in the freezer that took his fancy. He then left numerous open food containers littering the counter, as if expecting Room Service to clear up after him.
“He had everything open on the counter,” Maxine remembered, “and my husband, David, and I had to tell him that we have to go to the store, pick out the food, buy the food, bring it home, and put it in the refrigerator. We don’t just call down and say, ‘Bring it up.’ We told him that oranges don’t come squeezed. I said, ‘Benji, we’re not a hotel. So if you want the ice cream, let me know, but don’t open them all.’”
The next day, Maxine’s husband David took Benji out on his boat, which was moored in a slip. He first warned him not to play on the slippery hull, in case he fell over the side.
“It was filthy water,” Maxine recalled. “Everybody relieves themselves there before they go out sailing.”
Benji would never take orders from anybody, and before long he was up on the hull. Then he slipped, falling headfirst into the polluted water.
“David had to jump in and pull him out,” Maxine said. “Benji was a mess. He smelled to high heaven. We had to take him home, and David put him in the shower and shampooed his hair. David told him, ‘When you’re told no, it means no.’ And something about that made them close. He bonded with my husband in a way he never did with his father.”
Ben Jr. was shaken up. Later that night his aunt came into his bedroom to read him a story. “I put him on my lap,” she said, “and he kept snuggling and went to sleep. He’d never had that kind of affection before, and he was a changed kid. We had that kid straightened out.”
The next morning, they dropped him off at the summer camp, where Maxine introduced him to another boy. “I found a little friend for him,” she said. “I said, ‘You can be friends and if you get along, you can add people.’”
One week later, Benji called his parents saying he hated the camp and wanted to come home. “He couldn’t get along with the other kids … he was arrogant,” said his aunt. “So his father came up in a helicopter and picked him up. Oh, that’ll win you friends. One week and you pick the kid up in a helicopter.”
* * *
After the Fontainebleau put Miami Beach on the map, it spawned a string of new upscale, Art Deco–style hotels all over town. There was the Americana, Deauville, Doral, and Carillion, each trying to outdo the others in glamour and luxury.
In August 1961, Ben Novack upped the stakes by announcing that after Thanksgiving he was closing his hotel to the general public, to reopen it as a private club and health spa.
“I’ve always wanted to give a little more to my guests,” he told the Miami News , “to improve facilities. Not only will this help the hotel but it will help the general Miami Beach area.”
Bernice would later complain that the Fontainebleau had become part of the Miami Beach sightseeing tour, attracting busloads of gaping tourists who weren’t even staying there.
“Guests from other hotels would bring their lunch in brown paper bags,” she told Ocean Drive magazine, “and eat it in the lobby. They’d steal ashtrays, stationery, anything that wasn’t nailed down.”
Bernice hoped that making the Fountainbleau private would stem the flood of unpaying guests, but Ben Novack had an ulterior motive: Under new IRS rules, if a businessman was sent to a health spa by a physician for medical reasons, he could write it off as a business expense, and his wife could go along as a medical necessity. By privatizing, Novack hoped to lure business travelers to his resort, in a mutually beneficial arrangement.
But soon after Novack took the Fontainebleau private, there was such an outcry that he was forced to allow the public back inside again.
“It was a bad move,” said The Miami Herald of the privatizing, “almost carny.”
* * *
That fall, Benji Novack Jr. started classes at the Miami
“He had everything open on the counter,” Maxine remembered, “and my husband, David, and I had to tell him that we have to go to the store, pick out the food, buy the food, bring it home, and put it in the refrigerator. We don’t just call down and say, ‘Bring it up.’ We told him that oranges don’t come squeezed. I said, ‘Benji, we’re not a hotel. So if you want the ice cream, let me know, but don’t open them all.’”
The next day, Maxine’s husband David took Benji out on his boat, which was moored in a slip. He first warned him not to play on the slippery hull, in case he fell over the side.
“It was filthy water,” Maxine recalled. “Everybody relieves themselves there before they go out sailing.”
Benji would never take orders from anybody, and before long he was up on the hull. Then he slipped, falling headfirst into the polluted water.
“David had to jump in and pull him out,” Maxine said. “Benji was a mess. He smelled to high heaven. We had to take him home, and David put him in the shower and shampooed his hair. David told him, ‘When you’re told no, it means no.’ And something about that made them close. He bonded with my husband in a way he never did with his father.”
Ben Jr. was shaken up. Later that night his aunt came into his bedroom to read him a story. “I put him on my lap,” she said, “and he kept snuggling and went to sleep. He’d never had that kind of affection before, and he was a changed kid. We had that kid straightened out.”
The next morning, they dropped him off at the summer camp, where Maxine introduced him to another boy. “I found a little friend for him,” she said. “I said, ‘You can be friends and if you get along, you can add people.’”
One week later, Benji called his parents saying he hated the camp and wanted to come home. “He couldn’t get along with the other kids … he was arrogant,” said his aunt. “So his father came up in a helicopter and picked him up. Oh, that’ll win you friends. One week and you pick the kid up in a helicopter.”
* * *
After the Fontainebleau put Miami Beach on the map, it spawned a string of new upscale, Art Deco–style hotels all over town. There was the Americana, Deauville, Doral, and Carillion, each trying to outdo the others in glamour and luxury.
In August 1961, Ben Novack upped the stakes by announcing that after Thanksgiving he was closing his hotel to the general public, to reopen it as a private club and health spa.
“I’ve always wanted to give a little more to my guests,” he told the Miami News , “to improve facilities. Not only will this help the hotel but it will help the general Miami Beach area.”
Bernice would later complain that the Fontainebleau had become part of the Miami Beach sightseeing tour, attracting busloads of gaping tourists who weren’t even staying there.
“Guests from other hotels would bring their lunch in brown paper bags,” she told Ocean Drive magazine, “and eat it in the lobby. They’d steal ashtrays, stationery, anything that wasn’t nailed down.”
Bernice hoped that making the Fountainbleau private would stem the flood of unpaying guests, but Ben Novack had an ulterior motive: Under new IRS rules, if a businessman was sent to a health spa by a physician for medical reasons, he could write it off as a business expense, and his wife could go along as a medical necessity. By privatizing, Novack hoped to lure business travelers to his resort, in a mutually beneficial arrangement.
But soon after Novack took the Fontainebleau private, there was such an outcry that he was forced to allow the public back inside again.
“It was a bad move,” said The Miami Herald of the privatizing, “almost carny.”
* * *
That fall, Benji Novack Jr. started classes at the Miami
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