New limits could prevent large homes like this one, which looms over its neighbor’s pool and patio. Photo provided

By Anne Geggis

New home construction east of the Intracoastal Waterway in Delray Beach will face new limitations for how much square footage can be built based on lot size — and more regulations may be on the way.

The City Commission unanimously approved new rules March 5 in response to resident complaints about a new style of home emerging on the barrier island. Residents criticized the oversized, office-like structures springing up as home sales lead to tear-downs, with the much bigger replacements looming over older homes in neighborhoods.

“We moved here because of the charm and character of Delray Beach, the Village by the Sea,” said Bob Schneider, one of the coastal residents who appeared before the commission. “We didn’t want to move into an office area.”

The new adopted rule means, for example, that a lot of 10,000 square feet could have a maximum of 6,500 square feet built on it — a cut of 45% from the previous 12,000-square-foot maximum that could have been built under air conditioning on the same lot.

Members of the Beach Property Owners Association said the guidelines are the result of working with the city’s planning department for three years. Some of them spoke and showed examples of homes that don’t exactly fit in.

“The bulk of this structure just looms large, as you can see, over the privacy of the neighbor’s rear terrace,” said Ned Wehler, flashing a photo that one might think showed the large building’s pool.

These homes, he said, are overgrown.

“One might ask, what is the harm?” Wehler continued. “The harm is a profound loss of privacy and destruction of neighborhood charm. Neighbors lose their pride of ownership and their sense of community as their homes are dwarfed by three stories flush with vertical walls built right next door, 7½ feet away.”

Anthea Gianniotes, director of the city’s development services, said that the staff was concerned that the points system used as a guideline for home-building still allows enough leeway that straight walls could still go several stories high. Ideally, homes with more than one story would have second and third floors that step back from the first-floor base.

“They might just back the whole building up (from the property line) so you’re still getting that sheer wall which may not be as aesthetically pleasing to the eye,” she said.

To stop that, the city might propose another tweak to the design code, Gianniotes said.

Hal Stern, the BPOA president and a resident of Seasage Drive, said he was glad the commission acted: “It’s a good start.”

By Anne Geggis

After years of planning, the replacement of Delray Beach’s 72-year-old water treatment plant is officially underway with the City Commission authorizing $15 million for its first construction phase.

At the plant’s age, it is no longer able to break down synthetic chemical compounds, although the water it produces does meet state and federal drinking water guidelines, said Hassan Hadjimiry, the city’s utilities director.

The replacement, like the existing one, will filter water through a membrane that separates contaminants from the final product. The new one is being designed to better filter out PFAs in the water, better known as “forever chemicals” that don’t naturally break down and can build up in the blood over time.  

Suzanne Mechler, client service leader with CDM Smith, the city’s contractor for the first phase of the project, said that if all goes well — and the company gets awarded the bid for the entire project — construction would begin in the summer of 2025 and be completed in 2027.

Built into the timing: qualifying for Florida’s State Revolving Fund grant program. The estimated total cost of the project has ballooned in recent years from $60 million to upwards of $120 million, so the city is looking for some help.

“That design is important because there’s also an SRF grant that’s out there that we want to help support and get that timing so that you guys are available for the next grant cycle,” Mechler said.

Challenges will include buffering the adjoining neighborhood to the plant — at 200 SW Sixth St. — from the construction, and building a new plant while the old one operates on the same site, Mechler said.

The unanimous motion to approve the contract marked a milestone for Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who won the mayor’s seat just as the condition of the city’s water came under increasing scrutiny, she said.  The March 5 meeting at which the commission signed off on the deal was her last official one presiding on the dais.

She recalled a tour of the water plant where she saw key parts that looked like relics from the 1950s.

“It’s unbelievable that that’s what is operating this whole plant of ours,” Petrolia said. “It’s just amazing. … We have not done anything really to update that in decades. And it is well past time.”

Split vote — The newly reconstituted Delray Beach City Commission had its first 3-2 split, which came at the March 28 organizational meeting when its three new members were sworn into office.

The new members — Mayor Tom Carney and Commissioners Juli Casale and Tom Markert — voted for Casale to be vice mayor, while Commissioners Rob Long and Angela Burns picked Burns. 

The rest of the voting was unanimous for commission positions. Long was elected to continue as deputy vice mayor, Carney was elected chairman of the Community Redevelopment Agency, and Burns was elected to continue as vice chairwoman of the CRA and as the city’s delegate to the Palm Beach County League of Cities.

Turmoil at the DDA — The Palm Beach County Ethics Commission has reprimanded a member of the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority after finding Richard Burgess lied his way onto the DDA board.

And the newly seated City Commission unanimously agreed at its organizational meeting March 28 to have a hearing April 16 on whether to remove him as a result.

Burgess agreed to accept a reprimand for misrepresenting his business address as being within the DDA’s “tax qualified” borders when applying for the position last year, a move that the Ethics Commission said greatly improved his chance of being selected.

On the board, Burgess was one of two members — both appointed last June — who gave DDA Executive Director Laura Simon failing marks on city evaluation forms for her role as a downtown liaison and as a budget manager. But Simon’s evaluation at a March 11 meeting was postponed after some questioned if Burgess should be allowed to remain on the board — and Simon received an outpouring of support from downtown merchants amid rumors she might be fired.

The board agreed to have workshops regarding Simon’s performance.

Duplexes approved in historic district — A plan to put five two-story duplexes on Southeast First Avenue, in the southeast corner of the Old School Square Historic Arts District, won City Commission approval March 5 even though the project came with a thumbs down from the Historic Preservation Board.

Critics pointed to how the proposed Downtown Delray Villas needed 25 waivers and variances from the development rules for the district, including height limits and street frontage requirements. But the project was supported by neighbors who told commissioners it would be an improvement from the blighted properties there now.

The commission voted 3-2 in favor of the project, with Mayor Shelly Petrolia and Commissioner Angela Burns dissenting.

— Anne Geggis

By Steve Plunkett

An ad hoc committee of planning board members and interested citizens is busy looking for ways to make sure the mass of a new home doesn’t overshadow its neighbors.

“We have been tiptoeing around the massing issue for the last 10 years,” Mayor Scott Morgan said as the Town Commission prepared to authorize creating the panel on March 8.

Chaired by Architectural Review and Planning Board member and former Town Commissioner Paul Lyons Jr., the ad hoc committee met for the first time on March 28. Other members are ARPB members Malcolm Murphy and Thom Smith (another former town commissioner) and Core district residents Gary Cantor, Michael Glennon and Bill Koch.

Morgan said people tearing down a single-story home in the Core area and then replacing it with a two-story residence is making that neighborhood the one “most in threat of being changed” despite the town’s Design Manual having been created to preserve Gulf Stream’s original mid-20th-century charm.

“As property values increase, the desire for large homes comes along with it,” he said.

Lyons told commissioners that it was important for the ad hoc panel to have a clear mission and said he had identified 10 sections of the town code that might need modifications.

“My understanding is to look at massing within the Core district, that would be our focus, and to come up with some approaches, ideas to try to maintain the current atmosphere we enjoy — on Polo Drive in particular and Gulfstream Drive, those two lanes that are critical to the Core district,” he said.

He said the panel will meet every other week to “pick the brains of others,” including architects and city planners, and look at places such as Southampton, New York, where he has a summer home. That village, he said, “has developed some rules, codes, policies as relate to these kinds of issues in a similar kind of core district.”

Lyons said the panel would work hard to get residents to come to its meetings, “so it’s not just the ad hoc committee, but it’s the public, and we then make a recommendation to the commission.”

He also referred to the town’s coming centennial in 2025.

“You know we’re approaching 100 years,” he said. “Now we need to have a plan on how we want to see the town evolve” over the next 100 years.

Lyons also said the ad hoc committee would want to create incentives to discourage massing.

“Rather than be punitive — you can’t do this — (let’s say) this is what you can do. So, we’re gonna try to give it a positive environment for people to operate in,” he said.

