGE — Howard A. Kloss passed away on Dec. 29. He was 85 years old.
Mr. Kloss was born and raised in Chicago, and worked as a stationary engineer for the Chicago School Board until his retirement to Florida in 1990. He also invested in real estate during his time in Chicago. He served in the Merchant Marines during WWII and spent much of his time in Florida gardening. He was preceded in death by his wife of over 40 years, Alice Kloss, who passed away in 2005.
For 15 years, Mr. Kloss and his wife were cared for by John Bias, who had previously been employed to maintain the couple’s pool. “We hit it off,” said Mr. Kloss. “Then one day he called me and asked if I would take care of him and Alice, and here I am.”
The Klosses had no children or close family, and neither did Mr. Bias. Over the years, the three became like family. “Howard was just unbelievable. Very generous. I just can’t believe he’s gone. Walking around the house is hard. I still expect him to be here,” said Mr. Bias.
“I promised him I’d never put him in a nursing home. He wanted to die at home, and that’s what he did.”
Read more…
By Tim O’Meilia
SOUTH PALM BEACH — When the men went off to World War II, Lenore Rubinstein went to the ballpark. A reporter for Newsweek, her editors made her a sportswriter during the war.
But the male sportswriters refused to allow her in the press box, times being what they were. So she bought tickets and covered the games from the stands. She kept track of her own game statistics, since the official numbers were handed out only in the press box.
“She was among the first who cracked that glass ceiling for women,” said her longtime friend, Ann Davis. Mrs. Rubinstein died Jan. 22 at the age of 93. She had been a South Palm Beach resident for 30 years.
She is best known in Palm Beach County as a stalwart and relentless member of the League of Women Voters. She filled nearly every position during her 30 years with the League, including two two-year terms as president, when she was in her 70s and 80s. She was treasurer at the age of 88. Friends described her as a “mover and a shaker,” always positive.
“She spoke her mind and her mind was a good one,” said Davis, a colleague in the League.
Mrs. Rubinstein was born and raised in New York City and graduated from Hunter College. She later earned a master’s in education from the University of Pittsburgh.
She was fond of telling stories of her early days at Newsweek. “At first, she was running copy,” said her daughter, Judith Ahronheim. “Then they had her ride herd on Ring Lardner Jr. Her job was to drag him out of the bars,” she said of the prize-winning writer. “When he was too drunk to type his column, she typed it for him.”
Mrs. Rubinstein taught journalism at Allegheny Community College and the University of Pittsburgh and worked 30 years with the League of Women Voters in Pittsburgh before moving south.
She was active on the scholarship committee at the Gale Academy of Environmental Science and Technology at forest Hill High School.
She is survived by her daughter, a son, Peter Rubinstein, and two grandchildren. She was preceded in death by her husband of more than 60 years, Gilbert Rubinstein, in 2000.
A memorial service was held Jan. 26 at Tillman Funeral Home. Donations may be made in her name to the Alzheimer’s Community Care Association, 1651 Lake Ave., Lake Worth, FL 33460.
Read more…
By Emily J. Minor
GULF STREAM — Elena M. Forrester, a native of San Francisco and a world traveler who moved to Gulf Stream in 1972 and told her family she’d never leave, died in her sleep at her beloved home on Jan. 11. She was 99.
Mrs. Forrester’s son, Alex Lilley, said they thought perhaps his mother would make it to her 100th birthday in May. “She’d never really been sick,” he said. But over the summer, she suffered a bad reaction to a medication. “That almost knocked her out,” he said.
She recovered, but never fully. By December when her son visited, she was weak and barely able to speak, he said.
Born in San Francisco in 1910, she studied in Italy after her graduation from that city’s famous Miss Burke’s School in 1928. While overseas, she learned so speak fluent Italian. After World War II — married and with children — she moved with her family to Paris for four years, her son said. There, she learned fluent French. Lilley said his mother was a loyal friend with a nice sense of humor, but she was also determined to excel at the things she set out to do.
“If she was going to be good at something, she was going to be good at it,” he said. “If she wanted to be a good cook, she didn’t just dabble in it.”
An impressive golfer even into her 90s, Mrs. Forrester was a member of the Gulf Stream Club and active at St. Vincent Ferrer Catholic Church. She also enjoyed playing bridge.
Her first husband, Neil Lilley, died in 1976. Her second husband, Bob Forrester, died in 1997. A daughter, Elena Lilley, passed away in 2004.
Besides her son, who lives in Southern California, she is survived by two grandchildren and a great-grandson.
Read more…
By Ron Hayes
COUNTY POCKET — When she wasn’t strolling the beach, chatting with friends and strangers alike, Nora Priest was contacting politicians with letters and phone calls in support of liberal causes.
In Boston, where she spent summers, Mrs. Priest fought for civil rights during the school integration crisis of the 1970s. In Palm Beach County, she agitated to keep bus service along State Road A1A.
“She was the hippie of the neighborhood,” recalls her longtime friend and neighbor, Jolyn Slebodnik. “My mother, my grandmother and my friend. She was a fighter for the underdog, and had an innocence about her that would let her write a letter to the president.”
A resident of the county pocket since the late 1960s, Mrs. Priest died Jan. 7 at Vitas Hospice after a long illness.
