By Rich Pollack

As Highland Beach moves forward with plans to create its own fire department and split from neighboring Delray Beach, the two municipalities continue to squabble over money.
The newest disagreement is centered on a Nov. 29 notice Delray Beach sent saying that Highland Beach owed the city $121,514 as a result of a “true-up,” which compares actual costs to projected costs.
The town pays Delray Beach to staff a town-owned fire station on State Road A1A within the town limits, but that arrangement is set to expire in May 2025.
In a letter to Highland Beach, Delray Finance Director John Lege noted that the projected cost for fiscal year 2021 was $4,657,148 but when all the numbers were in, the bill came to $4,778,662, meaning Highland Beach owes the $121,514 difference.
Highland Beach leaders disagree and are questioning the methodology Delray Beach used to calculate the true-up, which they say is different from the methodology Highland Beach used.
Town leaders hope the issue can be resolved.
“Our people are meeting with Delray Beach to get a better understanding of the details that comprise the calculation of the true-up,” Mayor Doug Hillman said.
Town Manager Marshall Labadie called it “a minor impasse” and said “hopefully we can come to some understanding.”
Most of the difference between the projected and actual costs comes in the areas of salaries and overtime. Salaries, according to the true-up, were just shy of $79,000 more than projected, while overtime was about $37,300 more than projected.
The true-up also showed that pension costs were higher than projected by about $52,000 while actual operating costs were $62,000 lower than expected.
Overall, with the true-up included, Highland Beach has been billed $4.78 million, or about $306,000 more than in the previous fiscal year.
A comparison of true-up statements from Delray Beach show that Highland Beach was charged $3.72 million for fire service in fiscal 2017, about $1 million less than it is being charged now, four years later.
Delray Beach officials say the increase is a reflection of higher costs, especially when it comes to pension costs and health insurance premiums.
The substantial increase in costs, and a concern that prices would continue to rise, were among the reasons Highland Beach commissioners voted to break away from Delray Beach and start their own department.
While charges from Delray continue to be examined, Highland Beach is moving ahead quickly in the process of starting its own fire department.
Last month commissioners heard an update from Labadie and two consultants on the progress the town is making.
“Everything is going as well as we had hoped and in some cases even better,” he said.
Commissioners also had a chance to review the plans for renovation of the fire station. Town leaders say the expansion is needed because they intend to have two fire trucks and two rescue wagons housed in the station as opposed to the one of each currently there.
The renovations, expected to cost about $5 million, are part of an overall estimated $10 million start-up expense voters overwhelmingly approved in November.
Commissioners appear to be pleased with how the overall plan is unfolding.
“I’m really happy with the progress we’re making with the fire department,” Commissioner Evalyn David said.

By Mary Thurwachter

The holidays became a bit merrier for general employees of the town of Lantana in December after the Town Council voted to gift them one-time bonuses of up to $2,000 and 1.5% salary increases.
The bonuses and salary increases are in addition to the 2.6% cost-of-living raises and merit raises up to 5% that were approved and applied on Oct. 1.
Finance Director Stephen Kaplan said the money was given to recognize and compensate employees “who performed under exceptional or stressful circumstances” through the pandemic and who “continue to excel despite the ongoing challenges presented during fiscal year 2021 and beyond.”
Police Department employees received similar perks in October, the result of a collective bargaining agreement. Mayor Robert Hagerty, a former commander with the Police Department, requested the staff bring back a similar plan for general employees. Kaplan said the exact amounts depended on how long employees worked for the town, whether they had decent evaluations, and the number of hours they worked.
“This is long overdue; our employees work hard for us every day,” said Hagerty, who, along with Vice Mayor Malcolm Balfour, attended the Dec. 13 meeting by phone.
Costs for the one-time payment and 1.5% salary adjustment are about $110,000 and $55,000, respectively.
Kaplan said that since these costs were not considered in the 2021-2022 original budget, funding will be provided at the midyear budget amendment in April. “At that time, either excess revenues or reserve funds will be utilized, providing the offsetting funding source,” he said.
In another matter, the council voted 3-2 to change the council meeting start times from 7 p.m. to 6 p.m. starting with the first meeting in January.
Town Clerk Kathleen Dominguez said staff requested the time change to make more efficient use of everyone’s time.
“It also decreases the block of time that citizens and employees have to wait for the meeting to start after finishing their workday, which is generally about 5 p.m.,” she said.
Media Beverly, longtime council-watcher and a candidate in the March election, said she polled residents on their preference for starting time and they wanted to keep it at 7 p.m.
“I’m retired and can come anytime but those who work need a little time between work and meetings,” she said.
Vice Mayor Pro Tem Karen Lythgoe said she had talked to residents who all seemed to prefer starting meetings earlier.
Beverly suggested compromising with a start time of 6:30 p.m., but that suggestion failed to gain traction.
Hagerty, Lythgoe and Lynn Moorhouse voted in favor of the time change. Mark Zeitler and Balfour dissented.
In other action, the town:
• Voted to add former council member Ed Shropshire as an alternate member of the planning commission. Shropshire, who is a candidate for council in the March election, received votes from Hagerty, Moorhouse and Lythgoe. Zeitler and Balfour supported the other applicant, Patricia Towle, a real estate agent who lives on Hypoluxo Island.
• Honored Detective Brian Gibson as the Police Department’s Officer of the Quarter. Gibson was recognized for his extensive investigation of online child exploitation.

Officer Josh Basante (second from left) stands with his girlfriend, Madison Ayres, Chief Carmen Mattox, and his parents, Bill and Rebecca Basante. Photo provided

By Dan Moffett

Manalapan police Officer Josh Basante had no idea what to expect when the 911 medical emergency call came to him late on an October morning.
“I could have been walking into anything from heat stroke to a dead body,” he said.
The caller was emotional and spoke in Spanish. Basante hurried to the home in the Little Pond neighborhood on the town’s Point. He was working traffic enforcement down the street and arrived in little more than a minute.
What he encountered was a bloody mess.
A window installer had been gravely wounded by a broken pane of glass.
“His wrist was almost chopped completely through,” Basante said. “There was a lot of blood.”
County paramedics in Manalapan were busy tending to a cardiac arrest victim at Lantana’s municipal beach, so it was up to the young officer to save the man until medical help could come from the mainland. Basante used a T-shirt to slow the bleeding, then retrieved a tourniquet from his patrol car.
Raised in a Cuban-American home, Basante calmed the man in Spanish and tightened the tourniquet around his arm — technique he learned during training with the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office. His girlfriend, Madison Ayres, is a trauma nurse. “She’s taught me a lot, too.”
The bleeding slowed, the worker survived and is recovering. If not for Basante’s quick action, the outcome could have been tragic, county fire-rescue Capt. Mike Politi said.
On Dec. 14, town commissioners honored Basante with a commendation. A smiling Police Chief Carmen Mattox flashed back to three years ago when he recruited Basante, fresh out of the police academy, and insisted he apply for the Manalapan department.
“I’m really proud because I handpicked this individual,” Mattox said. “He wasn’t going to apply, but I told him he had to.”
The chief had gotten a good look at Basante because he was his son Zachary’s wrestling coach at Cardinal Newman High School. Mattox gave the coach his first law enforcement job, and Basante responded by demonstrating “an outstanding level of courage and calm while going beyond what is considered his basic duties,” the chief said.
“We all are very fortunate to live here in the silence of comfort and safety,” Mayor Keith Waters told Mattox and Basante, “and we forget that on a day-to-day basis, you’re out there, boots-on-the-ground, taking care of it. And it means more than you’ll ever know.”
Mattox has ordered more tourniquets for his patrol cars. Basante intends to continue his training. “Any day you save a life is a good day,” he said.
In other business:
Because no candidates came forward to challenge incumbent commissioners, Manalapan will hold no election in March.
The town will have one vacant seat that it needs to fill, however. Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti is leaving because of term limits, after joining the commission in 2014, when she was appointed to fill the seat vacated by the retiring Louis DeStefano. Bonutti represents ocean residents and commissioners can appoint her replacement after the March 8 municipal elections.
Commissioners Richard Granara, who represents Point residents, and Chauncey Johnstone, who holds an at-large seat, were unopposed when qualifying ended in November.
Granara was appointed to the commission in 2019 and Johnstone was elected in 2020.