Mark Zarrilli, a financial adviser and sales associate with Coldwell Banker Realty in Boca Raton, relaxes at his condo in Highland Beach with a copy of his book. Zarrilli serves on Highland Beach’s Financial Advisory Board. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Mark Zarrilli’s final commute from Manhattan to Weehawken, New Jersey, after he spent 33 years on Wall Street came not in a car, boat, train or even a plane.

It came instead on a stand-up paddleboard as Zarrilli spent an hour navigating choppy waters on his three-quarter-mile trip across the Hudson River.

“It was definitely a challenge,” said Zarrilli, 58, who took the unusual trip in 2019 and who now has a home in Highland Beach.

The crossing of the Hudson was perhaps a metaphor for Zarrilli’s lifestyle transformation, going from a situation steered by outside forces — which came as a result of a three-decade career selling fixed-income securities — to a jam-packed but less intense life with him at the helm.

“My life is fast on my terms,” Zarrilli said.

These days, it would not be surprising to find Zarrilli selling real estate in Florida, developing property in the Keys or managing a bar he owns along with his brothers in New Jersey.

In between, he has time to mentor young athletes on the power of investing and to serve on Highland Beach’s Financial Advisory Board.

He and his wife, Janice, make time to enjoy all that South Florida has to offer — from the sunny weather to all the activities on the water, including fishing and boating.

On top of that, he’s updating a book he wrote, Brick & Mortar, which he describes as “part memoir, life advice, career advice, and the places you go, the people you meet along the way.”

“I’m not just sitting around talking about what I did for 33 years,” he said. “I’m planning on having fun for the next 33 years.”

The title of Zarrilli’s book has a double meaning going back to his days of growing up in Brick Township, New Jersey, and working with his father, who was a mason.

A boxer in the local Police Athletic League when he was teenager, Zarrilli met friends in the gym who helped him get started in the financial industry.

“In 1986, I was mixing cement by hand, doing block, brick and concrete work,” he recalled. “Within a year, I was working at a primary dealer, selling fixed-income securities to some of the biggest portfolios in the world.”

Working in the financial industry, he said, was incredibly pressured and fast-paced.

“It was like being on a treadmill every day,” he said.

A father of two adult daughters, Zarrilli still spends lots of time at the gym staying in shape. That also enables him to meet young athletes, whom he has mentored on investing wisely and given ideas on becoming well-paid professionals.

“I like going to the gym and talking to these guys and educating people,” he said. “We’re helping them find the right investment.”

Looking back, Zarrilli said his decision to leave Wall Street — and to do it on a paddleboard — came at the right time and the right way.

“I ended it the way I wanted to end it,” he said.

— Rich Pollack

Q. Where did you grow up and go to school? How do you think that has influenced you?
A. I was born in Trenton, New Jersey, and grew up in Brick Township, a blue-collar town along the Jersey shore.

Q. What professions have you worked in? What professional accomplishments are you most proud of?
A. I worked as a bricklayer before going to Wall Street, where I worked as a fixed-income bond salesman. 
I am most proud of being gainfully employed for 33 years and of choosing how I would end my Wall Street career.

Q. What advice do you have for a young person selecting a career today? 
A. Be tenacious and have no sharp elbows — be nice. Do anything like you do everything.

Q. How did you choose to make your home in Highland Beach?
A. I was introduced to South Florida in the late 1980s during several visits for bond conferences.

Q. What is your favorite part about living in Highland Beach? 
A. The eternal summers and the slow pace of living. I enjoy the beach, boating, fishing, recreation and exploring local areas.

Q. What book are you reading now?
A. I read two books a month and just finished Jimmy Buffett: A Good Life All the Way. I started John Grisham’s The Exchange: After The Firm.

Q. What music do you listen to when you need inspiration? When you want to relax? 
A. I like all genres of music. I am a lifelong Springsteen fan and I like old and new country and 1980s classics. I consider relaxing time while at the gym or beach reading.

Q. Do you have a favorite quote that inspires your decisions? 
A. I have two: “You’re not here for a long time, so have a good time,” and “Fear minus death equals fun.”

Q. Have you had mentors in your life? Individuals who have inspired your life decisions?
A. My mom, who is eternally optimistic and sees the bright side of everything, is a great mentor and so is my dad, who taught me to work hard and play hard. Both instilled family first.

Q. If your life story were made into a movie, who would you want to play you?
A. Someone between John Wayne and Jerry Lewis.

By Ron Hayes

BRINY BREEZES — Ira Friedman of Briny Breezes died in his sleep March 23. He was 83.

How he spent most of those 83 years is more difficult to describe.

“He was the smartest person I ever met in my life,” said his wife, Joanne Friedman.

“He was an eccentric and an inventor,” said his stepdaughter, Jennifer Peri.

“He was a pain in the neck in a very good way,” said his longtime friend and neighbor, Mikee Rulli.

Mr. Friedman was a T-shirt designer who came up with a logo for his beloved Boston Red Sox that sold 50,000 shirts.

He was a member of the Briny Breezes Chiselers Club who crafted from wood a spectacularly detailed model of an airport baggage carousel, then used a power drill and gears to make the conveyor belt, all wood, travel in circles.

He was a puzzle maker who designed intricate games he dubbed Lockout, Slotto and Switchback.

He built a wooden replica of the Briny Breezes Oceanfront Clubhouse, accurate down to the smallest detail, and installed the first of the town’s five full-sized tiki huts on the beach.

And then he built the Briny-Go-Round, a tiered merry-go-round adorned with miniature mementos of the town he loved.

He was a carpenter, a woodworker, a model maker, a T-shirt artist and more.

Ira Joel Friedman was born in Boston on Dec. 24, 1940.

After graduating from Brookline High School, where he played on the varsity baseball team, he took classes at Franklin & Marshall College, MIT and the University of Illinois before serving six years in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves, where he earned a sharpshooter medal.

His first marriage, to Leslie Koran Friedman, produced a daughter, Jessica, in 1974.

Mr. Friedman earned a business degree from Boston University and worked for several years as a bank examiner for the U.S. Treasury Department.

With a partner he founded Eastport Manufacturing Co., which produced replica sports jerseys and for which he earned U.S. patents for silkscreen printing mechanics. The company was later sold to Starter sportswear.

“When I met him, he was a nomad,” Joanne Friedman recalled. “He had a hammer and nails.”

That was in 1981, at a Jewish singles dance in Newton, Massachusetts. “On our second date he said, ‘Do you want to move to Florida?’”

After 11 years in Wellington, they arrived in Briny Breezes in 1997, and Mr. Friedman found a home in the Chiselers Club.

“The Chiselers Club was a blessing to my mom because he had all those tools,” Jennifer Peri said.

And he wasn’t afraid to use them, fashioning countless models that threatened to overwhelm the couple’s trailer.

“He was a hoarder,” Mrs. Friedman conceded. “In Wellington, I had to remove about 50 bikes from our porch so Jennifer could get married. We owned 50 cars in 43 years.”

Moving into a mobile home did not assuage his obsessions.

“And then there was the boom box phase. We had 150 boom boxes,” his wife recalled. “You couldn’t fall down in here.”

Nor was his love of invention limited to woodworking.

“He created electrical vehicles from scratch with parts he found in junkyards,” Jennifer Peri said, “and then camouflaged them to look as if they were gas-powered.”

In Briny Breezes, she said, he loved most of all woodworking and the beach.

Their neighbor Mikee Rulli became used to a knock on the door almost every day.

“It’s a beautiful day,” Mr. Friedman would tell her. “I invite you to the beach. I’ve saved a spot just for you.”

Ira Friedman was eccentric, but he was no crackpot. One look at the talent and vision it took to create that all-wood, rotating airport baggage carousel, or those puzzles, or that Briny-Go-Round and you knew he had a touch of genius.

