Posts Tagged "Unicom Nursing Care"
Villa am Meer, Chapter 13
University Commons… the beginning of the end
New here? Start with Chapter 1…
Back in Chapter 1, my very first blog post, I started with a list of questions I wanted to know about “my house” on Longboat Key. Who built it? How long had it been there? Who owned it? And finally, why had it fallen into such a state of disrepair? Over the past several months, I’ve answered all but the last one. Today, I’ll do my best to answer that question as well.
Throughout the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s and 70s, the Kohl-Benedict family had a good run. They built a family fortune that started with perfume. They ventured into real estate. Dairy farms. Thoroughbred race horses. Tropicana orange juice. Private islands. And something about parrots…? I never did get to the bottom of that one.
Indeed, it was a lavish lifestyle… private schools, country clubs, debutante balls, luxury Manhattan apartments, corporate parties at the Rainbow Room, and beach parties at Villa am Meer (attended by the occasional celebrity).
Things clipped along until 1985, the year Hermann Kohl’s company, Norda, Inc., was acquired by Unilever, a huge Anglo-Dutch food and fragrance company dually-based out of the UK and the Netherlands. If you think you’ve never heard of Unilever, think again. Think Lipton, Hellman’s, Dove, and Axe.
When the deal was done, the question, I’m sure, was what to do with this latest windfall. How could the family invest their wealth to guarantee a sustained income for future generations of “Dukes and Benedicts?”
The answer, it seems, was a Sarasota retirement community offering sequential care for the elderly. Enter University Commons, “a 256-acre nursing/retirement home complex covering 567,800 square feet, with golf course, resort hotel, and office space.”
It was to be built on land purchased by Hermann Kohl in 1931, north of University Parkway, at the intersection of Tuttle Avenue. It was such a large undertaking, the project was deemed a “DRI,” or Development of Regional Impact. After all, as late as 1982, University Parkway was still unpaved, and referred to simply as “County Line Road.”
All that changed by October of 1992, when University Parkway was converted from a two lane road to a six-lane superhighway that connected I-75 with the international airport and two other major U.S. highways (301 and 41) between Sarasota and Bradenton. In all, seven DRIs were planned for the five mile corridor along University Parkway.
It certainly seemed like a good idea. After all, during the 90s, millions of aging baby boomers were busy stuffing money into their IRAs and making plans to move to Florida in droves. Yes, everything would be coming up roses for the Benedicts for a very long time, assuming all went well with the University Commons project.
All did not go well.
I have no idea what went wrong with the project, but the property tax records for 8104 Tuttle Avenue tell some of the story. On August 2, 1994, the University Commons property was sold to Unicom Nursing Care for $900,000. Unicom was another corporation owned by the Benedicts. This company was incorporated on July 31, 1994 in the state of Florida, but was based out of Edison, New Jersey. Two years later, on December 31, 1996, the property was sold for $1 to OIDC, Inc., a land subdivision and real estate credit company based out of Greenwich, Connecticut. One year later, OIDC sold the property for $541,900 to Life Care Health Resources, Inc.
The Life Care Center of Sarasota was completed in February of 2000 with 120 beds and a staff of 180. It was no longer a development owned by the Benedict family, but instead by Life Care Centers of America, a company that operates more than 200 skilled nursing homes, assisted living facilities, retirement living communities, home care services, and Alzheimer’s centers throughout the U.S.
To be sure, the Benedicts must have spent millions of dollars in plans and permits for the University Commons development, only to lose it all in bankruptcy. It appears to have been the beginning of the end for the Benedict fortune. One by one, other properties were foreclosed upon, including Villa am Meer, the Tilly Foster Farm, and eventually, Elena’s home in Purchase, New York.
Sigh. I wish there was a better ending to my story.
Next time… the Florida Master Site File and a few final thoughts.
Sources:
“Growth Traps Homeowners,” Sarasota Herald Tribune, February 21, 1994
“Assisted Living Company Plans 248 Acre Retirement Community,” Sarasota Herald Tribune, December 2, 1997
Manatee County Property Search
Read MoreVilla Am Meer, Chapter 12
To Elena, a tribute
New here? Start with Chapter 1…
This story about my vintage beach house on Longboat Key has taken all kinds of twists and turns since I began writing it back in March. I certainly have enjoyed the journey, and it came at a time when I really needed to start writing again. For that I am truly grateful.
I’ve learned a lot about an era I knew very little about, and I’ve begun to piece together the story of a family both blessed and cursed with wealth. At the center of it all, I’ve come to know and respect a woman by the name of Elena Duke Benedict. I never knew her, and I don’t even know what she looks like, but her life story has captivated me these past several months, and I wanted a chance to share what little I’ve been able to piece together from research and emails.
Her friends and family called her Nell. She was born in Harrison, New York on September 11, 1917. If you didn’t catch that, she was born on September 11th. I had to pause a moment when I first discovered this and wonder where she had been on her birthday in 2001, when the New York City she had known since childhood became a different New York City… a different city in a different world.
Elena was the daughter of Italian immigrants, Romeo and Maria Stella Amaducci. Romeo was the first to arrive in 1909. He was 22 years old at the time. Maria came later, in 1913, at age 21. They were married one year later, when Romeo was 27 and Maria was 22.
9200 Gainsborg Ave, East White Plains, NY
View a photo and street map of the house on Google Maps
So, perhaps it comes as no surprise that soon after, Elena went to live with the childless and wealthy German Kohls. Romeo was already working for them as a gardener, and the story goes that the Kohls fell in love with Elena and asked to take her in as their legal ward. I venture a guess that they could see Elena was brilliant, but knew that without their intervention, she would never be given the opportunity to attend college. In return, the Kohls promised the Amaduccis their family would always be taken care of, including a college education for all the children.