By Jane Smith

After a failed legal maneuver to water down the strength of its public notice, the city of Delray Beach admitted on Dec. 3 that its Utilities Department had failed to inform the public for about 12 years that drinking water might be unsafe.
Since 2008 — when the city first started its reclaimed water program — through Feb. 4, 2020, when the program was shut down, the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County insisted the city admit to four failures:
The city failed to inspect that its distribution system was protected from hazards; to ensure backflow preventers were installed at each reclaimed water site; to evaluate each location for cross connections and backflow preventers, and to conduct initial and follow-up inspections and investigate customer complaints.
The city’s outside counsel, Fred Aschauer, wanted to publish only two items “to provide clear, easy language for the general public.” He wanted to list only failures to conduct inspections to ensure adequate backflow prevention was installed on all properties when a customer connects to reclaimed water; and to have a dedicated employee conducting initial and follow-up inspections, testing and complaint investigations.
The Health Department did not back down.
As a result, the city published the public notice on its website on the Utilities Department page on Dec. 3. Two days later, Dec. 5, the notice was published as a legal ad in the South Florida Sun Sentinel newspaper that covers southern Palm Beach County.
Delray Beach has been operating under a consent order with the Health Department since Dec. 1. That legal agreement between the two parties covers the city’s reclaimed water program. Reclaimed water is highly treated wastewater that is suitable only for lawn irrigation, not for human and pet consumption.
The city used contractors to install the system, including the 581 backflow preventers that stop reclaimed water from flowing into the drinking water supply.
The reclaimed water problems became public on Jan. 2, 2020, when a South Ocean Boulevard resident notified the Health Department she was not properly informed of a cross connection found on her street in December 2018. A cross connection occurs when reclaimed water pipes are wrongly connected to the drinking water lines.
The city has spent a total of more than $1 million to inspect each of its reclaimed water locations and add backflow preventers when needed.
On Dec. 7, the city hand-delivered a check to the Health Department, as required in the consent order. The check covered the $1 million civil fine and $21,193.90 for costs and expenses of the Health Department’s investigation.
The Health Department also has set up a “corrective action” table to track the deadlines outlined in the consent order, according to an internal email of Nov. 15.
Some Delray Beach residents have written the city asking for an investigation of who’s to blame for the missing backflow devices and the lack of records. But City Manager Terrence Moore does not want to do that. He wants to keep moving forward and stop the drain on city coffers that fees to attorneys and consultants create, he told The Coastal Star.
“After signing the consent order, I want the city to focus on meeting the deadlines,” Moore said, referring to three years of deadlines in the consent order relating to quality control, so the city can avoid further fines.

Time line of settlement with state and deadlines
A time line of events along with deadlines Delray Beach must meet or risk being fined $5,000 per day for each violation by the Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County:
• On Nov. 9, city commissioners approved the consent order with the Health Department, agreeing to pay a $1 million fine for violations in its reclaimed water program and $21,193.90 for costs and expenses of the Health Department’s investigation.
• On Nov. 15, the Health Department set up a “corrective action” table to track the deadlines listed in the consent order.
• On Dec. 1, the clerk in the Tallahassee office of the Health Department recorded the agreement that started the clock on the following deadlines:
• Dec. 30: City to submit a public notice about its failure to implement a cross-connection/backflow prevention program and within 10 days of the public notice, submit a certificate of delivery of publication to the Health Department. Both completed on Dec. 3.
• Dec. 30: City to pay the $1 million fine and $21,193.90 for costs and expenses of the investigation. Done on Dec. 7.
• April 10, 2022: Publish the violations in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2021 Consumer Confidence Report.
• May 29, 2022: Complete or begin the installation at seven properties that still need backflow devices. Five are on the barrier island.
• Dec. 1, 2024: Ensure all reclaimed water customers comply with statewide rules and provide the Health Department quarterly progress reports that are needed starting Feb. 28, 2022.

Source: Public records from Florida Department of Health in Palm Beach County

By Rich Pollack

The water was flowing out of the faucets just fine at Jim Gammon and Margo Stahl-Gammon’s top-floor Gulfstream Shores condo for a few months as the summer rains came down.
But when the storms stopped and snowbirds flocked back to their Florida roosts, the steady stream of water used to take baths and make coffee was once again reduced to a trickle — if that — during early morning hours.
For the Gammons and others in the four-story, 54-unit oceanfront condo, the hope of having adequate water pressure that blossomed in the spring has once again dried up with the end of the rainy season and the coming of winter.
“Things were flowing better for a while,” Margo Stahl-Gammon said. “Then after several weeks of no rain, it became unbearable and the problem extended to all floors.”
Now the frustrated condo residents — who say they have been with low and no water pressure in the early morning hours off and on for several years — hope the new city manager in Delray Beach, which provides water to Gulf Stream, can rescue them.
Several members of the condo association’s board sent a letter to Terrence Moore on Dec. 9 asking for help in determining if the water Gulf Stream receives from Delray has high enough pressure to prevent problems in their building, at the northern end of town.
“We request monitoring and evaluation of the pressure and flow to ensure it is adequate to the meet the needs of the town (which includes our building) at all hours,” they wrote.
Although Delray Beach spokeswoman Gina Carter pointed out that the city is not contractually required to maintain a specific water pressure in Gulf Stream, she said residents most likely will have a chance to discuss the problem directly with Delray’s city manager.
“Mr. Moore is always eager to hear directly from residents/customers when a concern is raised,” Carter said.
Details remain to be worked out.
Monitoring of the water pressure at the interconnect — the point at the south end of Gulf Stream and the north end of Delray Beach where city and town pipes come together — has not been possible, but Town Manager Greg Dunham says that may not be the case for much longer. He believes a new meter is being installed at the interconnect that can monitor pressure of water coming into Gulf Stream.
For Gulfstream Shores residents, that information could confirm — or refute — suspicions that the source of their problem may be Delray Beach’s aging water treatment plant off Southwest Fourth Street.
“We still believe something is going on at Fourth Street that is causing a drop in our water pressure in the early morning hours,” said Harvey Baumgarten, a member of the Gulfstream Shores board of directors.
Another contributing factor to the low water pressure could be overwatering of landscaping during those hours.
When the condo residents raised concerns last spring, Dunham and town leaders dispatched police officers to monitor lawn sprinklers and ensure that they were being used in compliance with town restrictions, which allow irrigation only on alternating days based on odd or even addresses.
That effort, which included notifying homeowners of over-irrigating, led to some relief for Gulfstream Shores.
“We’re continuing to make observations of the watering habits of our residents and if we need to, we’ll be having discussions with those responsible for irrigation,” Dunham said.
For their part, leaders of the Gulfstream Shores Owners Association are looking into the possibility of putting in booster pumps and making improvements to the interior pipes of the almost 50-year-old building.
That could cost in the neighborhood of $150,000, according to some estimates, Baumgarten said.
“We could take it upon ourselves, but the question is why are we still having a problem,” he said.