“His father was a doctor, and his brother is a doctor, but Ira didn’t like the sight of blood, so he became what he became,” Joanne Friedman concluded. “He was a mensch. A real mensch.”

In addition to his wife and stepdaughter, he is survived by a daughter, Jessica Friedman Hewitt of Providence, Rhode Island; his brother, Robert Friedman of Lakeville, Massachusetts; and six grandchildren.

He was predeceased by a son, Benjamin, in 2014.

A celebration of Mr. Friedman’s life will be held April 14 from noon to 5 p.m. in the Briny Breezes Clubhouse with a lunch of hot dogs and burgers, followed by a paddle-out organized by the Nomad Surf Shop. His ashes will be scattered at the same location as his late son’s.

All County Funeral Home And Crematory is in charge of arrangements.

OCEAN RIDGE — William James “Bill” Hebding of Ocean Ridge died March 13, surrounded by his wife and children. He was 78.

Born Oct. 16, 1945, in Decatur, Alabama, Mr. Hebding spent most of his life and career in northern Alabama.

Mr. Hebding was a loving father and husband, known for his generosity toward everyone.

As a young man Bill enjoyed walking the Tennessee River, hunting for artifacts. He was an excellent swimmer and diver. Lifeguarding was his summer job for years. In between time, you’d find him playing tennis or golf.

Later in life when he wasn’t on the water piloting his boat, he was in the air piloting his plane.

Mr. Hebding enjoyed traveling with his wife, Julia. He particularly loved Germany and Italy. Bill and Julia also loved sitting and talking and listening to the beauty of nature in their own backyard. Mr. Hebding embraced retirement in Florida — his definition of success being the ability to wear shorts and flip-flops every day.

He was an avid Alabama football fan and watched every game with his son, Bill Jr. He cherished his daughter, Layne, who was the apple of his eye.

He will be deeply missed by his family and friends.

Mr. Hebding graduated with honors from the University of North Alabama in Florence. He was a CPA, business owner and entrepreneur.

Mr. Hebding is survived by his wife, Julia Ruth Hebding; son, William Hebding Jr.; daughter, Carmen Layne Gehris; brother, Daniel Eugene (Nevie) Hebding; sister, Barbara Hargrove, and brother-in-law Jim Compton.

Mr. Hebding is also survived by his former wife and mother of his children, Merilyn Mote, and grandchildren, William Chancellor “Chance” Hebding; Brooke Lauren Gehris; Taylor Layne Gehris; and Savannah Paige Gehris; stepchildren Emily (Sean) Jamea and Eliza (Drew) Reinking, and four step-grandchildren.

He also leaves behind nieces and nephews Steve Hargrove, Dave (Liz) Hargrove, Kimberly (Jay) Dernovsek, Sonia (Morgan) Churchman, Jim (Beverly) Compton, and Chris (Angie) Compton. He was preceded in death by his father, Daniel Paul Hebding; mother, Addie Reese Hebding; sister Margaret Hebding Compton, and his wife Pamela Marie Hebding.

A private memorial service will take place. In lieu of flowers, the family requests that donations be made in his honor to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.

He will be interred at The Gardens of Boca Raton.

— Obituary submitted by the family

By Anne Geggis

The Feb. 23 issuance of a temporary certificate of occupancy for 6273 N. Ocean Blvd. in Ocean Ridge has proven to be an illusory conclusion to its neighbors’ 9-year construction nightmare.

Town Attorney Christy Goddeau told the Town Commission at its April 1 meeting that she has notified the owner’s attorney that the town will be assessing a $5,000-a-day fine going back to March 21 as an agreement signed in January dictates because the house is still not completed.

Canadian entrepreneur Andrew Rivkin had promised to install landscaping, a driveway gate and relatively minor unfinished items within 30 days at the house when the temporary certificate was issued. Neighbors came before commission members April 1 to tell them that the geometrically shaped home dubbed “the parking garage house” was still unsightly — with people living there now.

The fines are supposed to accrue until a final certificate of occupancy is issued. The agreement calls for fines to reach a maximum of $235,000. The owner paid a $50,000 assessment to the town for the loss to the town’s property rolls because the house was not finished by Dec. 31.

Goddeau said that whether people would be allowed to continue to live there is up to the town building official, but she said she doesn’t think a temporary certificate would have been issued if living there presented health and safety issues.

Boynton Beach Fire Rescue held an inaugural Ocean Rescue and Dive Team training at Oceanfront Park, after the city officially merged its fire and ocean rescue services. The team moved from the city’s Parks and Recreation Department to the Fire Department. ABOVE: Lifeguard Innes Macleod and firefighter Kyle Houck help launch Capt. Kurt Lewis, the watercraft driver, in a quick response drill. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Tao Woolfe

Boynton Beach opened negotiations with Joan Oliva, executive director of the Lake Worth Beach Community Redevelopment Agency, in hopes that she could be lured away to fill Boynton’s vacant CRA director’s job.

The City Commission, acting in its capacity as the CRA board, voted on March 21 to extend an offer to Oliva, who was considered by all the commissioners to be the strongest of three finalists.

“One applicant stood out as the best candidate — the one with CRA experience in Palm Beach County,” said Commissioner Angela Cruz, summing up the consensus.

Commissioner Woodrow Hay agreed that Oliva had the right experience and background, but said he was concerned about the higher proposed salary range, $140,000 to $210,000.

“The executive director of the CRA shouldn’t be making more than the city manager,” Hay said.

City Manager Daniel Dugger, hired in 2022, has an annual salary listed at $205,000.

Oliva, if she accepts the job, would be stepping into a position formerly held by Thuy Shutt. The commission fired Shutt at a tumultuous CRA meeting on Oct. 10.

The three commissioners who initiated the dismissal — Mayor Ty Penserga and Commissioners Aimee Kelley and Thomas Turkin — cited only unspecified “communication issues” between Shutt and city employees.

Timothy Tack, Boynton Beach’s assistant CRA director, has been serving as interim director.

Tack, a licensed engineer who has been with the CRA since 2021, said he is not interested in becoming the executive director at this time. He declined to comment on the city’s negotiations with Oliva.

Oliva has been the CRA director in Lake Worth Beach for 16 years, according to her online résumé. Prior to that, she served for two years with the Fort Lauderdale CRA, as a planning and design manager, from 2005 to 2007.

She holds a master’s degree in urban and regional planning from Florida Atlantic University and a bachelor’s degree in political science from American University.

What does the executive director do? To start, the job description says the director “oversees a wide variety of redevelopment and economic development activities that include fiscal operations, policy making, capital project administration, BBCRA program management, redevelopment plan implementation, property acquisition, business incentives, new business development, business attraction and retention, special business promotion activities as well as the management and maintenance of BBCRA-owned properties.”

It goes on to say the director “serves as a liaison to businesses and property owners with the overall goal of enhancing the physical and economic character of the district.”

The list of duties, and preferred skills and experience, goes on for three pages.

The job was originally advertised in November. There were 64 responses, which were winnowed down to three finalists. If negotiations with Oliva are successful, the commission could announce her hiring at the April 9 CRA meeting.

This property at 1960 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan was purchased by Stewart A. Satter of Carnegie Hill Development, who called it ‘a one-of-a-kind.’ But he said the house is dated and that he may have it torn down and replaced with two spec homes. Photo provided

By Christine Davis

Former Manalapan Mayor Stewart A. Satter, head of Carnegie Hill Development, recently bought the ocean-to-Intracoastal estate at 1960 S. Ocean Blvd. for $27.5 million. The 12,221-square-foot home was sold by 1960 South Ocean LLC, managed by West Palm Beach attorney Maura Ziska, and was purchased for $20.45 million in 2021.

Built on the 3.92-acre site in 1989 and featuring 350 feet of frontage on both the ocean and the Intracoastal Waterway, the home has nine bedrooms, a movie room, 30-car garage, office, greenhouse, wet bar, summer kitchen, putting green, a dock, oceanfront cabana and tunnel to the beach.