“The cause of death is she was 92 years old,” reports her daughter, Faith Priest, of Brookline, N.H. “She was done. We used to tease her that she had a great run — World War I, World War II and the Great Depression.”
Born April 1, 1917, in London, Nora “Noni” James emigrated to the U.S. through Ellis Island as a child.
In 1942, she married Elvin H. Priest, a musician, and the couple began vacationing in this area in the early 1950s, staying at motels until the late 1960s, when they bought their winter home at 11 Surf Road.
“In Boston, when I was growing up, she had us going door to door, campaigning for anybody who was for civil rights,” reflects her daughter. “She just embraced life and wanted to leave this a better place.”
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Priest is survived by her husband of 68 years; a son, Barry, of Bedford, Mass.; and two grandsons, Peter Nickerson and Jason Potteiger.
Donations in Mrs. Priest’s name may be made to the Prasad Project, 465 Brickman Road, Hurleyville, NY 12747, which provides eye and dental care in the U.S., India and Mexico; or to a local food pantry.
A memorial service will be held on Cape Cod in the spring.
Read more…
By Ron Hayes
DELRAY BEACH — He had a name that inspires awe, and accomplishments to match, but Godfrey Rockefeller wore both lightly.
“He was very much a gentlemen, with a wonderful reaching out to people from all stations of life,” says his daughter-in-law, Regina Rockefeller. “He treated everyone the same, whether the person parking a car or the president. He was respectful of everyone in life.”
The executive director of the World Wildlife Fund from 1972 to 1978 and a resident of Delray Beach since 1979, Mr. Rockefeller died unexpectedly Jan. 22 at the St. Andrew's Club. He was 85.
A graduate of Phillips Academy Andover and Yale College, Mr. Rockefeller served in the U.S. Marine Corps during both World War II and the Korean Conflict, then went on to serve as president and chairman of the Helicopter Association of America.
He was also president of Acosta Groves, a family citrus business in Mims.
In addition to his service as executive director, Mr. Rockefeller served as a World Wildlife board member from 1978 to 1985 and council member from 1984 to 1993.
He was president of both the Prouts Neck Country Club in Maine and the Hillsboro Club in Pompano Beach, but golf was not a passion.
“He wasn’t a golfer or a tennis player,” his daughter-in-law said, “but an avid reader and sailor.”
Once a year, however, Mr. Rockefeller played tennis, in a grudge match with three friends, each of whom had graduated from a different college or university.
“He used to joke that the match was won or lost the night before, depending on how much he could get his opponents to drink,” she recalled.
In November, Mr. Rockefeller attended the first wedding of a grandchild when Lisa Rockefeller married Edward Sebelius of Boston, Mass.
“We were very glad to have had that time together,” his daughter-in-law said.
Mr. Rockefeller’s wife of 53 years, Margaret Kuhn Rockefeller, died last year.
In addition to his daughter-in-law, he is survived by a sister, Marion R. Stone, of Greenwich, Conn.; his children, Godfrey A. Rockefeller Jr., of Lexington, Mass.; Judith S Rockefeller, of Cape Elizabeth, Maine; Caroline R. Spencer, of Willow Creek, Mont., and Parker B. Rockefeller of Annapolis, Md.; and 10 grandchildren.
A memorial service was held at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Delray Beach on Jan. 30.
The family asks that donations be made to the St. Paul’s South Florida Haiti Project, 188 S. Swinton Ave., Delray Beach, FL 33444, or the Living Classrooms Foundation, 802 S. Caroline St., Baltimore, MD 21231.
Read more…
By C.B. Hanif
It is a basic principle of people of faith that our Maker will judge all. So to suggest which was best among the prayers at a prayer program would be a fool’s errand. Better to report what touched this beneficiary of all the goodwill articulated during Delray Beach’s ninth annual Mayor’s Interfaith Prayer Breakfast.
Mayor Woodie McDuffie, in his introduction, showed again why his is a two-time All America City, with his call to what any individual can do: serve.
“Let’s make 2010 a great year and remember to ‘pay it forward’ — it will come back to you,” the mayor urged the audience of 200, hosted by the Greater Delray Beach Chamber of Commerce, at the Delray Beach Golf Club on Jan. 7.
“Sometimes, helping your community can be as simple as offering a smile, calling a neighborhood latchkey kid in the middle of the afternoon to make sure he’s doing OK or helping an older resident at the grocery store when an item is unreachable for them.”
A prayer for our military was all the more moving given that the minister who offered it, the Rev. Chip Stokes of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, was filling in for retired U.S. Army Col. William J. “Bill” Condry, absent because of illness.
Keynote speaker Trent Green, a former Miami Dolphin and a minister at Calvary Chapel in Fort Lauderdale, inspired with his personal story. He said the faith he had claimed never truly opened up for him until he gave it priority over all else, including the sport that had been his lifelong preoccupation.
In offering a prayer for our nation, the Rev. Dr. Waymon T. Dixon of St. Paul A.M.E. Church requested he be joined at the podium by fellow members of the Delray Beach Interfaith Clergy Association (in which I also participate). Flanking him, representing various Jewish, Christian and Muslim denominations, they demonstrated Delray’s — and our nation’s — rich religious, ethnic and gender diversity.