By Rich Pollack

GULF STREAM — Even after her retirement in 2004, Anne Gibb remained one of Gulf Stream School’s most beloved educators.
“Everyone adored her,” said Barbara Backer, whose now-grown children attended the school and who remained close to the former school leader. “She held us all to a standard even higher than what we envisioned for ourselves.”
Now the Gulf Stream School community is mourning the loss of the longtime teacher and administrator known to most simply as Miss Gibb, who died on Christmas Day. The former English teacher, who served as the head of school for 14 years, was 90 years old.
Described by those who knew her as firm but caring and exceptionally dedicated, Miss Gibb spent 32 years — and touched the lives of thousands of children and parents — at the school.
“She really shaped every kid who went through that school,” said Barbara Crocker, a former president of the board of trustees, whose three children attended the school during the Gibb years. “She made an indelible mark on who they are.”
A sixth- and eighth-grade English teacher who quoted Shakespeare and Dickens with ease, Miss Gibb is remembered mostly for her ability to bring out the best in people.
“She was an amazing woman who made you stand taller,” said Crocker, who worked closely with Miss Gibb while serving as a trustee. “When you went to see Miss Gibb, you were always on your best behavior, whether you were a student or a grandparent.”
Other parents recall Miss Gibb’s evident kindness — from her handwritten thank-you notes to the annual tea parties she held for first-graders.
Miss Gibb was a champion of respect for everyone and someone who made sure her young charges gave their all — in the classroom, on the athletic field or in the community.
“She held you to your very best behavior with a twinkle in her eye,” Backer said.
Originally from Scotland, Miss Gibb retained a bit of an accent as well as a touch of European propriety. Conversations were laced with words such as “laddie” and “lassie” and “wee.”
“She was a female Mr. Chips,” said Judy Wilson, who along with her husband, Ned, taught with Miss Gibb for many years. Both agreed that Miss Gibb was a natural when it came to teaching.
“She was one of the five best teachers I’ve come across,” Ned Wilson said. “She was a fabulous teacher as well as a dear friend.”
For former students like Casey Wilson — Ned and Judy’s son who is the school’s longtime director of development — Miss Gibb’s classroom was a place where children honed their respect for learning and for one another.
“You liked learning when you were in her classroom,” he said.
Wilson described Miss Gibb as the quintessential independent school headmistress whose kindness was unparalleled.
“She saw and cultivated the good in people,” he said.
Retired English teacher David Winans, in his book The Little School by the Sea, credited Miss Gibb’s leadership success as head of school to several factors, including her love of the school and of her job, her ability to listen well, her attention to detail and her strong work ethic.
“She always referred to Gulf Stream School as her family and home,” Winans said. “She often mentioned it at Founders Day when she gave headmistress remarks.”
Winans said that when he was first hired he was told to sit in on Miss Gibb’s class so he could see the way she taught. “She held the bar high and the kids responded to it,” he said.
Throughout her tenure as headmistress, Miss Gibb continued to have a presence in the classroom, sharing her love of literature and, of course, proper grammar.
“I think it’s important for heads of school to teach,” she told The Coastal Star in 2013.
Miss Gibb believed it was important that students did well both in the classroom and in life.
“I liked the children to have a good education but I also liked them to be ladies and gentlemen,” she said during a 2013 interview prior to the school’s 75th anniversary.
Underscoring that philosophy was a banner that hung in front of her classroom that said: “Kindness is spoken here.”
Following her retirement in 2004, Miss Gibb always felt part of the Gulf Stream School family.
“It gives one an enormous sense of pride and pleasure to be able to say you were associated with Gulf Stream School,” she said in 2004.
That Miss Gibb died on Christmas Day seemed fitting to some who knew her.
“I’m sure she would have picked one of the most blessed days of the year to go home,” said Melissa Pope Scott, a parent who later became pen pals with Miss Gibb, writing back and forth every six weeks or so. “If anyone could pull it off, she could.”
Gulf Stream School is planning a celebration of Miss Gibb, with Barbara Backer and Susie Ridgley coordinating the gathering. Backer says it will be much like the educator herself:
“It will be refined, beautiful, simple and very classy, but in no way pretentious.”

By Brian Biggane

SOUTH PALM BEACH — Leonard Cohen, a fixture in South Palm Beach since arriving from his native Newark 45 years ago, died after a brief illness on Dec. 7 at age 91.
Mr. Cohen attended Weequahic High School in South Newark and worked several jobs as a youngster, including at an icehouse in Neptune, New Jersey, moving 300-pound blocks of ice, and in produce lifting 100-pound bags of potatoes. While peddling greeting cards on the streets of Newark, he was hired by Jack Rothhauster of Rothhauster Radio and Appliance and within a year was managing the store.
Soon afterward he borrowed money from relatives and opened a five-and-ten-cent store.
Subsequently hospitalized by a hit-and-run accident, he had the idea while recuperating of putting goods he was selling in the store into supermarkets, ultimately growing that business to the point where it served 4,000 stores.
Considering retirement, he opted instead to launch a potpourri business, which also became a success and which he ultimately sold to his son-in-law. Upon moving to South Palm Beach following retirement in 1976 he got bored and decided to take courses in real estate. He soon became one of the most successful salesmen in Palm Beach County, concentrating mainly on his own South Palm Beach market. One of Mr. Cohen’s transactions involved an apartment in his own building he sold to Mark Harris, who had been an emergency responder at the 9/11 tragedy in New York City. Getting to know Harris inspired Mr. Cohen to increase his involvement in helping as many families of first responders from that episode as possible.
Of Harris, Mr. Cohen said last year, “He didn’t have any parents down here so we became his parents.” Harris would die in his 50s.
Another of his activities in South Palm Beach was hosting ice cream socials. For about 20 years he would provide ice cream in an attempt to bring residents of the community closer. Even in his final years fellow residents would refer to him as “the ice cream man.”
In keeping with Cohen’s tradition of ice cream socials, the town of South Palm Beach is planning to host a Lenny Cohen Memorial Ice Cream Social in the parking lot behind Town Hall at 2 p.m. on Jan. 2. The goodies will be donated by The Ice Cream Club in Manalapan, Cohen’s favorite spot.
The South Palm Beach Town Council devoted the first five minutes of its meeting Dec. 14 to remembering Lenny Cohen.
“I can’t do a moment of silence. I would rather just talk about him a little because in my estimation Lenny Cohen was South Palm Beach,’’ Mayor Bonnie Fischer said.
“He used to send me emails, mostly blond jokes, but he also gave me encouragement being mayor,’’ she said. “He had a warm and open heart. Let’s honor his memory.’’
Vice Mayor Robert Gottlieb said, “Len will always be the big dipper. … We can see him in the constellations, too.’’
Mr. Cohen also became involved in charities and purchased teddy bears for countless children who were in hospitals, battling life-threatening illnesses. A photo in a June 2021 profile in The Coastal Star portrayed him clutching a teddy bear on the patio of his beachside residence.
Mr. Cohen was most devoted, however, to his wife of 73 years, Florence. He became her caretaker in their final years together.
“He hovered over her and performed every activity one could do,” said daughter Linda. “He loved to cook and loved to cook for her.
“He was my mother’s soulmate. They were one. After 73 years they were tied at the hip. Literally. He never let her out of his sight.”
Mr. Cohen is survived by his wife and daughter, by a son, Jeffrey, as well as three grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