Nick Malinosky and Gary Pohrer of Douglas Elliman brokered the deal. 

“It’s a one-of-a-kind,” Satter said, adding that he’s considering building two spec houses on the lot. “It’s a very large lot, the nicest piece of land in Manalapan and abuts Larry Ellison’s property. The house has no value; it’s dated and does not have the characteristics and features people want today.”

The property had also been owned by another former Manalapan mayor, Tom Gerrard, in the early 2000s. He kept part of his extensive car collection there.

***

A trust in the name of Andrea Jane Acker sold an oceanfront estate at 3719 S. Ocean Blvd. in Highland Beach for $20.8 million. It was purchased by the 3719 S. Ocean Blvd. Land Trust, with Mark R. Brown as trustee.

Senada Adzem of Douglas Elliman represented the seller, while Sarah Galperin of Compass represented the buyer.  

Built on the 0.46-acre site in 2016 and called “Casa Blanca,” the 9,193-square-foot, eight-bedroom home features a gym, office, elevator, balcony, summer kitchen, a built-in aquarium and a bar.  

Acker was a co-owner and an executive at Northeastern mattress retailer Sleepy’s from 1980 until it was sold to Mattress Firm in 2015. She served as a director/board member of BurgerFi.

***

MDM 217 FL LLC, managed by Meghan Berndt, a family office manager at Shannon Berndt Advisors in Pewaukee, Wisconsin, sold the five-bedroom, 7,342-square-foot townhouse at 4513 S. Ocean Blvd. in Highland Beach to Gary B. Patrick and Ellen B. Patrick.

The selling price was $18.76 million.

Gary Patrick is the senior vice president and global advertising director at Skechers and Ellen Patrick is a yoga entrepreneur.

Gary Pohrer and Nick Malinosky of Douglas Elliman represented the seller in the deal, while Nancy Ghen of Coldwell Banker Realty represented the buyers. The home last traded for $13.5 million in 2021. 

***

Leslie and Janet O’Hare recently sold a new 9,577-square-foot estate on the Royal Palm Yacht & Country Club’s golf course at 272 Thatch Palm Dr., Boca Raton, to a trust in the name of Kapil Dilawri, for $16.39 million.

Dilawri heads Dilawri Group of Companies in Ontario and runs a large auto dealership group. David W. Roberts of Royal Palm Properties brokered the deal. The new estate was built by SRD Building Corp. and designed by architect Jack Conway with interiors by P&H Interiors. The O’Hares, who bought the property in December 2021 for $4.995 million, listed it for sale in November 2022 for $22.75 million.

***

YoAtrium LLC, Icug LLC and Heywood LLC, all managed by Alan Rutner in Boca Raton, sold 4.27 acres at 2607, 2617, 2703 and 2755 S. Federal Highway, Boynton Beach, to Fed27 LLC, part of Fort Lauderdale-based Affiliated Development, for $12.03 million.

The deal included $6 million in seller financing. Rutner assembled the properties in 2016 and 2017 for a combined $3.9 million. Affiliated Development obtained approval through an administrative process in Boynton Beach, citing the Live Local Act. Its project, the Dunes, proposes to have 336 apartments and 2,600 square feet of ground-floor commercial space in eight stories, with at least 60% of the units to be for workforce housing.

Affiliated Development will seek building permits for the Dunes and plans to start construction in four to six months.

***

Tideline Palm Beach Ocean Resort and Spa, 2842 S. Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach, is now booking reservations after its $20 million renovation, which commenced in August 2023.

“My vision was to go beyond the boutique hotel concept and offer discerning guests a place that feels like home,” said owner/developer Jeff Greene. “We offer the best of everything here, from the very best wines and spirits to opulent Italian Fili D’oro bed linens to the ultimate rain shower experience in every room,”

With 134 rooms and suites, Tideline is offering a special introductory room rate of $455 per room for a limited time. The Spa at Tideline, a 6,000-square-foot retreat, is a two-time winner of Condé Nast Traveler’s Readers’ Choice Awards as one of the best spas in the United States. The spa is offering the Oasis Spa special for $285, which includes a massage and facial. Its restaurant, Brandon’s, is newly redesigned. For reservations and information, visit www.tidelineresort.com.

***

As the Seagate Hotel & Spa and Beach Club lays the groundwork for renovations, 69 employees are being laid off.

The hotel, at 1000 E. Atlantic Ave. just two blocks from the beach, and the Beach Club at 401 S. Ocean Ave. are due for major remodeling, according to Heather Hedrick, the hotel’s director of human resources.

“The Seagate will undergo planned renovations in the coming months which will result in temporary closures of specific areas,” Hedrick said.

Employee separations will begin on May 20. Among employees on the chopping block are servers, cooks, chefs, bartenders and retail workers. Hedrick said those workers will have opportunities to explore employment for additional positions as improvements are unveiled throughout the year.

The property, which opened in 2009 and has undergone previous renovations, plans to create an additional 40 jobs through the development of new food and beverage offerings and overall increases in capacities to existing footprints, Hedrick said in an email to The Coastal Star.

Hotel guests not only have exclusive access to restaurants and a private beach, but also use of a championship golf course four miles west of the property, spa and swimming pools.

***

The Seagate is offering a Seagate Shotmaker package with access to the renovated golf course. As part of the deal, guests will receive 20% off of room accommodations and two complimentary cocktails when they book between April 1 and Sept. 30, and will receive 50% off a round of golf. For information, call 561-665-4800 or visit seagatedelray.com. 

Additionally, seven-time Grand Slam singles champion Venus Williams chose the Seagate Hotel’s golf club as the backdrop for her new Happy Viking photo shoot. At these ad campaign vignettes, she showcased her superfood meals while cooking healthy, working out and of course, playing tennis.

Happy Viking offers plant-based meal shakes with protein, fruits and vegetables, probiotics and prebiotics, superfoods, vitamins and minerals, ancient grains, electrolytes, DHA omega-3, fiber, and more.

After being diagnosed with an autoimmune disease in 2011, Williams became passionate about plant-based nutrition and developing better foods to improve her body and mind.

For more information, visit drinkhappyviking.com.

Also, the Seagate hired Dmitriy Kakuschke as its executive chef. He will oversee its hotel, beach club, yacht club, and golf club culinary operations teams.

Previously, Kakuschke worked at JW Marriott in Nashville, Tennessee, as executive chef at Bourbon Steak, managed by Michelin-starred chef Michael Mina. During his tenure there he helped garner distinctions that included Top 10 Fine Dining Restaurant in the Country, Top 1% of Restaurants Worldwide and Best Restaurant in Nashville.

***

In February, Lifespace Communities received approval to expand its Harbour’s Edge senior living facility, 401 E. Linton Blvd., Delray Beach. The waterside facility has 266 beds for independent living and 54 beds for assisted living.

With the goal to help residents age in place, the operator plans to construct a three-story, 39,990-square-foot building with 24 beds for assisted living and 16 beds for memory care. The building will include a dining area, kitchen, lounge, activity rooms, salon and fitness center. WGI is the planner, landscape architect and civil engineer. LB/A is the architect, and FJO Group Inc is the traffic engineer.

***

Morgan Clark has joined the Boca Raton-based Basis Industrial, a real estate owner and operator, as its director of investor relations. Clark oversees and manages all operational and capital management activities. Previously, he led investor relations and fund management for Foundry Commercial’s development and investment platform, where he oversaw seven investment funds with a total gross asset value exceeding $4 billion. 

***

Boca Raton resident Kelly Gerber, an agent with Douglas Elliman, was named sales director for the Glass House Boca Raton development. Douglas Elliman Development

Marketing is the sales and marketing team for Glass House, 280 E. Palmetto Park Road. Sales for Glass House Boca Raton launched in February, with pricing ranging from $2.5 million to $6.9 million. Groundbreaking is slated for the first quarter of 2025, with a completion date of the fall of 2026.