On that bright morning, Cornella Wilder’s reading from 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 also resonated. For example: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit”; “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good”; “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”
She later said she chose her verses because “they seemed to best speak to all.”
I suggest pulling out the Good Book and reading them again. Then, go forth and serve some more.
C.B. Hanif is a writer, editor and media and inter-religious affairs consultant. Find him at www.interfaith21.com.Read more…
Teresa Bayer, who went through the Wayside House in-house treatment program, gives back a lot of time and energy to the center. She loves the monthly alumni meetings, when women stand to tell their emotional stories of recovery and sobriety. Bayer has been sober since September 2007. Photo by Jerry Lower
By Emily J. Minor
There’s a saying among the women who’ve been to Wayside House: God lives in these walls.
And Teresa Bayer believes that, with every fiber of her heart.
Broken and drunk, lost and waiting to be found, Bayer, 50, went through the Wayside House in-house treatment center in 2007 after the deaths of her mother and then her husband. Today, she is one of the thousands of graduates from this collection of homes and offices on Northeast Sixth Avenue in Delray Beach who continue to return and give back.
The treatment center — there are inpatient and outpatient programs — was started in 1974 by Susan B. Anthony, the great niece of the women’s rights advocate. Jill Reece, the center’s executive director, came here to direct the center about five years ago. A licensed therapist and herself a recovering alcoholic, she remembers walking into the complex for the first time.
“There is just a feeling in that house,” she says now.
Pretty and comfortable with room for 23 resident women, women see counselors here, attend AA meetings and get job training.
But perhaps, most of all, it’s the friendships with other women — Wayside takes no men —that helps to heal these addicts and alcoholics.
Women arrive at Wayside’s in the worst of shape. They come from jail and prison or from their sleeping spot under a bridge. Many have lost their homes, their jobs, their savings, and their children. The center, which generally has a waiting list for its residential program, spends a lot of energy trying for healthy reunions between recovering mothers and their families, especially kids. “That’s really important to us,” Reece said.
Bayer was no different. A professional woman who’s always worked high-end jobs — she once worked on Wall Street and did quite well — Bayer was swigging vodka from a water bottle, nipping even once she started going to AA meetings, lying to everyone.
Then she got a bed at Wayside.
“The unspoken power inside that house just knocked me off my feet,” she said.
Bayer goes back often — recently for the center’s monthly alumni meeting when former Wayside residents stand to tell their often tearful stories of recovery and sobriety.
Wayside is a nonprofit adventure with an annual budget of about $1.5 million. It gets its money from the Department of Children and Families, Palm Beach County and grants and donations raised through the board. In early March, it will have its annual trunk show at the Colony Hotel in Delray Beach.
Supporters come by often to see the results of their fundraising, and they always leave inspired.
“I knew from the moment I walked into that house that everything was going to be OK,” said Bayer, who has not had a drink since Sept. 25, 2007. “And I have not been proven wrong.”
If you go:
Trunk Show to benefit Wayside House Inc.
March 9-11
10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Colony Hotel, 525 E. Atlantic Ave., Delray Beach.
Vendors and artists from across the country will sell everything from crafts and jewelry to baby food and portraits.
Preview Cocktail Party, 6-8 p.m. March 8, Colony Hotel. Tickets $50.
Read more…
By Mary Thurwachter
Despite a sluggish economy, 2009 brought some upscale and needed improvements to the barrier islands. From new seaside hotels, clubs, restaurants and pampering spas, to new roofs on town halls and an end to the roadwork on A1A, the past year came with plenty of welcome change:
The Delray Beach Club completed a $5 million renovation … and won a Site Plan Review and Appearance Board award from the city for new commercial development and signage. The overhaul broke ground in early 2007 and was completed last June. The renovation includes a new poolside tiki bar and kitchen, a new Grille Room and wrap around oceanside terrace. The main clubhouse was completely redecorated, including the men’s and ladies’ locker rooms and a new fitness center.
The bridge tender’s house got a major spruce up at the Linton Bridge in Delray. Some said the bridge tender’s house looked like a prison guard tower, but that’s no longer the case. After a $229,000 remodel — completed in April and paid for by the city of Delray and the county — the bridge tender’s new digs has a Key West look, with a new metal roof and hurricane-resistant windows and doors.
Sandoway House Nature Center named a new executive director. Say hello to Chris Koch, the guy in charge of day-to-day operations at Sandoway since mid-September. If you’re a regular at the South Florida Science Museum or the Palm Beach Zoo, you may already know him because he worked at those places previously. He’s a graduate of Palm Beach Atlantic University.
A pair of luxury beach hotels debuted. The Omphoy, a 134-room boutique beach resort built from the bones of the old Hilton Hotel, opened in August. A sleek and contemporary hotel with an Asian feel, the Omphoy arrived with a Michelle Bernstein restaurant and New York-based Exhale Spa.
The Seagate Hotel, a 162-room seaside hotel in Delray, began welcoming guests in November. The British Colonial-style hotel is set in the same spot previously occupied by a private beach club, which had been around since 1932. A street-level spa features a Bikram Yoga studio and chef Adam Gottlieb, formerly of the Palm Beach Yacht Club, presides over the cuisine at the Atlantic Grille.