Anthony Barber plans to turn the historic Magnuson House on Ocean Avenue in Boynton Beach into an American fare restaurant. In addition to using shipping containers to create kitchen, restroom, storage and bar space, the restaurant will have a patio deck that can seat 200 guests. Rendering provided

By Larry Barszewski

A historic home on Ocean Avenue has moved a step closer to becoming a first-of-its-kind restaurant for Boynton Beach, one that will use corrugated steel shipping containers for its kitchen, freezer, restroom and bar facilities.
Meanwhile, the city’s Community Redevelopment Agency is considering whether to spend $3 million on land directly north of the restaurant site for a future project.
The CRA plans to deed the 102-year-old Magnuson House at 211 E. Ocean Ave. to restaurateur Anthony Barber, who operates Troy’s Barbeque on South Federal Highway.
Barber’s idea is to restore the house so it can be used for indoor dining, while adding refurbished shipping containers — a 40-foot one and three 20-foot ones — behind the house. He also expects to add outdoor dining on a new patio deck that can seat 200 guests, with American fare on the menu.
“We look to revitalize this property and make it a destination location for Ocean Avenue in Boynton Beach, something that can stand for many, many years to come,” Barber told city commissioners, who serve as the CRA’s governing board, at the CRA’s Dec. 14 meeting.
The board voted 4-0 to accept Barber’s letter of intent for the property and to develop a final agreement with him that would also need board approval.

New land deal considered
Commissioners may also try to reach a deal to buy the Green Acres Condominiums site to the north of the Magnuson property from owner Brian Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick began acquiring condominium units in 1986 — he now owns all but one of the 10 — but has been unsuccessful in enticing someone to redevelop the property.
Fitzpatrick is offering to sell two parcels — the Green Acres one at Northeast First Street and First Avenue, and a vacant lot at 409 NE First St. next to the city’s proposed Cottage District — to the CRA for $3 million. He said the other condo owner is also willing to sell his unit.
Commissioners said they are interested in buying the condo property to have a say in what is developed there, but the CRA doesn’t have the money in the current budget to pay for such a purchase. Commissioners said they would consider a deal to pay for the properties over the next two to three years.
Fitzpatrick’s past attempts to see his property packaged and developed along with the CRA-owned Magnuson House site were stymied in part by the house itself and what it would cost for a developer to restore it. He previously suggested the city move the house to make the block more attractive to developers.

Restaurant finds a partner
Commissioners have warmed to the idea of the Magnuson House as a restaurant to serve downtown visitors. The CRA, which bought the property for $850,000 in 2007 intending to use it for CRA office space, sold the property for $255,000 in 2016 to a restaurant developer after its plans changed.
The CRA took back the property two years later when the restaurant project fell through once the developer realized the costly work needed to bring the house up to code for a commercial operation.
Barber’s plan, while still spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to restore the house, avoids more costly commercial upgrades by placing the kitchen and other operations in stand-alone shipping containers — a first in Boynton Beach.
Barber offered to pay the city $240,000 for the property, but that was offset by his intent to seek $50,000 in a CRA commercial improvement grant and another $200,000 in tax incentives.
Rather than make the deal more complicated, commissioners suggested just conveying the property to Barber with deed restrictions — including that it always be a restaurant — and a requirement for specific design features the city may want.
Mayor Steven Grant said any changes to the Magnuson House would have to go before the city’s Special Historic Resources Preservation Board and City Commission because it is designated a local historical resource. Commissioners hope to have a signed purchase and sale agreement in February.
“I’m not in the land development business,” Barber said. “You can kind of rest assured that for the foreseeable future, barring major tornadoes, hurricanes, landslides, tsunamis, you’ll have a restaurant on Ocean Avenue.”
Rodney Mayo of the Subculture Group said he is providing $1 million in financial backing for Barber’s restaurant and the needed renovations. The Subculture Group runs restaurants from Jupiter to South Beach, including Kapow! in Boca Raton’s Mizner Park, Dada in downtown Delray Beach and Respectable Street in West Palm Beach. Mayo expects the restaurant will take 14 months to complete once permits are pulled.
“We’re partners in the restaurant as well as the property. We’re planning on going into this venture together,” Mayo said.
The CRA had another proposal for the Magnuson House, one that didn’t have the downtown draw commissioners were seeking.
James Barton, CEO of Florida Technical Consultants, offered to use the house as FTC’s offices and a new training center. Barton’s business is in an Ocean Avenue building that is supposed to be torn down for another development — one of three buildings that had been owned by the Oyer family. The CRA closed on a purchase deal Dec. 17, buying the three buildings at 511, 515 and 529 E. Ocean Ave. for $3.6 million.

Negotiations underway
The Oyer buildings are expected to be demolished as part of a new project by Affiliated Development. The CRA selected Affiliated in November to develop CRA-owned land on the west side of Federal Highway, extending from Ocean Avenue to Boynton Beach Boulevard. The two sides are now negotiating an agreement.
Affiliated plans to build 236 apartments, with half considered to have workforce housing rents. It also plans restaurant, retail and office space and a parking garage.
Affiliated’s proposal would move Hurricane Alley Raw Bar and Restaurant from its Ocean Avenue location to expanded space on the north side of the project, on Boynton Beach Boulevard alongside the Florida East Coast Railway tracks, allowing it to remain open until the move into the new location.
In addition to the CRA properties, Affiliated has a contract to purchase the Ocean Food Mart site on the northwest corner of Ocean Avenue and Federal Highway to include in the project.
The Affiliated project also includes a significant amount of open space. The Affiliated proposal would put freestanding restaurant and retail buildings on Ocean Avenue where Hurricane Alley now stands, surrounding the buildings with more open space and pedestrian-friendly areas connected to the existing Dewey Park.

Boardwalk deal offered
Hyperion Development Group, which plans a mixed-use development on former CRA-owned property on the east side of Federal Highway across from the Affiliated project, is also buying land on the west side that could be added to Affiliated’s project.
Hyperion CEO Robert Vecsler said his company is planning to purchase the Boardwalk Italian Ice & Creamery site on Federal Highway. He suggested then selling the property to the CRA in exchange for tax incentives for Hyperion’s project on the east side of Federal Highway. Commissioners were reluctant to tangle the two projects, but asked Hyperion to put its offer in writing for staff to review.
Grant was also interested in seeing if Affiliated would add more commercial space in its project if the Boardwalk site were added to it.