***

The Boynton Beach Community Redevelopment Agency and city of Boynton Beach have partnered with Circuit’s Coastal Cruiser ride-share service.

For residents and visitors, this pilot program offers transportation within two distinct zones in Boynton Beach. Zone 1 encompasses a portion of the Community Redevelopment Agency area to points like the City Hall and library municipal building, Boynton Harbor Marina, and a variety of businesses and restaurants. Zone 2 transports passengers to Oceanfront Park.

The service is available Sunday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. All rides are available on-demand, and need to be booked via the Ride Circuit app.

The Coastal Cruiser fleet features all EV vehicles — two Kia Niro sedans and two GEMs, including one ADA accessible vehicle. Fares start at $1 per rider for Zone 1, with rides in Zone 2 being $2 for the first rider and $1 for each additional rider. For more information, visit www.boyntonbeachcra.com/bbcra-projects/circuit-rideshare.

***

Just in time for Mother’s Day, shoppers who spend $200 at downtown Delray Beach fashion boutiques, specialty stores, gift shops, art galleries, spas, salons and fitness studios during the week of May 6-11 can get a free Phalaenopsis orchid. The promotion is a partnership of the Delray Beach Downtown Development Authority and the Downtown Merchant & Business Association.

With valid receipts totaling $200, shoppers can pick up orchids on May 10 or 11 from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Seagate Hotel, 1000 E. Atlantic Ave.; Avalon Gallery, 425 E. Atlantic Ave., or the Cornell Art Museum, 51 N. Swinton Ave.

For more information, visit https://downtowndelraybeach.com/mothersday.

Send business news to Christine Davis at cdavis9797@gmail.com.

The letterhead from the Boca Raton Army Air Field illustrates the use of radar to protect Florida from German attacks. BELOW: Peter Barrett, in a uniform his mother sewed for him, stands with his sister, Martha, near their home in Boca Raton during the war. Photos provided by the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum

For a boy on Boca’s coast, World War II was exciting; exhibit reveals time of subs and spies

Related: Along the Coast: Delray Beach Historical Society exhibit brings boom of 1950s and ’60s back to life

By Ron Hayes

Late one night in May 1942, an 8-year-old boy was blown awake by an explosion off Boca Raton so loud and so close, for a moment he thought he’d been thrown from his bed.

This is not the sort of thing a person is likely to forget, and 82 years later, Peter Barrett has not forgotten.

“My dad said something got torpedoed offshore, so we went out and sure enough, there was this huge tanker totally on fire,” he says.

Between February and May that year, German U-boats sank 16 merchant ships off the coast of Florida and crippled even more. The “U” stood for Unterwasser, Hitler’s submarines prowling the Gulf Stream to destroy merchant vessels ferrying supplies to Allied forces.

On May 8, for example, the Ohioan, a freighter hauling ore, licorice root and wool, was hit off Boca by the U-564 and sank in 550 feet of water. Fifteen of its 37 crew members drowned.

“Yes, I suppose that might have been the one,” Barrett says. “I can’t say that for sure, but every day we’d walk the beach looking for flotsam and jetsam from the attacks. We never found a body, and we never found a lifeboat. Mostly we found the contents of ships that had been sunk.”

One day Peter’s father, Hollis Barrett, found a Maxwell House coffee can.

Today, that crushed blue can, still unopened, rests in a glass case at the Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum, a tiny souvenir from a very big war that affected both Florida and Boca Raton far more than too many Floridians realize.

The horror and heroism of that war are on display at the museum through May 17 in both “Florida in World War II,” a traveling exhibit from the Museum of Florida History in Tallahassee, and the Schmidt Museum’s permanent exhibit on Boca in the war years.

Officers prepare for an inspection on the grounds of the Boca Raton Club, which the Army leased for two years to house troops during construction of the Boca Raton Army Air Field. Photos provided by the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum and the Museum of Florida History

What you’ll see
“What happened here changed the course of the war,” says Susan Gillis, the museum’s curator. “The war affected all of Florida, and this exhibit shows that.”

Spend an hour and count the number of times you murmur, “I didn’t know that!”

You’ll see the small lead sailor and soldier toys Peter Barrett played with as a child.

You’ll see the official pen his mother, Jessie, used to take notes when she and Peter took a Friday shift in the Aircraft Warning Service watchtower, where Red Reef Park stands today, scanning the skies for German planes.

You’ll see the model of a Mustang fighter plane that hung from the watchtower’s ceiling, one of several German and Allied model planes dangling there to help the volunteers identify what they saw.

And at the museum on May 16, you’ll see Peter Barrett, sharing his memories of the boy he was in 1942 and the war that boy saw here.

He is Dr. Peter Barrett, now 89 and retired from the UCLA school of medicine, where he was both a physician and researcher.

“We were living in Los Angeles then and had never been to Florida until my grandmother became ill in 1939,” he explains. “We sold our house, packed up a big trailer and headed for Florida.”

The population of Boca Raton was about 750 people at most.

Barrett’s grandfather had built the Boca Raton Villas, four small vacation cottages that stood just south of Palmetto Park Road on a single-lane tar road. The Barretts lived in the southernmost cottage.

A hundred yards north was Mrs. Dixon’s house and just to the south the unoccupied Sanborn house, a palatial mansion surrounded by a wall. That was all, Barrett says, for 8 miles in either direction.

About 2 a.m. one June night, the family was awakened by a knocking at the door. Hollis Barrett was away. Peter’s mother, sister and he were alone, peering out at two military men from the air base, with another half dozen standing beyond, jeeps and motorcycles and rifles greeting them.

“Have you been using any lights to signal out to sea?” a soldier asked them.

“No,” his mother replied, “but just north is Mrs. Dixon. “Maybe she was.”

“She’s the one who phoned us,” the soldier said.

And the soldiers moved on to the empty Sanborn house, where they found used towels, beds slept in, trash on the floor, a telescope in the bay window facing the ocean, and a blinking signal machine used to alert U-boats of approaching merchant ships. Today, a plaque erected by the city in 2005 graces the last remaining piece of the Sanborns’ wall, on a pedestrian right of way between the current Beresford and Excelsior condominiums.

On this spot in June 1942, spies from German U-boats landed and occupied Dr. William Sanborn’s home built on this site in 1937.

Gillis, the curator, doubts the spies came ashore from a U-boat, but vouches for Barrett’s tale of the spies next door. Barrett’s father had become friendly with the FBI agent in town, who filled him in, and his older sister also remembers the night the soldiers came to call.

“The Sanborns sold their house and went back to Detroit,” Barrett says, “so nobody in town knew about the spies next door. You’ll hear there were no spies south of Jacksonville. Well, it ain’t so.”

In 1946, the Barretts returned to Los Angeles. Peter was 11 then, and wouldn’t see Boca Raton again until December 2004, when he made a sentimental journey back to Boca while visiting cousins in Miami. He found condos where his wartime villa had been, and he found the Boca Raton Historical Society. Barrett will be 90 when he comes here again on May 16, a still spry and very articulate gentleman, with stories to tell and an old blue coffee can to revisit.

“It was fun,” he says now of those days when Boca Raton was a small town and he a small boy. “It was exciting. But no kid really knows what a war is about. Kids are excited by soldiers marching about and doing things, and I was a kid.”

LEFT: The Flying Pelican was the airfield’s mascot. The lightning emanating from its head represents radar, a new technology in which airfield personnel trained.