Surf Sliders restaurant opened on Atlantic Avenue in December, with a surfing theme, at the corner of Atlantic and A1A, just north of Boston’s. (See Thom Smith’s Along the Avenues.)
Delray completed a major reclaimed-water project. The effort delivers reused water for irrigation to the east side of the Intracoastal Waterway, from Atlantic Avenue north to Beach Drive.
Two fourth-grade classrooms were remodeled at Gulf Stream School. And a new classroom was added by remodeling storage space. The $140,000 project was done during the summer break, when hurricane windows were added and more energy-efficient air conditioners were installed. The school used green designs and eco-friendly materials, like all-natural bulletin boards and non-toxic paints with no volatile organic compounds. Electronics and furniture no longer needed were donated to charities and new desks were made of fortified recycled wood. Florida plants were used in landscaping and teachers are using LCD projectors to show documents on white boards in order to reduce paper consumption.
Gulf Stream’s Town Hall got a new roof. The barrel tile roof was a $36,400 job, but the work didn’t end there. The town also installed impact windows and doors at a cost of $60,700, and made stucco repairs to Town Hall and the police station for $36,400.
Manalapan’s Town Hall also has a new tile roof. It was a $40,000 project.
The Coastal Star office opened at 5011 N. Ocean Blvd., Ocean Ridge, in September. It’s in the shop previously occupied by Garment Care International dry cleaners.
Vin’s Gulfstream Texaco & Food Mart at 5002 N. Ocean Blvd., near Briny Breezes, did a major renovation in July. They installed a 16,000 gallon gas tank, put in new plumbing and electrical and gave the station a fresh coat of paint. The project cost $200,000.
A new sand transfer plant was built at the Boynton Inlet. It’s been 42 years since the last plant was replaced, so it was time! The transfer plant, jetties and the sea wall around Bird Island were reconstructed in a $7 million project extended through November. The plant redistributes sand that shifts because of the inlet.
There’s a new breakwater going in off Ocean Ridge. (See: Family names spot for Manalapan diver.)
In Ocean Ridge, Florida Power and Light did a major power pole replacement over the summer that had traffic tied up. Concrete poles replaced wooden ones from River Drive south to Harbour Drive. The new, hardened poles will stand up to hurricanes better, town officials say.
The Department of Transportation wrapped up its work on A1A from Manalapan south to the Boynton Inlet. The 3-mile stretch on State Road A1A south of The Ritz-Carlton was completed early in the year and was part of an overall $10.4 million project to repave roadway and improve drainage, landscaping, signs and lighting.
Two five-star resorts launched snazzy new spas. First, The Four Seasons unveiled its 11,000-square-foot spa, designed by Canadian interior designer and Palm Beach resident Brian Gluckstein. It has 12 treatment rooms, multiple relaxation areas, private wet areas with rejuvenating whirlpools and steam rooms and men’s salon where nail and hair services and hot shaves are offered. In March, The Ritz-Carlton Palm Beach opened its 42,000-square-foot Eau Spa, with an emphasis on sensory experiences with touches of wet and whimsy and blended with baroque designs and modern accents. Any of the spa’s 19 villas can be customized to suit the tastes of customers. Color therapy through LED lighting defines wall colors with shades outlined by ancient cultures that evoke specific moods.
The Courtyard Café & Grille opened in Plaza del Mar. This breakfast and lunch eatery opened in March after a total renovation. It’s located at 244 S, Ocean Blvd., where Café del Mar used to be, and open for breakfast and lunch.
The William O. Lockhart Municipal Pier at Lake Worth Beach reopened in May. Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne in 2004 tore the 960-foot fishing pier, but it’s back in business now. The eastern portion of the pier was built 5 feet higher than the old one to reduce the risk of wave damage caused by future storms. Lake Worth persuaded the Federal Emergency Management Agency to cover the $1 million additional cost to elevate the pier. FEMA paid 90 percent of the $3.4 million reconstruction cost, while the state and the city paid 5 percent each. The original bridge was constructed in 1959.
Palm Beach’s Par 3 Golf Course re-opened after a $4.5 million facelift. The 50-year-old club course, with 39 acres and 18 holes, re-opened in December following an eight-month renovation, with a new irrigation system and salt-tolerant greens requiring less watering.
Read more…
By Tim O’Meilia
Just over the dune at the Imperial House is a bungalow where industrialist, movie maker and aviator Howard Hughes once lived, or so the story goes.
Long-time residents of the six-story co-operative have heard the tales and spin the yarns themselves. “We’d hear stories of how Howard Hughes would bring movie stars in here and sneak them out,” said Phyllis Williams, whose family has owned an apartment for more than 30 years.
“Probably the last one was Piper Laurie,” old-time resident Helen Decora said of the popular actress of the ’50s. “This was his getaway where no one could find him. There were no buildings here.”
She heard the stories at the bar at the old Hawaiian Inn, where townsfolk would gather and swap stories in the town’s early days.
Whether Hughes actually lived there or not, the two-story beach house pre-dates the 58-unit Imperial House itself, back to a time when the beach was 100 feet wide and the bungalow, a few feet north of Lantana’s public beach, was the only building in sight.
Now, residents of the building are scrambling for a way to save Imperial House from a slowly encroaching ocean. A planned $500,000 seawall is stalled because of a financial dispute with the town of Lantana over how to get construction equipment onto the beach.
