1674-9 Whitman Family Estelle Spiegel help Bal Harbour Shops mark 30 years.
TAG: 9501200701
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mh A MAN AND HIS MALL 07/14/1987
THE MIAMI HERALD
Copyright (c) 1987, The Miami Herald
DATE: Tuesday, July 14, 1987 EDITION: FINAL
SECTION: LIVING TODAY PAGE: 1C LENGTH: 158 lines
ILLUSTRATION: photo: Stanley WHITMAN* (W) with model, BAL HARBOUR
SHOPS
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: GELAREH ASAYESH Herald Staff Writer
A MAN AND HIS MALL
MEET STANLEY WHITMAN, THE MAN WHO
DEVELOPED BAL HARBOUR SHOPS-AND
STARTED A REVOLUTION RETAILING
When the board game Snob came out two years ago, Stanley Whitman,
millionaire developer of Bal Harbour Shops, ordered 100 sets.
The game, a fantasy shopping spree, reflected Bal Harbour Shops as
Whitman sees it: set among oil wells and a Palm Beach estate, sharing space
with Beverly Hills' Rodeo Drive and New York's Fifth Avenue.
Once, Whitman sent crates of mangoes to merchants in the same spirit
Julia Tuttle sent orange blossoms to Henry Flagler: to lure. He designed a
brochure more than a foot long so it would not fit in the average wastebasket.
He bought a chunk of land off 96th Street in Bal Harbour, and while he
debated whether to call it Harbour Square or Bal Harbour Shops, others called
it Whitman's Folly.
It was 1957 and fashion revolved around shopping streets such as Lincoln
Road in Miami Beach and Coral Gables' Miracle Mile. The Mall at 163rd Street,
Dade's first, was a year old.
"When he did Bal Harbour, shopping centers were still
finding their way in suburbia," says Frank Spink, director of residential
research at the Urban Land Institute. "He was way ahead of his time in
realizing there could be a specialized center."
Whitman planned his mall in the middle of empty fields. "Lincoln Road was
still the key, " recalls Hunter Moss, real estate counselor and past president
of the Urban Land Institute. "And Stanley comes up with this thing way north.
It was Stanley's folly."
Today, the words Bal Harbour are almost as magical as Beverly Hills. Bal
Harbour has it all: Neiman Marcus, Saks, Bonwit Teller and a host of fancy
stores from A (Andrew Geller) to Z (Zorro) .
Since it opened in 1966, it has grown from one level to three, with space
for more. Saks Fifth
Avenue is preparing an expansion that will make the Bal Harbour store its
largest in Florida -- bigger than the one at Worth Avenue, bigger than the
Dadeland store. At a time when specialty centers are becoming more and
more common, Bal Harbour is a prototype. Bakery Centre developer Martin
Margulies recently wanted advice on his latest enterprise. He came to Whitman.
"He's the best in the business," Margulies says. "He's like a kind of
guru."
But outside business circles, few recognize Whitman's name. Although
Bal Harbour is famous, few have heard of the man behind the mall.
•
Stanley Whitman was born a millionaire's son. His father, William,
printed catalogs for Sears, Roebuck & Co. and Montgomery Ward and owned a home
on the 18th hole of the Skokie Golf Course in the Chicago suburbs.
The Whitmans had planned to have their winter home in Beverly Hills, but
got sidetracked in Miami Beach. The three boys, Bill, Stanley and Dudley, grew
up in a palatial home at 33rd Street and Collins Avenue, with the Atlantic
surf lapping their back yard.
Mother Leona Whitman was a socialite who loved to give parties for 500 on
a dance floor set into the dune, an orchestra playing in the moonlight.
FEW INDULGENCES
Her son Stanley, 68, and his wife Dorothy have lived since 1949 in a
three-bedroom house in Miami Shores. They make occasional appearances at the
exclusive Bath Club.
His indulgences are few: a pale yellow Mercedes, the oak trees in his
back yard, strawberry ice cream. He would have loved to have added another: a
home on the Indian Creek golf course, surrounded by the blue waters of the
bay. But Dorothy is not interested.