I didn’t know that!
“World War II was here,” says Mary Csar, executive director of the Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum. “We forget that. It was here.”
• When the U.S. entered the war in 1941, there were eight military installations in Florida. When the war ended four years later, there were 175.
• One of those bases was the Boca Raton Army Air Field, which provided the only training for a new and top-secret technology called radar, which could identify enemy aircraft at a range of 80 miles, giving early warning of German air attacks.
• Mentioning the word “radar” off-base could be a court-martial offense.
• During the war, Boca Raton had a population of about 750, but played host to between 50,000 and 100,000 servicemen and women stationed at its air base.
• For two years, Addison Mizner’s famed Boca Raton Club was used as U.S. Army barracks while the airfield was being built.
• Today, the former airfield’s 5,860 acres are occupied by Boca Raton Airport and Florida Atlantic University.
• Food and gas were rationed in Boca Raton, and no lights could be seen from windows and doors at night.
• 4,600 Floridians died in military service during the war, and thousands more were wounded or permanently disabled.
Sources: Boca Raton Historical Society & Museum and the Museum of Florida History

If You Go
What: “Florida in World War II,” a traveling exhibit from the Museum of Florida History, as well as a permanent exhibit highlighting Boca Raton in World War II.
Where: Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum, 71 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton.
When: 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday, through May 17.
Cost: $12 for adults; $8 for students and seniors 65 and older. Admission is free on the first Saturday of each month. For information about the exhibit and Peter Barrett’s May 16 appearance, call 561-395-6766.

LEFT: The exhibit honors the men and women who served in World War II.

The contestants for queen of the 1951 Gladioli Festival. The festival lives on as the annual Delray Affair. Photo provided by the Delray Beach Historical Society

Related: Along the Coast: A view from the home front

By Anne Geggis

The 20-year stretch that tripled Delray Beach’s population and propelled it into the modern, air-conditioned era gets the limelight at the Delray Beach Historical Society’s new exhibit.

“Land of Sunshine & Dreams!” — covering 1950 to 1969 — opened Feb. 23 and is expected to be on display at the historical society for at least two years, showing how the waves of change from the post-World War II era to the Summer of Love hit Delray Beach.

It’s when Black people’s struggle to use the city’s public beach drew the national spotlight as the civil rights movement came to the fore. It’s also when the city elected its first female mayor. And an unprecedented wave of new residents settled here — the city’s biggest leap in population since the 1920s land boom.

“I think it’s going to be really great for Delray, really great for all ages” to come to the exhibit, said Winnie Diggans Edwards, executive director of the Delray Beach Historical Society. “With all the debates going on in Delray … people are going to be able to link now … (and) how it all got started after World War II with this influx of people that hasn’t slowed down.”

The story is told with more than 100 artifacts, including the first surfboard made in Delray Beach, as well as 250 news articles, including an original Jet magazine article showing the unrest resulting from the fight to desegregate the beach.

The exhibit’s photographs include a variety of perspectives: downtown as it was back then, beach revetments installed to control erosion, and dark chapters like police stopping and frisking Black men.

It’s the first time the historical society has put on an exhibit focused exclusively on any part of the second half of the 20th century.

Growing up mid-century
The scope of Delray’s transformation is something Delray natives Sandy Simon, a 1955 Delray Beach High School graduate, and the Rev. Marcia Beam, a 1964 Carver High School graduate, definitely agree on.

Living in Delray all this time, “you get a Ph.D. in adapting — it’s gone from a small community of like-minded people to an urban city,” said Simon, who’s written three books on local history, including Remembering: A History of Florida’s South Palm Beach County 1894-1998 (Cedars Group, 1999). 

Beam, now priest-in-charge at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, also recalls a much sparser population.

“Of course there were not as many houses around and the roads were, at first, dirt,” Beam said. “And then gradually they were paved.”

Simon’s recollection is that Delray was “pretty much de facto integrated” during his youth — Carver High School (the Black high school) and Delray Beach High School (for whites) both played on the same football field, he said.

“Delray was more liberal than most cities,” Simon said.

But that’s not what Beam recalls at all, even if she didn’t think much about the prohibition against Blacks going east of Swinton Avenue at night or on East Atlantic Avenue in her youth. But she’s glad others, like Zack Straghn and George McKay, made the push for change on the beaches and in the schools.

“Black people would not give up,” she said. “They just had to make it happen. … And there was a lot of opposition to” desegregation.

Finding history
The historical society faced a challenge in putting together the exhibit because materials in its archives newer than the 1940s are not plentiful. Outreach to the community was required, Edwards said.

“To say, ‘Hey, do you have photographs in shoe boxes under your bed or in your attic?’” Edwards said. “And it’s always interesting because they don’t think we need what they have.

“Sometimes the most boring pictures to family are the most interesting to learn about what was happening here. From an educational standpoint, you see the cars, the fashion — the backdrop for what was happening. …”

Innovations like the widening use of air conditioning are covered, as are the swampland peddlers who sold worthless real estate to unsuspecting northerners.

The 1926 Bungalow on the historical society’s campus has a station for people to hear original recordings of music and political speeches. Next door, the Cason Cottage will feature a different movie from the 1960s every month.

It’s easy for recent history to get lost to time, especially in Florida, said Ginger Pedersen, who wrote a book, Pioneering Palm Beach, focused on the area’s pioneers of the early 1900s.

“It was quite a different place,” she said, recalling how that was the era when manufacturers such as IBM and RCA made their way to the Sunshine State, bringing mainstream America with them.

If You Go
What: Delray Beach Historical Society’s “Land of Sunshine & Dreams! Delray Beach: 1950s-1960s” exhibit
Where: 1926 Bungalow and Cason Cottage, at 3 and 5 NE First St., Delray Beach.
When: 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. 
Cost: $5 per person; members free
Information: https://delraybeachhistory.org/visit/#exhibits

By Rich Pollack

David Matthewman had just come back from a ceramics convention in Virginia and texted his father on the Thursday before Easter to let him know it went well.

“He ended the text by telling me ‘I love you,’” William Matthewman said, adding that he returned the message right away.  “I texted him that I loved him too.”

The next morning at 5 a.m., William Matthewman discovered two Florida Highway Patrol cars parked outside his Highland Beach home and troopers telling his wife, Diane, that David, 34, had been killed instantly in a head-on crash with a wrong-way driver.

“It was just like, he was gone,” said Matthewman, a U.S. magistrate judge in the West Palm Beach federal courthouse who along with Diane are well-known in the Highland Beach community.

FHP troopers say that David was driving a 2013 Ford Fusion on Interstate 95 in the northbound express lane south of Palmetto Park Road just before 2:30 a.m. on March 29 when his car was struck by a southbound 2014 Hyundai Elantra going the wrong way in the northbound lane.

David along with the driver of the Hyundai were pronounced dead at the scene. A woman passenger, who William Matthewman said was a close friend of David’s who he had been seeing for a few months, was taken to the Delray Medical Center’s trauma unit in critical condition, where she later died.

The name of the woman, who William Matthewman said was wearing a seatbelt as was David, as well as the name of the driver of the other vehicle, has not been released.

David Matthewman, a 2013 graduate of Florida Atlantic University who majored in studio art and criminal justice, spent many of his years in Highland Beach and although he had an apartment in West Palm Beach, he continued to list his parents’ home as his official place of residence.

“He was here three or four times a week,” his father said.

A “water guy” whose favorite place was the ocean, David Matthewman had become friendly with the owner of a boat that had beached not far from his parents’ home and would help with repairs. He even made sure the owner had enough to eat, bringing pizza on several occasions.

A gifted artist who made a career out of selling his ceramics and shooting photos to help real estate agents market homes, David Matthewman also taught ceramics and other classes at the Armory Art Center in West Palm Beach.

During his time there he taught classes to military veterans and families while creating his own works that were featured in Palm Beach galleries as well as art shows.

Among his works were ceramic starfish and clamshells as well as other pieces that were designed as orchid holders.

William Matthewman says he doesn’t have much information about the woman who was with David at the time of the crash but would not be surprised if she was involved in the arts.

“Ceramics and photography were his passion,” the judge said.

A former cross-country runner at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland and later a marathon and 5K race runner, David Matthewman played hockey and was also a big hockey fan who was looking forward to watching the Florida Panthers in the playoffs again this year with his father at his parents’ home.