But in the 1950s, the ocean wasn’t the problem. The ocean was the answer for a pair of Finnish brothers who built the town’s first three multi-family buildings, all with ocean-to-Intracoastal Waterway views.
The Imperial House was the third built by Ames and Anton Aksila and designed by well-known local architect Frank Masiello. The H-shaped co-op (there were no condominiums then) opened in 1961, according to old documents and newspaper clippings gathered by 33-year resident Bonnie Fischer, including a town history written by the late town historian and Imperial House resident Marjorie Hamilton.
The apartments — ranging from $14,900 for a one-bedroom, one-bath to $34,480 for a top floor ocean view — sold quickly to retirees from the northeast and sun-seekers from Canada.
The co-op was built around the fabled Hughes bungalow and had a pool. A long deck that served as a gathering spot for apartment dwellers was washed away in the early 1990s. A rebuilt deck did not survive Hurricane Jeanne in 2004.
Phyllis Williams’ father, owner of a GM car dealership near Toronto, discovered the Imperial House in the mid-’60s. “He came for a holiday and traveled around. Someone told him of this little town and he fell in love with it, coming from Canada and all that snow,” said Williams, 73.
Bonnie Fischer’s family arrived from Connecticut in the late ’70s. Barbara DeLuca’s family came from New Jersey. She lives in the Howard Hughes guest house on the first floor, the one with the pecky cypress walls. “You ought to charge admission,” teased Helen Decora.
Through the decades, Imperial House residents nurtured its community feeling. Newcomers were greeted with chocolate-covered strawberries. People left notes on neighbors’ doors. Decora encouraged visiting children to add their own drawings to the nautical mural on the sixth-floor wall.
“We knew everyone. Everyone knew us. It’s always had a quaint, country feeling,” Williams said.
Times have changed. Assessments for new windows, structural repairs, painting and the proposed seawall have made the aging building expensive for some owners. As a result, more units are rentals now. Far fewer than half of the apartments are occupied only a few days before Christmas. The seawall dispute has created an uncertain future.
Still, the old-timers revel in their camaraderie. A poster near the mailboxes invited residents to a Dec. 22 sing-along. More than a dozen attended — age 10 to 80-plus — to sing Christmas carols along with a pair of guitarists.
Did Howard Hughes have a secret hideaway in South Palm Beach in the late ’40s? Whether he did or not, it’s a good story. One thing is true. In the ’50s, the bungalow was owned by the sister of Judge Charles E. Chillingworth.
The judge and his wife, you perhaps know, were kidnapped in 1955, weighted down and dropped overboard into the Atlantic Ocean not far from Imperial House.
But that’s a story for another day.
Read more…
By Ron Hayes
To Gyora Novak, there’s no place like dome.
In January 1968, the self-described “artist, designer, innovator, poet, writer, humanist” erected three geodesic domes at 1860 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan, and lived in them for the next 10 years.
At the time, the county property appraiser valued Novak’s dome homes at $60,000.
Now they’re for sale again.
Asking price, $10.5 million.
Of course, that includes the 200 feet of oceanfront property, the 200 feet of lakefront property and the 2.5 acres in between. But swimming pools, docks and lush tropical acreage are not rare in Manalapan. Dome homes are.
Say “geodesic dome” today, and people respond in one of two ways:
They say, “Ah...what?” Or they say, “Ah, Buckminster Fuller!”
That’s Richard Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) — “Bucky” to his friends and acolytes. A Harvard student expelled for “irresponsibility and lack of interest.”
A college professor who never graduated from college.
A visionary who coined the term “synergetics.”
A philosopher who announced, “I seem to be a verb.” An occasional visitor to Palm Beach.
And the father of the geodesic dome.
As Novak was moving into his triple-dome home in Manalapan, Fuller was approaching the eighth birthday of his own dome house, erected April 20, 1960, at 407 S. Forest Ave., in Carbondale, Ill.
Fuller's home is still standing, more or less, and Cornelius Crane wants to keep it there.
Corny Crane is a founding board member of RBF Domes NFP, a not-for-profit organization founded to preserve Fuller’s original dome home and win it national historic status.
“There’s two aspects to geodesic homes,” Crane says. “They won’t fall down in an earthquake, because they’re not based on balanced beams, and they’re safe in a hurricane, because the wind blows around them.”
Fuller dubbed the phenomenon “tensegrity” — the ability to yield increasingly without ultimately breaking.
His home was constructed by a company called Pease Woodworking of Hamilton, Ohio, then assembled on the lot. Not long after, Pease was sold and re-established in Plattsburg, N.Y., as the Geodesic Dome Manufacturing Co., where Don Bedore built Gyora Novak’s domes.
“We dealt very heavily with the hippie crowd, you might say,” remembers Bedore, the company’s president. “We sold a lot in Vermont. Not to communes, but close to it.”
Like Fuller’s home, the Manalapan domes are 39 feet in diameter and 16 feet high. They're assembled from 60 triangles of Douglas fir, each panel numbered, bolted together, then covered by a reinforced concrete exterior.
“My crew can put a dome up in a day,” Bedore says.
In other words, the futuristic geodesic dome is, at heart, a form of manufactured housing. But that’s not what made them so hip in the 1960s and ’70s.