Keep in mind, this is the era of the Great Depression. It began with the stock market crash of 1929 and continued all through the 1930s. One might wonder why Romeo and Maria Amaducci would have willingly turned over their daughter to live with a foreign German couple, but given the circumstances, it seems understandable. They were being given an incredible opportunity to give their daughter an education and a life they would never be able to afford. I just wonder what Elena thought of the arrangement. Was she scared? Excited? Probably both.
Because Hermann Kohl was standing trial on national bootlegging charges in Chicago in 1931, I assume Elena went to live with them sometime around 1932-1933. She would have been 16-17 at the time. I’m still not sure if Kohl was ever convicted/imprisoned, but if he was, it wasn’t for long. By April of 1933, Hermann Kohl was sailing aboard the S.S. Europa, bound for NYC after visiting Bremen, Germany. By July of the same year, he had purchased a tract of thirteen acres fronting the Bronx River Parkway extension near Peekskill. And by December 5, 1933, Prohibition was repealed forever, and any wrongdoing on Kohl’s part was probably just water under the bridge.
Elena went on to college at Columbia University in New York City, then graduated valedictorian of her class at the Swedish Institute of Physiotherapy in Manhattan. Clearly, she was one smart cookie. Her younger brother, Louis, also attended Columbia University, graduating with a bachelor of science degree in Mining Engineering. He would go on to work for Hermann Kohl at Norda, Inc., eventually becoming President of the company. Their oldest sister, Ann, also worked as Elena’s personal assistant for many years.
Living with the Kohls meant high society and haute couture. In 1937, the New York Times published a report from the U.S. Ways and Means Committee which released for publication the incomes of every person who made more than $15,000 in 1935. To be clear, that means everyone in the entire country, not just New York City. William Randolph Hearst topped the list at $500,000. Mae West was next at $480,833. Other movie stars and film executives followed close behind.
And next on the list? Industrialists, of which, Hermann Kohl was among the richest. According to the article, Herman J. Kohl, president and salesman of the Norda Essential Oil and Chemical Company, was making a whopping $77,840 in 1935. His wife, Hertha, was also listed, bringing in an additional $15,988. For comparison, this is more than George Burns and Gracie Allen were making at the time (they came in at $92,000).
So, where were they living at this time? According to a NYC city directory, the Kohls were living at 43 East 19th Street in 1925. By 1930, they had moved to 121 East 24th Street, and by 1931, had moved again to 317 East 25th Street.
Starrett-Lehigh Building, 1936
Read more about the Starrett-Lehigh Building and view photos here…
186 Riverside Drive, Upper West Side, Manhattan
Kohl never trusted the stock market, and therefore felt very little effect from the great stock market crash of 1929. Instead, throughout the 30s, he invested in land, and lots of it. He owned rental properties, farm land, orange groves, and even a few private islands off the coast of Florida. One of these, Buck Key (located off Captiva Island just north of Sanibel) was donated to the people of Florida as a nature conservancy in 1979, as a gift from Elena and the Benedict family.
In 1935, the Kohls completed the construction of their beach home, Villa Am Meer, on Longboat Key. Word has it they were contemporaries of the Ringlings, and even purchased the chunk of land directly from them. The house is rumored to have been designed by John H. Phillips, the same architect who built the famous Ringling Museum in Sarasota.
Then, sometime during the 1940s, Herman Kohl was said to have invested $7,500 for a 49 percent share in Anthony Rossi’s fruit packing business, which would eventually grow to become Tropicana Products.
Sometime between 1937 and 1943 Elena married Emilio DeBenedictis, a former captain of the N.Y.U. football team. Around this time, Elena also shortened her married name to Elena Duke (short for Amaducci) Benedict, and Emilio DeBenedictis was shortened/Americanized to become Edward Benedict (although those who knew him just called him Ben). He also worked for Hermann Kohl at Norda, Inc, spending his entire career with the company.
In 1943, Edward Benedict took up an interest in farming and purchased the Tilly Foster Farm in Putnam County, New York. The dairy farm had 75 head of cattle, producing 8 to 10 cans of milk daily. Eventually, the dairy cattle gave way to race horses, and the Tilly Foster Farm became one of the leading thoroughbred farms in New York State. It produced such champion horses as 1969′s Silent Scream and 1997 DelMar Derby Winner, Anet.
Read more about the Tilly Foster Farm…
The Benedicts also owned a second horse farm in Putnam County, where Centennial Golf Club stands today. A residential housing development just to the north of the golf course was built with streets named after the Benedict family, including Duke Drive, Benedict Place, and Elena Court.
View the development on Google Maps…
Elena and Edward Benedict raised six daughters at their home located at 4400 Purchase Street in Purchase, New York. All six daughters attended the private and prestigious Rye Country Day School, and were presented at the Westchester Country Club Debutante Cotillion. It was a glamorous life, indeed.
So, what caused the downward spiral that led Villa Am Meer and the family’s Purchase County estate to be foreclosed upon? I don’t have all the answers, but it seems to start with a Sarasota development project gone bad.
NEXT TIME: Unicom Nursing Care and the beginning of the end…
Read MoreAbout Me
Join me in my sporadic ramblings as I embrace the curious life. Wife of a turkey farmer. Mother of two teenage boys. Avid ponderer. Treasure seeker. Curator of the written word. I enjoy sparking interest in the mundane and uncovering a compelling backstory.