William Matthewman said that David became an organ donor in 2019 and that his son’s organs will be used in the future.

“That’s just who David was,” he said. “He was generous in life and generous in death. We feel fortunate that he will continue to help others.”

The family will receive friends on April 6 from 4 to 8 p.m. with a 7 p.m. Celebration of Life service at the Gary Panoch Funeral Home, 6140 N. Federal Highway, Boca Raton. No formal burial will follow as David’s ashes will be placed at a later date into an environmentally friendly living reef which will be placed offshore of South Florida.

In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Armory Art Center, https://canvas.armoryart.org/donate.

By Anne Geggis

Ocean water testing reported Thursday gave the all clear to seven beaches from Jupiter to Boca Raton that had been closed to swimmers on Wednesday because of unacceptably high levels of bacteria found in sampling earlier in the week.

Ocean Inlet Park in Ocean Ridge, Delray Beach Municipal Beach and the adjacent Sandoway Park, and Spanish River Park in Boca Raton had been among the beaches closed because of the advisory from the Florida Department of Health Palm Beach County. But, by early Thursday afternoon, they were open again.

The Health Department does daily water tests at public beaches to ensure the levels of bacteria associated with stormwater runoff, human sewage and animal waste are at a level no greater than the standard for safe recreation in the water. The samples that found unacceptably high levels were taken during testing on Monday and follow-up water samples were taken on Wednesday.

The other beaches that had been closed due to water sampling that showed poor water quality were Carlin Park in Jupiter, Riviera Beach Municipal Beach Park, Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach and R.G. Kreusler Park in Lake Worth Beach.

By Anne Geggis

Ocean water testing reported Tuesday found elevated levels of bacteria in water from Jupiter to Boca Raton, so a slew of South County beaches are closed to swimmers for now.

Ocean Inlet Park in Ocean Ridge, Delray Beach Municipal Beach and the adjacent Sandoway Park, and Spanish River Park in Boca Raton are among the Palm Beach County beaches where swimming is inadvisable, according to the Florida Department of Health Palm Beach County.

Sampling for enterococci bacteria found the water quality at these beaches to be “poor.” The levels of bacteria associated with stormwater runoff, human sewage and animal waste were at a level greater than the standard for safe recreation in the water. The samples were taken during testing on Monday.

Other beaches closed due to water sampling that showed poor quality are Carlin Park in Jupiter, Riviera Beach Municipal Beach Park, Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach and R.G. Kreusler Park in Lake Worth Beach,

A round of testing will be conducted today to find out if the water quality has improved and the beaches can be reopened.

Meanwhile, the Tuesday results found the water quality acceptable at Boynton Beach Oceanfront Park in Ocean Ridge, Lantana Beach Park, and South Inlet Park in Boca Raton.

By Anne Geggis

A newcomer to the Ocean Ridge Town Commission — who happens to be a relative newcomer to the town — was the top vote-getter Tuesday in a four-person race for three seats on the dais.

Voters were asked to choose three candidates and Ainar Aijala Jr., who filled a vacancy on the commission in January, won nearly 30% of the 1,206 votes cast among four candidates. Mayor Geoffrey Pugh drew 28% support and Commissioner David Hutchins – another recent appointee to the commission and a retired airline pilot – garnered 27%. Nick Arsali, 68, a retired professional engineer, was a distant fourth with 15% of the vote.

The two top finishers will serve full three-year terms and Hutchins, 75, will serve a two-year unexpired term.

Aijala, who was sunburned from consecutive days campaigning at the polls, said he thinks his message resonated with voters.

“I’m really thrilled to continue as a commissioner for three years,” the retired Deloitte executive, 67, said.

The town is facing challenges regarding how much water-handling and sewage improvements the town of 2,000 can afford.

 Aijala said that although he’s owned a home in Ocean Ridge for just six years, and not had a role on the town’s governance committees, his executive experience was enough to win voters over.

“I think the residents looked at the challenges facing the town going forward and felt that me being here six years and not for 26 years (as some other candidates) is not relevant,” he said. “I think they felt that my background could bring a skill to the table.”

The election follows a year of turmoil in Town Hall. Two commissioners resigned in early 2023 following a split vote on making then-acting Town Manager Lynne Ladner’s position a permanent one. They were replaced by two others who resigned at the end of the year, one citing the state’s new financial disclosure requirements for elected municipal officials. The town’s police chief also resigned in 2023 to go to Gulf Stream.

Pugh, 61, who will have served 20 years on the commission by the time he ends his new term, said that he aims to keep things running steady.

“I think we have a good team and hopefully everything will be nice and quiet,” Pugh said.

Pugh, who owns a pool business, has presided over meetings as mayor the past year. It will be up to the new commission to select a mayor for the coming year at its April 1 meeting.

Hutchins said his conversations with voters as he campaigned left him with the impression that most are happy with the way the town is running. Still, replacing the town’s old water pipes is rising to the top of his priority list.

“I believe the figure to change out all the pipes would be prohibitive,” Hutchins said. “We have to work it into the budget as we can.”

Note: This article has been updated to include election comments from Commissioner David Hutchins.

Unofficial results. Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office

The crowd at the Palm Trail Grill celebrated Tuesday's Delray Beach mayoral victory of Tom Carney and commission victories for Tom Markert and Juli Casale. ABOVE: (front l-r) Tony Petrolia, Phil Pepe, Kelly Barrette and Casale are jubilant along with a smiling Carney, with Mayor Shelley Petrolia (center back) celebrating with her arm on Carney's shoulder. Photos by Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

By Anne Geggis

Delray Beach voters spurned a real estate-backed slate of candidates Tuesday in choosing Tom Carney as their new mayor along with two new commissioners: one a first-time candidate and the other returning to the dais a year after losing a re-election bid.

The new mayor, a lawyer by trade, is expected to lead a new three-vote bloc with the commissioners elected Tuesday: Tom Markert and Juli Casale. All underdogs to their top competitors in raising money for their campaigns, the trio promoted themselves together, urging voters to choose, “Tom, Tom and Juli.” They campaigned against what they called the city’s “overdevelopment” amid warnings that the city’s motto “Village by the Sea” was at risk.

Carney, 70, a former city commissioner who briefly served as an interim mayor for two months in 2013, will replace term-limited Mayor Shelly Petrolia, who supported his candidacy.

Even though he received more than $60,000 less in campaign contributions, Carney defeated Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston, who raised more than $155,000 to lead all candidates. Totals show Carney won nearly 52% of the vote to Boylston’s 38% and former Commissioner Shirley Johnson's 10%.

At a celebration announced after the votes were tallied, Carney hailed a mandate for a change when it comes to managing the city’s growth and spending.

“I’m incredibly honored and I’m even more incredibly humbled,” said Carney, who learned of his victory when he was awakened from dozing by a phone call from his wife, now in England, telling him the news. “I plan on stopping this overdevelopment, giving money back to the taxpayers and dealing with the traffic.”

The victory gathering at Palm Trail Grill, outside the city’s bustling downtown, also drew two other newly elected commissioners. First-time political candidate and former Nielsen TV ratings executive Markert will replace term-limited Commissioner Adam Frankel and former Commissioner Casale will move into the seat that Boylston is leaving due to term limits.

Markert, 66, won nearly 39% of the vote. He defeated Jim Chard, 79, a former New York City municipal executive, and Tennille DeCoste, 47, who was recently dismissed from her job as the city of Boynton Beach’s human resources director. Chard won nearly 37% of the vote and DeCoste was a distant third, winning 24%.

“The voters spoke loud and clear that they want change,” said Markert, who campaigned on addressing the tight squeeze residents face on city streets and the need to replace the water treatment plant.

Casale, 55, a retired businesswoman who was defeated in her bid for re-election to the City Commission last year, won a seat against two candidates in the hunt for their first elected office. Casale garnered 42% of the votes to the 37% that Nick Coppola, 58, a retired electrician, won and the 21% for Anneze Barthelemy, 46, a social worker with a private consulting business.

