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1674-16 John Collinsda Collins Famed Beach W Zan, Dies T e �` �� �. " iaml tBeach's most famous residents' ',died after a 1 g illness. Mrs ollins, whose late hus- band. John S. Collins, pio- neered in the de- ! velopmentof Miami Beach, would have been 87 on New Year's day. 4a\ Since her ar- •rival here in 1916, `• Mrs. Collins saw her husband's "farm" blossom into the most ex- clusive resort center in America. She saw real estate which Mr. C r , Collins had bought.•for 35 cents an acre skyrocket to 81,400 a front i foot. 1 Mrs. . Collins had been a real • estate figure on the Beach until 1937, when her health failed. She' tcontinued. to •work, however, until a year ago. when illness forced _ -,-her into retirement. , • Like her late • husband, who :< died. in 1928, Mrs: Collins was long considered an authority on. Miami real estate. She .was the second wife of .Mr. . Collins, who first came here in. 1896 to grow coconuts and eventu- ally owned nearly five miles of Beach property along the ocean front. Airs. Collins came to Miami from t Mrs.-Collins N. J., and lived for man,' -years—In a home at 2439 Collins ave. Among the public properties named in honor of her late hus- band are the John S. Collins library, Collins park, Collins bridge, later called the Venetian causeway, and Collins canaL Mrs: Collins is survived by her daughter,, Mrs. Helen Cutten, with whom she lived at 3510 Pine Tree drive. - Services will be held at 4 p. m. Thursday in the Philbrick Miami chapel. The Rev. Dr. R. Wiley Scott: wilt officiate. Interment will be in Moorestown, N. J. • I lr Ocean -Front Tract Brings Record Price Nat Teller Pays $1,400 Per Foot For Noted Collins Homesite At Beach By FERMAN WILSON Estate Editor ohn S. Collins ' aid 35 cents an acre or ; iat Teller, $1,400 a front foot, highest price for ocean frontage since the 1925 boom Pr �te o3ic d C r - ]ins to � s pur- chased from the government, and extending 75 feet along the ocean's edge at 25th st. and back 168 feet fleet to Collins ave., with riparian rights on Lake Pancoast. Included in the sale was the Collins resi- dence erected in 1914. Remodeled, it was occupied in recent years by Heintz & Co., stock brokers, until taken over by the Army. Teller bought the property from J. H. Miller and Bruno Weil for $105,000, and has completed plans for erection of a seven -story -and - penthouse modernistic hotel with 112 guest rooms, the expected cost, including land, to be $500,000. Tel- ler has been on the Beach since 1935. He at one time owned the Drake hotel and now operates the Millburn. He formerly operated hotels in New England. Futch & Weil were the selling brokers. PIONEER RESIDENCE While Charles M. Lum is credited with having built in 1886 the first home at Miami Beach, the Collins place was the second pretentious residence at the Beach, being pre- ceded only by the Thomas J. Pan- coast home on Lake Pancoast. The tate Quaker Collins was liv- ing in the home just sold when, after he and his associates learned that raising coconuts commercially wasn't what it was cracked up to be, he planted 10,000 trees of avo- cados and mangoes on a stretch of land that stabs the heart of the Beach residential section, the fa- mous Australian pines that bank the rich estates of Pine Tree dr., having been planted by Collins as a windbreak for his fruit trees. As .late as 1913, Collins was pay- ing aying only 8375 taxes on a tract of 1,670 acres at Miami Beach. Latest assessed valuation on real estate at the Beach totals 871,317,700.