Geodesic domes had a spiritual dimension.
“Throughout the globe, we have endless domes at the top of important spiritual places,” Novak points out. “Go to the Vatican, synagogues, mosques. It doesn’t matter what religion or culture or historical period. That same sensation of spiritual experience exists when you live in a smaller dome.
“I had people who came to the dome who were sick and were miraculously healed,” he says. “It’s an amazing experience for anybody.”
In time, however, the future caught up with the home of the future.
“They had a phase,” says Bedore, “but they were always in and out as far as popularity. After a while we were only doing 25 or 30 a year, so we got out in 1997.”
Bedore is 77 now and semi-retired. He still has the equipment to build dome homes, but doesn’t advertise.
In 1978, Novak sold his Manalapan dome homes to Stephen and Jeanette Cohen, who have owned it ever since. They declined to speak about the property. However, Realtor Elaine Edwards of Brown Harris Stevens of Palm Beach is quick to emphasize the domes’ unique character.
“I hope someone will recognize that it’s special, and not just tear them down for the land,” she says. “Our goal is to find someone who would preserve the house.”
After selling his Manalapan property in 1978, Gyora Novak moved to England and returned in 1997.
He is 76 now, and lives with his wife on a mountain outside Franklin, N.C. — in two geodesic domes.
Happy New Year!
In 2010 I resolve to lose weight, get my finances in order, paint the bedrooms, clean the garage and stay in touch with all my friends and family who aren’t on Facebook. Oh, and do my best to edit a newspaper that informs, entertains and provides our readers with the news overview needed to make informed decisions about the future of our coastal communities.
If you’ve driven past our office on nights and weekends, you know we are committed to this effort and spend a lot of hours putting out this publication. So many hours, in fact, that my list of resolutions looks an awful lot like the same list I had for 2009!
Still, I’ve been struck this year by how many of our readers and advertisers do find the time to make things happen: sometimes with grand gestures, sometimes with tiny efforts and most commonly by committing a significant amount of their personal time to making a difference in their community.
These efforts remind me of the legend of the starfish — the story of how a boy walking along the shore one morning is focused on gently tossing beached starfish back into the ocean when a man stops and chides him for thinking he is doing any good, since there are thousands and thousands of starfish on the shore and he could never reach and save them all.
The boy responds by picking up another starfish, and placing it gently into the sea. He smiles, turns to the man and says, “Oh, I don’t know about that. I made a difference for that one.”
So as we all make our new year’s resolutions, let’s plan to sift through myriad daily time demands and find one small thing we can accomplish. Maybe we can’t save the world in 2010 — or clean the garage, or lose weight, or paint the bedrooms — but if we ignore the chiding of the naysayers, maybe, like the boy on the beach, we can find satisfaction in each little difference we make.
— Mary Kate Leming, editorRead more…
By C.B. Hanif
“The triumvirate,” is how an admiring colleague described them.
“They all work together so much that as far as the Women’s Circle is concerned, they’re kind of inseparable,” said fellow volunteer Mary Crawley.
That would be the Women’s Circle, whose Circle of Hope dinner gala fundraiser, Feb. 8 at Benvenuto in Boynton Beach, will profit from the toil of many volunteers, not the least its co-hosting trio of Eileen Augustyn, Helen Babione and Peggy Martin.
The nonprofit organization provides educational and employment tools that let South County women break their cycle of poverty and help their families.
Board member and fundraiser Augustyn, of Gulf Stream, “puts a lot of hours into this,” said Crawley. “She’s always on the phone and doing a lot of face work. I don’t know how she has any free time to do any fun stuff.”
Though heavily invested in the Women’s Circle, Augustyn also has been a stalwart for the Bethesda Hospital Foundation and other efforts. She served as a trustee during the not-for-profit hospital’s recent $100 million fundraising drive. The founder of the foundation’s Magnolia Society contributes countless hours each year for the Women of Grace committee. In October, in recognition of her work, she was named one of Bethesda’s Women of Grace. Augustyn also worked closely with Caridad Ascensio in the 1990s as a board member in developing the Caridad Center health clinic for migrant farm workers and their families. Her volunteerism dates even beyond her 1980s public service in Illinois. “It was my parents, who by example, taught me the importance of giving voluntarily, sharing my time to help people,” Augustyn said.
Her gala co-chairs’ service is similar.
It was Babione, of Boca Raton, who introduced Augustyn to the Women’s Circle.
Martin, of Delray Dunes in Boynton, has worked with Augustyn on Caridad and Women of Grace, and for several years has co-chaired the circle’s fundraising event. That’s significant because the Women’s Circle, founded in 1999 and co-coordinated by Sisters Joan Carusillo and Lorraine Ryan, is solely dependant on grants and donations. In September, with a $100,000 interest-free loan from the Boynton Beach CRA, it purchased a duplex that doubles the size of the current cramped space it shares. The duplex next needs renovation into offices and classrooms. Enter the volunteering triumvirate. “I am always learning something new that enriches my life,” said Augustyn. “And you meet the nicest people!”
Eileen Augustyn, Helen Babione and Peggy Martin were nominated to be Coastal Stars by a fellow volunteer, Mary Crawley.