“The message is people want good governing,” Casale said. “This is a big night.”

Mayor Petrolia, who supported the winning slate, also took part in the festivities at Palm Trail Grill, where Carney held his kickoff party and his recent 70th birthday party. She playfully pinned a button from her previous campaign emblazoned with “Shelly” on the new mayor.

“It’s a great night — unbelievable, unbelievable,” she said. “The city made a decision. I feel like everything is going to be in good hands.”

Following the city elections in March 2023, a new voting bloc led by Boylston had coalesced on the dais and Petrolia found herself on the losing end of a number of votes.

Delray Beach Vice Mayor Ryan Boylston (center), at his election night watch party at the Tin Roof, reacts to screens showing his opponent, Tom Carney, beat him in the city's mayoral race, with former Commissioner Shirley Johnson finishing third.

Over at the Tin Roof, where Boylston had his downtown watch party adjacent to Coppola’s, the first flash of results showed all of the precincts reporting. The crowd, at first, thought those results would be the early and mail-in votes.

But then reality set in.

“Look at that,” Boylston said, as he gazed up at the screens showing Carney's substantial victory.

Earlier, at the polls, Lee Cohen, 30, who works in marketing, admitted to an unfamiliarity with the issues facing the city, since he’s only lived there five months. But he checked with his cousin, who’s lived in Delray Beach much longer, about who to vote for. 

His cousin recommended, “Tom, Tom and Juli.”

“I love it,” he said of Delray Beach. “I love that there’s so much to do. It has the vibrancy of a big city but with a small-town feel.”

Referendum fails

In another issue on the ballot, nearly 59% of the city’s voters rejected a proposed amendment that would have eliminated the city’s Board of Adjustment and streamlined its functions under the city’s planning board. The board considers appeals and variances to the city’s land development rules and will continue to do so, according to the vote.

Unofficial results. Source: Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office

By Rich Pollack

It finally happened.

After 33 years and two unsuccessful attempts to rid the town of an outdated $350,000 spending limit, Highland Beach voters on Tuesday loosened the fiscal handcuffs on their elected leaders, approving a charter change that increases the cap to $900,000 per project before a referendum is required.

“The voters did the right thing,” said Highland Beach Vice Mayor David Stern, who championed the proposal to boost the cap to what the $350,000 limit passed in 1991 would be in today’s dollars and add an annual inflation adjustment. “It’s outstanding.”

In addition to approving the change to the spending limit, 60% in favor to 40% against, voters also approved spending up to $3.5 million to line sewer pipes. They also approved giving the town the option to allow the county’s supervisor of elections to oversee Highland Beach’s election canvassing board rather than requiring commissioners to serve on it.

The sewer pipe lining project received 77% approval while the canvassing board issue received 70% approval.

It is the change in the spending cap, however, that will probably have the most significant impact on the town’s ability to tackle small capital projects without having to get voter approval, which can be lengthy and costly.

“This makes the process a lot smoother,” Stern said. “We now have the ability to approve projects with a reasonable cost without having to go to referendum.”

With the town starting its own fire department in May, increasing the spending limit takes on more importance, according to Town Manager Marshall Labadie, because of the high cost of replacing equipment and apparatus.

Stern believes the success of the proposal to increase the cap was due in part to the simplicity of the ballot measure, as well as to support from the Committee to Save Highland Beach, a local political action committee that opposed raising the spending limit when it came before the voters two years ago.  

“This was presented to the voters in a clear and simple way,” he said.

Two years ago, Stern and others say, the attempt to increase the cap to about $1 million failed to get voter support in part because the proposed limit was based on a percentage of the overall town budget, which was seen as a complicated formula.

That was the second failed effort.

In 2012, it appeared that the spending limit would be increased when the Town Commission passed an ordinance raising the limit to $1 million only to discover — after a Palm Beach County Inspector General report two years later — that any change in the limit needed voter approval.

In the interim, the town had begun construction of a $850,000 town hall and police department renovation project that was permitted to proceed.

Since it was first introduced in 1991, the cap has had a significant impact on the town’s success — and failures — in moving forward on major expenditures.

In late 2021, voters overwhelming gave the town commission the green light to spend up to $10 million on a new fire department, with just shy of 90% of voters approving the proposal. That vote cleared the way for the town to build a new $8 million-plus fire station.

Nine years ago, voters also gave the commission permission to spend $2.8 million on a water main replacement project on six side streets.  

A firetruck was at the center of a 2010 referendum, when voters narrowly turned down a request from the commission for permission to go over the cap and spend $810,000 on a new firetruck. The measure failed with 1,016 residents saying no and 946 in favor of buying the new truck.

That vote left the town stuck with a truck that was 15 years old and had cost $135,433 for maintenance and repairs during the previous five years, leaving it out of service an average 11.8% of the time.

The truck continued to cost the town thousands of dollars in repairs for several years until a lease agreement with Delray Beach was signed.

In 2019, voters overwhelmingly turned down three ballot items that would have given the commission their approval to spend $45 million on three projects on improvements along State Road A1A, including drainage improvements, enhancements to the town’s Ocean Walk multi-use corridor and surrounding areas, and placing utility wires underground.

In that election, which saw one of the largest turnouts in town history, more than 90% of voters rejected the spending plan.

By Mary Thurwachter

Soon after the polls closed in Lantana, incumbent Mayor Karen Lythgoe joined friends at Lantana Pizza to celebrate her 653-385 win over newcomer George (Jorge) Velazquez.

“I’m relieved and I’m grateful that I get to keep working on what we’ve been working on,” Lythgoe, 64, said. “The five of us (council members) have got momentum going that I think is phenomenal.  I think the town needs what we’re doing, we know what we’re doing, and I’m honored to be able to continue to be a part of it.”

She said she hadn’t slept for 24 hours and would be going home soon.

“I tossed and turned all night long and got up at 3:30 a.m. to start the day even though the alarm was set for 4:15 a.m.

The day did not go without some chaos.

A handful of Democrats were turned away from voting in Lantana, as poll workers were apparently confused that registered voters of all stripes could cast a ballot in the nonpartisan mayoral election.

The exact number of Democrats the confusion affected is not known.

An official with the Palm Beach County Supervisor of Elections Office said the office knew of that happening to one voter, who called the Department of State in Tallahassee to complain. Lantana Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez said she saw it happen to one voter, who was able to vote when Dominguez intervened. She also knew of four others who were turned away and heard of another voter who was able to clarify that he or she was able to vote before leaving the polling place.

As far as Dominguez said she knew, the confusion was confined to two town polling places — Maddock Park and Lantana Recreation Center. Nonetheless, the complaint prompted Elections Supervisor Wendy Sartory Link to send out a notification to all the Lantana precincts clarifying that although there was not a Democratic presidential primary, Democrats were eligible to vote in municipal, nonpartisan elections and should be given a nonpartisan ballot. Link also came to town to help sort things out, Lythgoe said.

“There was some confusion either with the training or the field clerk,” Lythgoe said. “I am a registered Democrat and when I went to get my ballot for the mayoral race they had to converse and figure out if I was allowed to vote.”

Lythgoe said the voters who were turned away were called and invited to come back to vote.

Lythgoe was elected to the council in 2020 and was acting mayor after Robert Hagerty resigned in 2022. During a special election last year, she ran successfully to complete the rest of Hagerty’s term, which ended with Tuesday’s election.

Velazquez handled defeat with a positive outlook.

“It is what it is, so it’s fine, I’m okay,” the 57-year-old said. “I got a lot of experience from this and I really learned a lot.”

Velazquez said he has helped friends with campaigns in the past and may do more of that in the future. A former commercial real estate agent, Velazquez worked in a federal prison in Miami from 1996 to 2009.

Of Lantana’s 7,500 registered voters, only 1,027 cast ballots in the mayoral election, under 14%.

 Staff writer Anne Geggis contributed to this report.