"I don't live on the beach because I married a woman from New Jersey, "
Whitman says. "I tried to get my wife years ago to move to Indian Creek
Island. She said, 'I don't know those people. ' "
He is not fashionable -- a favorite jacket is one he bought 20 years ago
from one of Bal Harbour's first tenants, Maus & Hoffman. They've rewoven the
elbows for him several times since.
His ambitions are limited to the one shopping center, which he sometimes
prowls with a hand-held tape recorder, making note of imperfections: chewing
gum on the pavement, a sign that is too large, wilting flowers.
COOKIE-CUTTER MALLS
"I've never wanted to be a DeBartolo and build shopping centers all over,
spend my life on an airplane, " Whitman says. "To me that's the pits. I would
rather do this one as well as I can than 50 of those cookie-cutter centers."
His father was a moralist who did not believe in spoiling his sons.
Whitman says he earned his allowance working in the school cafeteria. His
first car was a Ford Model T that he bought at 16. Dad didn't pay for it.
His mother had a talent for accumulating money matched only by her love
of it. A widow for most of her sons' adult lives, she was reputed to own more
real estate on the beach than anyone except Carl Fisher. She is the closest
Stanley comes to having a hero.
"She was one of the smartest people the Lord created," Whitman says. "The
best negotiator I ever saw. The George Saxes, the Victor Posners, she'd eat
them up for breakfast and they'd never know it. She was much tougher than any
of her sons."
MOTHER'S BLESSING
Stanley, the only of the three to take an active role in the family
business, began selling real estate after serving in the Navy and working as a
sales manager of a Pepsi plant in Asbury Park, N.J. He recalls complaining to
his mother once about a colleague who made more money from his desk than
Whitman did pounding the pavement.
"Son, " Leona said, "what your head won't do, your feet must." Yet when
Stanley embarked on what was to become his life's work, a shopping center nine
years in the planning, Leona backed him up.
"The only person who felt all along I could pull it off was my mother, "
he says. "She thought I could do anything."
Whitman managed the family's stores on Lincoln Road. That experience
spawned Bal Harbour.
Lincoln Road introduced him to the upscale New York merchants. As the
older mall declined, Whitman conceived a
vision that he stuck to doggedly through years of rebuff. He planned a Lincoln
Road reborn -- without any of the flaws.
"He saw Lincoln Road when it was at its prime, before World War II, " says
Randy Whitman, his son. "And he saw it decline. He was able to logically
deduce what the problems with Lincoln Road were.
"He said, 'What a natural, make it shorter, have adequate parking, have
single landlord control so you keep out the junky shops. ' That sort of thing. "
CONFLICTING VISIONS
Whitman's plans ran contrary to those of Robert Graham, the developer of
Bal Harbour Village. Graham sold Whitman half interest in 15 acres next to the
village church in exchange for developing a shopping center.
Graham envisioned a food fair where Saks sits today. He wanted to call it
Community Shopping Plaza. "I nearly died when I heard that name, " says
Whitman.
In 1957, Whitman bought out Graham's share and became the sole owner of
the site. Family members were investors.
Surfside and Bal Harbour were just beginning• to grow. Miami Beach was
beginning to fade.
"The money was coming into this end of town, " Whitman says. "It was a
no-miss. I was the only idiot who could see it."
Whitman spent almost a decade planning his shopping center. He fired two
architects because they did not incorporate what he thought was essential for
the perfect Lincoln Road. He wanted a center where the transition from car to
store was effortless.
THE RIGHT MERCHANTS
The plans were drawn. But ahead were years of frustration as he tried to
recruit the right merchants. Burdines was not good enough -- he wanted
Bloomingdale's. He wanted Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue.
"I can't tell you the number of hours I sat in the offices of the Gimbels
and the Marcuses," Whitman says. "And those devils wouldn't see me.
"I'd sit out there and I'd wait until they came out of their offices. And
then they'd see me."
Bal Harbour Shops opened in 1966 -- three stores, no anchor. It was 1971
before Neiman Marcus moved in. In 1976, Saks arrived. Bonwit Teller moved in
in 1981.
But by then the center was already a success.
