1627-7 Interviews MON APR 01 1985 ED: FINAL
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: lA LENGTH: 25.24" LONG
ILLUST: photo: Benjamin NOVACK
SOURCE: EDNA BUCHANAN Herald Staff Writer
DATELINE:
MEMO:
HOTELMAN NOVACK
SUFFERS A STROKE
AMID NEW STRUGGLE
With a new controversy surrounding him, a legend lay in intensive care
at Mount Sinai Medical Center in Miami Beach Sunday.
Benjamin H. Novack, 78, who built the Fontainebleau, Miami Beach' s
flagship hotel in the days when the fabled resort city really was the
Playground of the World, suffered a stroke Saturday. He is reported paralyzed
on one side.
Novack' s battles with politicians, the press and his three beautiful
wives splashed sporadically across front pages for four decades.
His stroke came amid a new struggle.
He fell ill 24 hours after his only son, Benjamin Jr. , 29, filed a
petition in Dade Circuit Court to have the dapper and feisty hotelman declared
incompetent to handle his own affairs.
He is a fighter. "All the strain he went through with the Fontainebleau
situation was enough to kill anybody, " said attorney Richard B. Marx, who is
representing the son. He referred to Novack' s loss of his extravagant world
famous 565- room creation, which at the time cost more to build than any
other hotel in the world.
"You can' t destroy this man, he' s like the eighth wonder of the world, "
Marx said. "He ' s a hell of a man, the kind you have to kill with a silver
bullet. You're never going to see anybody like him again. That type of person,
who gave a little color to life, doesn' t exist anymore.
"It took one of a kind to do what that man did. He ' s a Damon Runyon
type, bright as can be, tough to get along with, but he could charm you out of
your socks, or hit you in the head with a baseball bat. "
The petition he has filed for Novack' s son lists the senior Novack' s
assets at just over $1 million dollars.
That is about $2 million less than the profits realized by Novack after
the 1983 auction of the bankrupt hotel ' s costly antique treasures.
"He just wants to protect his father' s assets, " said Marx.
"There is a well-grounded fear that other people may gain control of his
assets, " Marx said. The younger Novack "wanted to make sure his father didn't
get swindled. "
Novack has lost huge amounts recently after investing in a Boynton Beach
restaurant named Alcatraz, the Racquet Club in North Bay Village and a golf
course concession in Hollywood, Marx said. In addition "we know of $100, 000
and a big diamond ring, " Novack reportedly gave to a 25-year-old woman friend.
Before Novack' s stroke, Marx had said "We fear that he can't handle his
affairs. " The assets the younger Novack seeks to control are liquid -- in
cash, stocks and bonds, Marx said.
Novack apparently was unaware of the petition when taken ill at a local
nursing home where he had been confined for several months. Taken by ambulance
to Mount Sinai, he was listed in critical condition late Sunday.
A dreamer who described himself as Miami Beach ' s "biggest booster, " he
was a Bronx-accented street fighter who got things done, until financial
reverses in the late 1970s led to the loss of his beloved hotel after 23
years.
During his highly publicized feud with the late Mayor Jay Dermer over
the city' s beach, Novack called his honor "a jerk. "
I
During his stormy 16-year marriage -- his second -- to a gorgeous red-
haired model named Bernice, he had her trailed by his private detectives. She
gave them the slip long enough to loot his safety deposit box.
A judge ordered Novack to put his estranged wife and their young son up
in a Fontainebleau penthouse. During chance encounters in the velvet carpeted
halls decorated with Louis XIV furniture, the couple ' s battles were legendary.
On one occasion, the court ordered the petite Mrs. Novack to return a
shopping list of antiques and valuables she reportedly spirited out of the
hotel . It included solid marble tables that weighed a ton.
Long divorced and mellowed, the two are now friends.
His third marriage also ended in divorce, and little is known about his
first.
Novack sued The Miami Herald in a $10 million libel case in the late
1960s . He charged that news stories wrongly linked his hotel to gangsters. He
won a retraction and dropped the suit.
Before he did so, Frank Sinatra left town in a hurry, subpoenaed twice
by The Herald to testify in the libel case and once by Mrs. Novack in her
divorce case. Sinatra, who has a Fontainebleau suite named after him, never
testified in either.
ADDED TERMS: novak health
END OF DOCUMENT.