The ocean-to-Intracoastal property at 1000 S. Ocean (left) was listed at $106 million, which would be a Manalapan record. The property at 1020 S. Ocean sold last month for $89.93 million, nearly a record. Both are recently redeveloped. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star

By Christine Davis

After six years on the market, the ocean-to-Intracoastal estate at 2000 S. Ocean Blvd. in Manalapan, owned by the billionaire Ziff family, finally sold in March for the recorded price of $94.17 million, and that sale set a record for the town. However, other properties are inching closer.
A big-ticket property that just came on the market is listed by Lawrence A. Moens Associates. The estate at 1000 S. Ocean Blvd. is priced at $106 million, as advertised on Realtor.com and on the Lawrence A. Moens website. The 22,868-total-square-foot, ocean-to-Intracoastal, eight-bedroom home and two-bedroom guest house, built in 2017, is sited on 2.2 acres.
It last sold for $14.995 million in April 2015. In 2017, the owner of the property, Jackson Real Estate Partners LLC, managed by Kenneth Slater, extended a 99-year residential lease agreement to Ellen and Kenneth Slater, who have homesteaded the estate as their primary home, according to tax rolls.
And there’s this in the “Just Sold” category. Recorded on Dec. 15, Paul Saunders, founder of James River Capital Corp., based in Manakin-Sabot, Virginia, and his wife, Victoria Saunders, a board member, former president and faculty member of the Innerwork Center, sold their 16,000-square-foot estate at 1020 S. Ocean Blvd. for $89.93 million in an off-market deal. The buyer is 122021Land Trust, with the trustee listed as James G.B. DeMartini III, chairman of the California accounting firm Seiler LLC.
According to public records, the Saunderses, who claimed homestead exemption on the property, paid $14.5 million for the nearly 2.2-acre lot in 2018. It features 200 feet of ocean frontage and a strip of land with a dock fronting the Intracoastal Waterway.
The Saunderses had a new five-bedroom house built on the lot, designed by the Benedict Bullock Group. Details include a golf-simulator room, outdoor putting green, an outdoor kitchen and pool, according to the architect’s website.
Senada Adzem of Douglas Elliman represented the sellers. Christopher Leavitt and Ashley McIntosh, also agents with Douglas Elliman, handled the buyer’s side, according to the Palm Beach Daily News.
Shelly Newman, an agent with William Raveis South Florida, has the listing for the ocean-to-Intracoastal 1960s-era geodesic-dome compound at 1860 S. Ocean Blvd., owned by Jeanette Cohen as trustee of an irrevocable trust in the name of her husband, Stephen D. Cohen. Not quite as pricey as the other two properties, the Cohens’ estate, which they bought in 1978 for $620,000, is now priced at its land value at $27.5 million. Newman listed it for sale in late May 2021 for $29.9 million, but later dropped the price.
Newman, who handled both sides in an off-market sale for a recorded price of $14 million at 1800 S. Ocean Blvd. in May, is involved in two other property deals on the same block. She represented the seller at 1840 S. Ocean, with a price of $18 million, and the buyer of the estate at 1880 S. Ocean in a deal that closed just before Christmas for $19 million.
The estate at 1840 S. Ocean was owned by former Bear Stearns executive Robert Steinberg and his wife, Suzanne, who bought the property for $8.975 million in 2009.
The new owner of the property is 1840 South Ocean LLC, a Florida limited liability company with an address of 222 Lakeview Ave., Suite 1500, West Palm Beach, which is the address of attorney Maura Ziska. Lawrence Moens represented the buyer. 
“Properties such as these in Manalapan are attractive to families looking to build a family estate,” Newman said. “Land is hard to find, and prices are so high in Palm Beach that a lot of people are choosing to live in Manalapan where they can build their family home on a larger piece of property. These are high elevation, ocean-to-Intracoastal, where people can enjoy sunrise and sunsets, boating and the beach with lots of property for children.”
Nearby in Ocean Ridge, Raymond Gregg Hill Sr. and his wife, Marsha, sold their 17,183-square-foot oceanfront estate at 6275 N. Ocean Blvd. to Simon Lincoln as trustee of the 6275 N. Ocean Land Trust for $27 million. The sale was recorded on Dec. 9.
According to its listing, the home, which was listed for sale in September at $29.9 million, features eight bedrooms that include two bunk rooms; an epicurean kitchen with a 15-foot kitchen island; an Alice-in Wonderland-like play area; media room; and a separate second-floor guest house. The Corcoran Group agents Candace and Phil Friis handled both sides of the deal.
The Hills bought the property in 2002 for $2.8 million from Ocean Ridge Development Company, with Frank E. McKinney as manager. The latest purchase was a record sale for Ocean Ridge, said Phil Friis, beating out the $19.879 million sale of 6161 N. Ocean Blvd., which sold in June 2018.

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Morris Flancbaum, president of Colts Neck, New Jersey-based custom homebuilder Colts Neck Associates, and his wife, Susan Rizzuto, sold their waterfront home at 250 NE Fifth Ave., Boca Raton, for $22 million. The sale was recorded on Nov. 24. The buyer is 250 NE 5th Avenue Land Trust, with attorney Gregory S. Gefen as trustee, records show.
The seven-bedroom, 10,538-square-foot estate sits on a 1.62-acre lot and features marble floors, a dock, summer kitchen and wine room. Flancbaum and Rizzuto bought the home in 2019 for $16.5 million. 
Jonathan Postma of Coldwell Banker/BR represented the seller. Nancy Gefen and Kathy Green of Signature International Premier Properties represented the buyer.

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Newbond Holdings has acquired the newly updated 139-key Waterstone Resort & Marina, 999 E. Camino Real, Boca Raton, in an off-market deal, according to a news release.
Newbond Holdings is a real estate investment firm founded by Neil Luthra and Vann Avedisian. 
“We were drawn to Boca Raton, and South Florida in general, by the unabated flow of families and businesses relocating to this market,” Luthra said. “The Waterstone is particularly well-positioned within its competitive set in the Boca Raton market. We are making a few select improvements to ensure that the Waterstone will be able to capture a disproportionate share of the future market growth.”
According to public records dated Dec. 7, the Waterstone was purchased for $37.875 million from BB Hotel Owner JV, managed by Matthew Lane, the entity that bought the property for $20.163 million in 1986. JLL’s Hotels & Hospitality Group represented the seller and worked on behalf of the buyer to originate the floating-rate acquisition financing.