For more information on the Circle of Hope fundraiser, contact 272-3965 or lcrcjam@aol.com.Read more…
By Kelly Wolfe
In a case that could have implications for shorelines around the country, the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in December about whether homeowners in Florida must be compensated when beach-widening projects make private beaches public.
Six homeowners living on the Gulf of Mexico in Fort Walton Beach have challenged a Florida Supreme Court decision that said a private beach became public after a beach re-nourishment project. The state Supreme Court said in a 5-2 ruling that the beach is an evolving, “dynamic boundary,” that is always changing because of storms and erosion. It ruled Florida law "attempts to bring order and certainty to this dynamic boundary" by balancing public and private interests.
But landowners called the state decision a de-facto taking. The owners say their deeds entitle them to all land up to the mean high water line, including the additional 80 to 100 feet of beach the state added. They said they paid a lot of money for beachfront property and they don’t want to look out and see a bunch of wet bathing suits and colorful umbrellas.
The Constitution requires governments to pay compensation when they take private property for public use. Beach advocates said a ruling in favor of the landowners would undermine the state’s ability to protect natural resources. Beach renourishment happens on every shoreline in the state. Over time, about 198 miles of Florida's 825 miles of beaches have been restored.
D. Kent Safriet, an attorney for the homeowners from Tallahassee, did not answer a request for comment. Ericka D’Avanzo, local representative of the Surfrider Foundation, said she doesn’t expect the court to rule until June or July of 2010. She said it appeared in court Dec. 2 that the justices were divided.
Liberal justices seemed unconvinced the state’s Supreme Court ruling departed from precedent, according to The Wall Street Journal and other publications covering the hearing.
Justice Antonin Scalia said people pay a lot of money for beachfront property, but that the homeowners received a good deal when the sand was replaced.
But conservative justices seemed more inclined to let property owners raise a de-facto taking claim, according to published reports.
Justice John Paul Stevens was absent from the bench, suggesting he had recused himself from the case because he owns beachfront property in Broward County. Erosion threatens nearly 59 percent of Florida's 825 miles of sandy beaches, according to the Department of Environmental Protection. Under a 1961 law, the state dredges sand from one area and dumps it on another, expanding the width of a threatened beach.
Read more…
By Thom Smith
After producing cutting-edge theater in Manalapan’s Plaza del Mar for nearly 20 years, Florida Stage is cutting out, heading to a new home at the Kravis Center. The move, announced in November, won’t be made until July, but tickets for the summer musical go on sale in January.
While it’s a blow to Plaza del Mar, which lost its anchor Epicurean gourmet market last spring, it was not a bolt from the blue.
For years, Producing Director Lou Tyrrell had looked for an opportunity to move to a more central location that would enlarge his subscriber base. Until recently he thought it might be Palm Beach. The Sterling Organization had big plans to tear down the Royal Poinciana Playhouse in the Royal Poinciana Plaza and replace it with condos and a new, 350-seat theater. Florida Stage would call it home and the Kravis Center would provide the management. Community opposition and the economic downturn thwarted that plan.
However, Tyrrell and Kravis Center CEO Judy Mitchell continued to talk. With a little tweaking, they realized the Kravis’ own Rinker Playhouse would work. The deal was cut, and local architect Young Song designed the new space that will include a three-quarter thrust stage.
“We’ll be increasing revenue and cutting expenses, while improving production values and the audience experience,” Tyrrell said, noting his company will save $250,000 a year in rent and utilities. “When you combine the reconfiguration of the Rinker with two-story sets, improved lighting, special effects, plus the location in the middle of the community, it really was a no-brainer.”
Times are tough, and nonprofits across the board are looking for new models to increase audience and minimize costs. Tyrrell couldn’t look back.
“How much will we lose?” asks Tyrrell, whose been winning over fans since he first appeared in The Elephant Man at Boca Raton’s Caldwell Theatre in 1981 and first staged shows at the Norton Museum in 1986. “Virtually everyone in our audience already goes to the Kravis Center. Plus you’re looking at tens of thousands of people who could be added to our audience base.
As for Plaza del Mar, Tyrrell believes it will find a new tenant. Someone recently looked at the space for a possible jazz club, he said.
“Sure I’ll miss it,” he said. “When I drive up and see an audience in the lobby and think of the almost 20 years we’ve served here, I get nostalgic, but I’m a person who looks forward.
“When I think of the people who will find us now, who’ll discover us, it’s so exciting.”
Time marches on at Clay Glass Metal Stone Gallery in Lake Worth. More and more customers are finding their way to the nonprofit co-op at 605 Lake Ave. that features the work of 28 artists, whose creations range from ceramic goblets to phallic bronze doorknockers to fused glass to stonework.
Among the artists to be featured in January is sculptor Mary Ellen Dohrs. An octogenarian, she nevertheless still exudes the exuberance of youth in her meticulously detailed work, ranging from dramatic action among basketball players and sumo wrestlers to whimsical “smiling” snails. She’s also Miss October in the gallery’s first “Artists Uncovered” calendar.
Inspired by the legendary English gambit that led to a movie, the gallery’s brain trust decided to give the gallery and its artists a boost by posing them with their art, au naturel.