Some say Bal Harbour today has lost some of its sterling quality to
quantity. The center's second floor, built in 1983, caters to the young urban
professional. It includes such stores as Banana Republic, selling the kind of
casual tropical wear you would never find at Martha's boutique.
"It was a little gem of a center before he added the second floor, " says
Stanley Marcus, whose father founded Neiman Marcus.
But others say Whitman's Folly is really Whitman's Triumph -- because
Stanley Whitman wouldn't give up.
"Whitman has always had his own convictions, " says Moss, the real estate
counselor. "He had the nerve to build stores when he didn't have tenants for
them. He refused to rent to Saks at their rental (price) . They didn't come and
they didn't come until they came at Stan's rental. He was one of the first
shopping center developers I ever knew who had the nerve to charge for
parking.
"He's the kind of guy who had the nerve to do it his way. And it couldn't
help but come up a success. "
TAG: 8702210897
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mh WHITMAN REBUFFED BY VILLAGE 03/01/1984
THE MIAMI HERALD
rr
Copyright (c) 1984, The Miami Herald
DATE: Thursday, March 1, 1984 EDITION: NEIGHBORS
SECTION: NEIGHBORS MB PAGE: 3 LENGTH: 69 lines
SOURCE/CREDIT LINE: IRENE LACHER Herald Staff Writer
WHITMAN REBUFFED BY VILLAGE
The Bal Harbour Village Council Tuesday scuttled Bal Harbour Shops owner
Stanley Whitman's last-ditch attempt to alter site
plans for the town's new public works complex, clearing the way for work to
begin on the building.
Whitman, who brought his own engineer to the meeting, said the town should
demolish the water tank now on the site if water tests showed the
900,000-gallon facility wasn't needed.
The town's design calls for keeping the tank at 96th Street and Bal Bay
Drive and building the complex slightly north of the tank, where a municipal
parking lot is now located.
For months Whitman has been telling town officials that the $300,000
building should be located where the tank is now, closer to 96th Street.
Council members said they believed Whitman had his own plans for the
town-owned site.
"Stanley, let's level, " Mayor John Sherman said. "Do you want to use this
for private use?"
"I do not, " Whitman said.
But the council appeared unconvinced. Louis Brandt, owner of the Regency
Hotel-Spa, later defended Whitman's sincerity.
"What has he got to gain? It's not a selfish thing. Am I wrong?" Brandt
said.
"I think we have to ask Mr. Whitman that, " said Assistant Mayor Sol
Taplin.
Whitman said he is interested in the site's development
because he is "an adjoining property owner. What affects me affects the
community."
But Sherman later observed that Whitman owns no property abutting the
site.
The Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Authority (WASA) has described the town's
water tank as "a precious asset, " Sherman said.
Without it, fire fighters could run out of water if a blaze struck a
high-rise building, Building Inspector George Desharnais said after the
meeting.
The town may not need the tank when WASA extends a new 30- inch pipeline
from Biscayne Boulevard to Bal Harbour, but that project won't be completed
before 1987, officials said.
The council's unanimous vote means that work will proceed after more than
three years of preparation and delays. A major snag developed last spring when
council members decided that an earlier design was too expensive.
Plans for a $458, 000 complex were scrapped and less expensive materials
substituted. A prefabricated steel shell will replace a concrete design, a
ceramic tile roof was removed and the electrical and plumbing systems were
modified, Descharnais said.
Descharnais said construction is expected to begin within the next two
months and be completed by the summer. The building will house equipment and
vehicles.
In a related matter, the council authorized Town Manager Fred Maley to
refuse to accept the resignation of the town's consulting engineers, Ludovici
AIMEMMEMMIMOMMOOMMIft
and Orange, of Coral Gables.
The town received a letter of resignation last week after officials asked
the firm to supervise work on the public works building "as a gesture of
goodwill" after the firm charged $56,000 for designing the complex, Sherman
said.
Sherman said the firm's fee for what was initially a $500, 000 complex was
double what it should have been.
But Maley defended the firm. He said the fee, although high, included
extra services such as soil testings and borings, aerial photographs and a
$4, 600 bill from a subcontracted landscape architect.
"It's like a marriage: You have your good days and your bad days, " Maley
said. "On balance I think they're as good and fair as any firm. "
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