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So, what’s the deal with the high-end sales in South County these days?
Jonathan Miller, the president and CEO of New York-based Miller Samuel Real Estate Appraisers and the author of a series of market reports covering almost 40 U.S. markets for Douglas Elliman, has been keeping a chart on U.S. sales that have closed at more than $50 million for 20 years. In 2014, he noticed “a slew of listings for properties worth reasonably $5 [million] to $10 million, that all of a sudden were priced at $30 [million] and $40 million and not selling,” he said. “Other homeowners in the vicinity were also pricing their properties dramatically higher. I called it aspirational pricing. Then we started to see some sales, and it became a new submarket, and it hasn’t stopped.”
The majority of the transactions occur in the Manhattan borough and the Hamptons in New York, Los Angeles, and Palm Beach. “Florida, in general, has become the bigger market,” Miller said.
By mid-December 2021, he saw 39 U.S. sales over $50 million. “It was 29 in 2020, so that’s a significant jump,” he said.
He attributes this to a combination of factors. He reasons that “wealthy individuals have come to put more value in real estate, and that it is affordable in the context of their wealth.”
Additionally, Florida has become more attractive given its looser pandemic rules than those in New York and California, for example. Wall Street businesses are either moving to Florida or considering moving here. People from California and New York, which have high property, state and local taxes, are attracted to Florida and Texas because of the federal SALT tax (state and local tax deduction limits) that went into effect in 2018.
In terms of Manalapan, Miller has noticed that neighboring areas also have seen high-end sales.
“The sale of housing is much more about immediate gratification rather than long term. I think this phenomenon has a long runway in front of it, just because land is a prized asset and it’s tangible,” Miller said. “This segment of the market was created and redefined in the last eight years.”

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Home prices are going up. But how long will this last? If you are a prospective home buyer and wondering about that, take a look at the Florida Atlantic University College of Business free website tool, called the Beracha and Johnson Housing Market Ranking, which was launched in October. Its interactive graphs show the degree of overpricing or underpricing per month in the nation’s 100 largest housing markets over the past 25 years. The goal is to help people make better-informed buying decisions. 
“Being able to see historically how a housing market has performed can help potential buyers visualize where their housing market is in its current housing cycle,” said Ken H. Johnson, Ph.D., an economist with FAU Executive Education in the College of Business. Johnson launched the rankings with Eli Beracha, director of the Tibor and Sheila Hollo School of Real Estate at Florida International University.
 “They will have a better understanding of the possibility of significant housing downturns or the potential for growth in home values.”
The site is at https://business.fau.edu/executive-education/housing-market-ranking/housing-top-100/index.php.

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Partnering with BrandStar Studios, Manalapan resident Robert Matthew Van Winkle, known as Vanilla Ice, will be renovating homes on TV again. This time, he’ll use virtual, augmented and mixed-reality technology.
Van Winkle plans to find inspiration from high-end celebrity homes, and then, based on a realistic budget, re-create them. BrandStar’s Catapult Productions division will place Van Winkle and his team in a large LED screen that will display the “shell” of the space previously visited. At that point, the renovation will start appearing in augmented reality, with Van Winkle describing how elements of the upscale home can be re-created in a home at a reduced cost.
“I am passionate about helping homeowners achieve what they may have previously thought as impossible as it relates to home remodeling,” Van Winkle said. “The ability to use cutting-edge technology to literally walk our audience through the process of reproducing elements that may have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in these celebrity homes in an affordable manner really excites me and my team.”
To watch previews of The Vanilla Ice Home Show, tune into IG Live, Facebook Live and YouTube starting in the first quarter of 2022.

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Walk of Recognition honorees are (l-r) Dan Guin and Jane Tyree for Boca Ballet Theatre; Terry Fedele; Robert K. Rollins Jr.; Edith Stein; George S. Brown Jr.; Lowell Van Vechten on behalf of her late husband, Jay Van Vechten; Tim Snow of the Snow Scholarship Fund. Photo provided

The Boca Raton Historical Society inducted its 2021 Walk of Recognition honorees in November: George S. Brown Jr., Robert K. Rollins Jr., Edith Stein, and the George Snow Scholarship Fund.
Brown, deputy city manager of Boca Raton and a former board member of the Schmidt Boca Raton History Museum, played a pivotal role in developing the partnership between the city and Florida Atlantic University.
Rollins, president of the Beacon Group insurance agency, has served on the board of the Greater Boca Raton Beach and Park District for 10 years. He’s also past president of the local Soccer Association and the Boca Raton Rotary Club and served on the board of directors of the FAU Foundation.
Stein is co-founder of the Martin & Edith Stein Family Foundation, which recently donated $5 million in support of a planned arts and innovation center in Mizner Park.
The George Snow Scholarship Fund, which helps students achieve their career goals through the pursuit of higher education, has awarded almost $16 million in scholarships since 1981 to nearly 2,400 Snow scholars.
Because the 2020 ceremony was postponed because of the pandemic, that year’s Walk of Recognition inductees were also honored: Terry Fedele; the late Jay Van Vechten; and Boca Ballet Theatre.

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Florida Humanities, a nonprofit affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, in December awarded the Boca Raton Historical Society a $24,500 grant for general operating costs to help it recover from the economic impact of the pandemic. The NEH received $135 million from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.
The state humanities councils, including Florida Humanities, each received a portion of the NEH award to support museums, archives, historic sites and other humanities-focused nonprofits. The Boca Raton Historical Society was one of 129 organizations in Florida that was awarded ARP funding totaling $1.88 million from Florida Humanities.

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Paul Lykins of KW Innovations won the Boynton Beach Professionals’ recognition award, following a review process and vote by the management team of the Boynton Beach Professionals leads group. Awards are presented every other month.
“This award was created to honor the member who has done the most for the group and the Boynton Beach community,” said John Campanola, chairman of the group and an agent with New York Life.
“Paul has been tirelessly working to promote the group and all of its members. He is an ardent networker throughout Palm Beach County and especially Boynton Beach.” 
For more information contact boyntonbeachprofessionals@gmail.com

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GL Homes received the Delray Beach Housing Authority’s Making the Difference Award for its donation of bedding, household goods and furnishings to 18 formerly homeless families. 
“Our programs provide working families a place to call home by providing families with rental assistance and affordable housing opportunities,” said Shirley Erazo, president and CEO of the authority. “We applaud GL Homes for their support and generous donation to these needy families.”

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

Suzanne Dunn directs a rehearsal of ‘Respect: A Musical Journey of Women’ at the Delray Beach Playhouse. This is her first time as director there. Tim Stepien/The Coastal Star