Tastefully, of course. Cover girl Sara Lerner, for example, sits serenely on the gallery floor, surrounded by her stone sphere sculptures, her dark tresses cascading over her shoulders, her arms wrapped around her drawn-up knees. Durga Garcia, curator of exhibitions at the Palm Beach Photographic Center and a crack shot with a camera or a gun (She was a member of the U.S. International Pistol Team), took the photos.
Incidentally, not all the artists are women. Well-known centaur Norm Gitzen also makes an appearance and husband and wife Kelly and Linda Manganaro are the February lovebirds. Half of the 1,000 original edition already have been sold, the gallery’s Joyce Brown said. Price: $19.95.
Jim Taube has been through this before — 17 times in Palm Beach County — but this is the first time he’s tried it in Delray Beach. “It’s still exciting, but I’m always a bit concerned when I open a new one,” he said as he looked around Surf Sliders, his new restaurant at the corner of A1A and Atlantic Avenue in the site formerly occupied by Shore.
Actually, Taube, a Palm Beach countian for 38 years, needn’t have worried. His opening on Dec. 15 was actually a little ahead of schedule, and it fits nicely with his other nautical eateries — Key Grill in Juno and Boca Raton, Bimini Twist in West Palm Beach, Coola Fish Bar in Palm Beach Gardens and the longstanding Jetty’s at Jupiter Inlet.
Surf Sliders, by the way, has nothing to do with baby burgers. “Sliders,” Taube said, “are anything that slides in the ocean — fish, surfers …”
Mind you, burgers are on the menu — topped with ’shrooms, guac, bleu cheese ($9.95) — but the menu is classic American bistro, offering sandwiches and entrees of fresh fish, chicken, filet mignon and imaginative salads including sweet-potato-crusted fresh fish over mixed greens and scallions and mango remoulade topped with the house vinaigrette ($14.95).
With a bar out front by the sidewalk, Sliders will get its share of beachgoers, who’ll feel right at home. Woven bamboo board covers the ceiling beams, ferns hang from stained wood baskets, surfboards hover here and lean there, and two giant marlin keep watch from the south wall. A distinctive aroma permeates the room, possibly the wormy chestnut, Taube says.
In an earlier day, folks used to gather around a cracker barrel or a toasty stove to share news and gossip. Packaging has replaced the barrels and, except for a few days each year, stoves aren’t needed in South Florida. But people still like to chat and that old convivial mood abounds at 259 NE Second Ave. in Delray Beach’s Pineapple Grove. You’ll also find some good buys and people who want to help, which is why Gulf Stream resident Caron Dockerty wrangled the space in a building owned by husband Bob to start Treasures 4 Charity.
Dockerty and her friend Brooke Qualk saw the space’s potential as a boutique where donated goods and clothing could be sold at thrift store prices to raise money for local charities. It started with a few friends, but word quickly spread and now Treasures 4 Charity is a community force.
“On opening night we sold half our merchandise,” Dockerty said of the planned two-month run, “but then the next few days were a bit slow. We thought, ‘Oh, well, it was a good idea … But then momentum started to build. More and more people started to bring in donations and more and more people offered to volunteer. We went from being open three days a week to five, from helping four charities to 14.”
The volunteer list has grown to 24 who staff the boutique from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 10 to 2 on Saturday.
“Everyone is having a blast working here,” Caron said. “We have become a community gathering place.”
As honorees assembled on stage at the Kravis Center's Cohen Pavilion Dec. 10, Anne Bright’s cell phone rang. The caller: her husband and lifelong prankster Reeve Bright. Anne brushed it off with typical aplomb, but she took quite seriously her inclusion among 33 women honored by the South Florida Chapter of the Lupus Foundation of America at its inaugural Best and Brightest luncheon.
Bright was recognized for her work with Lupus and with the Achievement Center for Family and Children in Delray.
Also honored was Lula Butler, Delray’s director of community improvement, who coordinated the city’s successful All-America City campaigns in 1993 and 2001 and co-founded the Delray Beach Youth Council.
Finally, some action at Las Ventanas, the much-anticipated residential/commercial complex at the corner of Woolbright Road and Federal Highway. First in: Butterfly, a Chinese restaurant, and it’s already seeking votes in the national Top 100 Chinese Restaurants in the USA competition. Tsunami Subs & Wraps is next, and a construction supervisor said an Italian restaurant will soon be ready, adding that 40 percent of the retail space is under contract.
Thom Smith is a freelance writer. He can be reached at thomsmith@ymail.comRead more…
Former part-time Manalapan resident Tom Petters was found guilty Dec. 2 of masterminding a $3.5 billion Ponzi scheme.
Jurors in St. Paul, Minn. found the Minnesota businessman guilty on 20 counts including wire fraud, mail fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.
According to the government, Petters attracted massive investments from hedge funds and other institutions, ostensibly to buy consumer electronic goods and re-sell them to national big-box stores like Wal-Mart and Costco. But there was actually little or no merchandise and the operation consisted mostly of faking documents and keeping the cash.
“The verdict speaks clear,” one of three federal prosecutors on the case told the media following the verdict. “The Petters Company was a fraud and the company was Mr. Petters’ company.”
In July, a court-appointed receiver sold Petters’ Manalapan home for $9.5 million.
Petters faces up to life in prison. His attorneys say they plan to appeal.
— Mary Kate LemingRead more…