Related Story: Delray Beach Playhouse: The show goes on again

By Ron Hayes

“If you could choose one song that meant the most to you,” Suzanne Dunn asks, “what would be the soundtrack of your life?”
Beginning Jan. 28, the Delray Beach Playhouse will offer 60 suggestions from more than a century of popular song when Respect: A Musical Journey of Women debuts under Dunn’s direction.
With a cast of eight and a five-piece band, the main-stage musical revue charts the history of women asking for a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t, as reflected in the lyrics of songs from 1910 to the present.
The memories are not always sweet, or respectful.
Yes, you’ll hear Helen Reddy’s defiant anthem, I Am Woman (Hear Me Roar). But much earlier in the 20th century Fanny Brice was singing, “Oh, my man, I love him so; he beats me too, what can I do?”
There’s These Boots Are Made For Walkin’, but also I Will Follow Him.
I Will Survive, but also Someone To Watch Over Me.
The show was created by Dorothy Marcic, a professor at Columbia Teachers College, who turned her book, Respect: Women and Popular Music, into a musical revue that has been performed more than 3,400 times since its debut in 1999.
“The show is written for four women, but we have a cast of eight, chosen from about 25 who auditioned,” Dunn says. “That way, four are also understudying so they can fill in if one drops out or gets sick.”
As befits a musical revue about women, Respect is also very much by women.
In addition to Dunn and the eight-member cast, the production team includes musical director Karen Nagy, choreographer Jeannie Krouch, stage manager Michele Popken, set designer Cindi Taylor, prop master Susan Rose, and lighting by Sonia Buchanan.
And Sandi Hagood sets the drumbeat for the four men in the band.
Dunn, the woman charged with putting it all together, came to acting and directing because many years ago she decided a college professor had undervalued William Shakespeare.
“I was a literature major at FAU,” she recalls, “and one day my professor told us, ‘Shakespeare belongs in literature, not the theater.’ Well, that didn’t make sense to me, so I switched my major to theater arts and earned a bachelor of fine arts degree.”
Since then, she’s worked professionally at the Pope Theater in Manalapan, the Theater Club of the Palm Beaches and the Lake Worth Playhouse. She made her Delray Playhouse acting debut back in 1987, when Randolph DelLago directed her in the British farce See How They Run. This is her first time directing at the playhouse.
“Am I scared?” she says. “I’m afraid I won’t give the actors what they need. I’m afraid people will hate it. You want everyone to love what you do, and that’s just not going to happen. But I’ll tell you, this is community theater, but we work as if the audience paid for front-row Hamilton tickets.”
And finally, of course, there’s that musical elephant in the room.
Can men enjoy a show about the musical journey of women?
“Men can enjoy it,” Dunn says. “It’s the music they grew up with as well.
“Men appreciate good talent.
“And men have daughters, too.”

If You Go
What: Respect: A Musical Journey of Women
When: Jan. 28-Feb. 13.
Where: Delray Beach Playhouse, 950 NW Ninth St.
Tickets: $38.
Information: Call the box office at 561-272-1281 or visit https://delraybeachplayhouse.com.

Other shows this season
Jan. 21-22: The Cabaret, a special encore performance of the 2007 Bistro Award-winning show A Collective CY: Jeff Harnar sings CY Coleman
Jan. 25, Feb. 22, March 22, April 27, May 25: Victory Dolls Lunch Club Matinee, starring vintage Andrews Sisters-inspired musical harmony group with South Florida’s Leading Ladies of Theater
Jan. 26: Lunch Club Matinee with comedian Jeff Norris
Feb. 7-10: Music Man, the songs of Meredith Willson
Feb. 14: The Cabaret Evening with Sally Mayes
Feb. 15: Lunch Club Matinee, an afternoon with songbird Sally Mayes
Feb. 18-19: Robert Dubac‘s The Male Intellect: An Oxymoron
Feb. 20: Robert Dubac‘s Stand-up Jesus
Feb. 23: Lunch Club Matinee featuring Peter Fogel’s ‘Til Death Do Us Part … You First
Feb. 25-26: Italian Bred
Feb. 27: The Music of Crosby Stills Nash & Young
March 6: The Edwards Twins, two brothers, 100 stars, master vocal and makeup illusionists
March 16-17: Lunch Club Matinee, Yanni’s featured vocalist Lauren Jelencovich in concert
March 18-April 3: Deathtrap play
April 9-10: Richard Barker, hypnotist, entrepreneur, entertainer, author, public speaker and TV personality
April 29-May 15: Same Time, Next Year play
May 28: Spidey, mentalist

The Delray Beach Playhouse, founded in 1947, moved to its current location along Lake Ida in 1958. Pictured is a set from a production in those early years, probably late 1950s. The second of four main productions this season at the venue opens Jan. 28. Photo provided

Delray Beach Playhouse marks 75 years of community theater

Related Story: ‘Musical Journey of Women’ to showcase century of songs

By Ron Hayes

“I never look back,” Randolph DelLago says, looking back.
“I remember driving into the parking lot and being amazed that there was such a beautiful theater in such a beautiful setting.”
That was in May 1982, and the Delray Beach Playhouse was already 35 years old.
This year, DelLago, 74, is marking 40 years as its artistic director, and the playhouse is celebrating 75.
How does a community theater survive and thrive for three-quarters of a century?
Community, of course.
From that day in 1947 when a group of men and women gathered in the St. Paul’s Episcopal Church parish hall to talk about putting on amateur plays, enthusiastic volunteers have been the theater’s life force.
“Amateur means ‘for the love,’” DelLago notes, “and to survive for 75 years in South Florida shows a commitment to a level of quality because we’re so dependent on amateur volunteer talent.”
Eventually, the amateurs outgrew those early one-act plays performed on a tiny stage in the parish hall. They moved to the city’s Civic Center, dared to tackle five productions during each five-month winter season, and became the “Little Theater of Delray Beach.”
In 1957, construction began on a permanent building in Lake Ida Park. Robert Blake, an amateur actor and professional architect, designed the building. Again, volunteers provided much of the carpentry, painting and installation, and in January 1958 the ribbon was cut and the curtain came up on The Philadelphia Story.
The theater’s windows were covered with plastic sheeting to keep out the cold, so when the winter winds blew, the sheeting rattled audibly. The restroom doors opened on the auditorium, so whenever nature drove a theatergoer to seek relief in mid-act, the restroom light flooded the auditorium.
There was no heating and no air conditioning.

ABOVE: The playhouse opened in 1958 in its current location along Lake Ida. ABOVE RIGHT: Delray Beach Playhouse organizers cut the ribbon on the theater in 1958.

But the Little Theater was now the Delray Beach Playhouse, and over time air conditioning arrived, as well as a lobby, dressing rooms and a children’s theater workshop.
And the restrooms no longer opened on the auditorium.
When DelLago arrived from Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1982, he already had an acting job waiting, playing Claudius in an Oklahoma City production of Hamlet. In the meantime, he’d accepted a one-time job guest directing at the Delray Beach Playhouse.
He chose Arsenic & Old Lace, the beloved farce about two elderly spinsters who poison 12 lonely old men with elderberry wine spiked with arsenic, then bury the bodies in their Brooklyn basement.
The victims are never seen during the play, but DelLago persuaded 12 local volunteers to don green makeup and eyeshade each night and join the cast for the curtain call.
“You couldn’t do that in a professional theater,” he points out. “Union rules would require that each of the corpses be paid.”
The play was such a success DelLago was asked to remain as the permanent artistic director. Oklahoma lost a Claudius, and the rest is local community theater history.
Since then, the playhouse has maintained its original vision of presenting five productions each season, a tradition interrupted briefly by the coronavirus threat, when part of the 2020-2021 season was presented as prerecorded online productions.

The Delray Beach Playhouse, seen in recent years, now has a capacity of 238 seats.

“I’m just sorry our 75th anniversary is taking place at a time when some are still not comfortable coming to the theater,” DelLago says.
This will be a four-show season. In addition to A Spider’s Web, which closed Dec. 19, and Respect: A Musical Journey of Women, opening Jan. 28, the playhouse will present Deathtrap in March and Same Time, Next Year in April.
But other shows go on, with matinees of one-act plays, lectures, a separate theater and stage for children’s productions, and the popular “Musical Memories” series, in which DelLago introduces audiences to the works of Broadway composers, accompanied by professional singers.
The tiny stage in the church hall is long past, and DelLago has no intention of leaving any time soon.
“I can’t imagine retirement,” he says. “To have done what I love all these years is an amazing gift. How many people get paid to do what they would do for free?” 

Feb. 5: Delray Beach Initiative’s nautical night of fun will include an authentic cruise experience highlighted by flower leis and themed food and drinks inspired by each port of call. Proceeds benefit Achievement Centers for Children & Families. Time is 7 to 10 p.m. Cost is $30. Call 561-266-0003 or visit achievementcentersfl.org/love-boat. ABOVE: (l-r, seated) Jessica Hall, Peggy Kelleher, Nancy Handler, Carol Eaton, Holly Black, Stephanie Seibel, (standing) Rich Pollack, Dan Paulus, Jeff Schwatz, Alan Glass, Stephen Green, Ted Hoskinson, Jim Nolan, Mitch Katz and Chuck Halberg. Photo provided

Feb. 22 through 24: Wayside House’s premier fundraiser, which kicks off with a preview party, returns in full force featuring unique items from 30-plus vendors from throughout the United States. The party is 6 to 8 p.m. Feb. 22. Cost is $125. The show is 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Feb. 23 and 24. Cost is free. Call 561-268-0055 or visit waysidehouse.net. ABOVE: Chairwomen Lisa Hayes Jankowski and Martha Grimm. Photo provided

By Amy Woods

Two years have passed since the last Call to Heart Ball benefiting the Caridad Center, a vital Boynton Beach nonprofit providing free health care to uninsured people.
On Jan. 25, 2020, more than 330 guests filled the Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa in Manalapan and raised nearly $500,000. On Jan. 29, a modest 200 will gather in the same luxurious location with coronavirus safety protocols in place.
“Hopefully, we’re still going to raise the same amount of money,” CEO Laura Kallus said.
Renamed the Essential Call to Heart Ball, the evening affair will celebrate the center’s core donors as well as its core patients.
“We wanted to focus on our essential donors who really came through for us during the pandemic,” Kallus said. “Our patients are essential workers — the ones who did not have the privilege of staying home.”
The ball also will highlight the essential nature of the largest no-cost clinic in Florida. It annually serves 5,000 of the area’s poorest people through a network of 170-plus volunteer providers.
“If the past two years have taught us anything, it’s how essential we are in the services we provide to the community,” Kallus said. “It is glaringly obvious that the way to help prevent the spread is to provide health care to those who are uninsured.”
The ball will have a cocktail reception followed by dinner, entertainment and a live auction. Dress is black-tie optional.
“We’re going to keep it as celebratory as possible,” Kallus said. “I think we all need that now.”

ABOVE RIGHT: Shahid Freeman and Caridad Center co-founder and board member Connie Berry at the 2020 ball. Photo provided

If You Go
What: Essential Call to Heart Ball
When: 6 p.m. Jan. 29
Where: Eau Palm Beach Resort & Spa, 100 S. Ocean Blvd., Manalapan
Cost: $500
Information: 561-853-1638 or www.caridad.org

The campus officially opened the Schmidt Family Complex for Academic and Athletic Excellence, marking a major milestone. The facility will play a central role in elevating the school’s standing in education and sports while helping students reach their potential. ‘We are extremely grateful to all of the generous donors who have supported the construction of this outstanding facility on our Boca Raton campus,’ FAU President John Kelly said. ‘Our journey to complete this state-of-the-art facility started with the Schmidts’ vision to build a complex that would benefit all our students. Today, this vision is a reality for FAU and the community we serve.’ ABOVE: With the Owls mascots are (l-r) Christopher Delisio, Dan Gropper, Kelly, Michelle Maros, Barbara and Dick Schmidt, Anthony Barbar and Brian White. Photo provided

The Boys & Girls Clubs of Delray Beach’s fundraising event broke a record by generating $190,000. Proceeds will help the club’s hunger-relief efforts and provide more than 100,000 nutritious meals. ‘We are so excited to have been able to host this special event in person, and we are proud it was such a success,’ co-chairwoman Virginia Costa said. ‘All were excited to see their friends after so long and to support an organization that is near and dear to their hearts.’ ABOVE: Susan and Michael Mullin. BELOW: Jennifer and Stephen Streit. Photos provided

Connected Warriors had a special ceremony on Veterans Day for the grand opening of its Veterans Outpatient Behavioral Health Treatment Center. The Boca Raton center will provide free counseling and customized treatment to clients through a network of licensed mental health professionals. ‘Our veterans need a place to receive instant help,’ Connected Warriors founder Judy Weaver said. ‘When they are struggling and at their lowest, that is the time for no bureaucracy, that is the time to say, come in, you are safe, I am here for you.’ ABOVE: Connected Warriors advisory board members (l-r) Jeff Burks, Jan Savarick, Keith O’Donnell, Weaver, David Frankel, Odette Artime and Bill Greenfield. Photo provided

Florence Fuller Child Development Centers’ signature fundraiser brought in $1 million and celebrated the agency’s 50th anniversary. The elegant evening included a cocktail hour, a silent auction, dinner and dancing and a ceremony naming Peggy Henry Van Dorp as the inaugural Legacy Society honoree. ‘We are so grateful for the unwavering kindness and commitment of our supporters who believe in investing in our children and families, securing our future,’ CEO Ellyn Okrent said. ABOVE: (l-r) Hiromi Printz, Simone Spiegel, Stacey Packer and Peg Anderson. LEFT: Dr. John Westine and Gail Wasserman. BELOW: (l-r, front) Carrie Rubin, Kathy Adkins, Denise Zimmerman, (back) Dana Weiss, Lauren Johnson, Megan Escamilla, Heidi Johnson Adams and Van Dorp. Photos provided

Close to 300 guests attended Best Foot Forward’s sold-out event and helped generate more than $250,000 to support the needs of children in foster care beyond the academic support the organization provides. Examples include medical expenses such as contact lenses or glasses and orthopedic braces as well as gas cards and Uber rides to enable youths to get where they need to go. ‘This was a memorable event, and we raised a significant amount of money to support student essentials like birthday celebrations, field trip money, senior year activities, groceries and college summer housing, which are often overlooked but are extremely important,’ co-founder Donna Biase said. ABOVE: (l-r, front) Robyn Moncrief, Christine Paige, Juliet Young, Claire Borghei, (back) Samer Fahmy, Haroula Norden, Mark Larkin, Maureen Mann, Brian Altschuler, Freyda Burns and Renee Burns. RIGHT: Danielle Rosse and Rochelle LeCavalier. Photos provided by Gina Fontana

Chad Birdsall and Jenna Fluehr were married Nov. 13 by Father Paul Pierce at St. Hugh Catholic Church, with the reception at the Mr. C Hotel in Coconut Grove. Jenna, 32, is the daughter of Lori and Chris Fluehr of Boca Raton. She is a director of finance for Discovery Inc. She graduated from Florida State University with a bachelor’s in finance and entrepreneurship and earned her MBA at the University of Tampa. Her mother is retired from the Chicago Tribune, where she was an advertising representative. Her father is a certified financial planner with Raymond James Financial. Chad, 33, is head of market operations with Bungalow Inc. He formerly was a manager for Uber in Singapore. He graduated from Ohio University with a bachelor’s in marketing. He is the son of Barbara and Cliff Birdsall of Dublin, Ohio. Barbara is retired from the Dublin School Board. Cliff is retired from Forward Air Inc., where he was vice president. The newlyweds met in Washington, D.C., and will reside there.