PBSCV1599
Gen. James Patton Anderson Camp 1599
Celebrating 34 Years 1992 - 2026
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https://www.thegulfstreamhotel.com/history
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HISTORY
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the Gulfstream's ornately decorated rooms and grand dining hall attracted legions from the Northeast and Europewho made Palm Beach County their winter nesting grounds. Less than five years after it opened, that dream had all but vanished, thanks to a string of misfortunes and mismanagement.The great Okeechobee Hurricane that ripped through Palm Beach County in 1928 hit the hotel hard, damaging the fifth and sixth floors and reportedly depositing huge amounts of sand in its lobby. The Gulfstream survived the storm, but then was directly hit by the stock market crash in 1929 when its original investors went bankrupt and were forced to shutter its doors. It remained closed for seven years until the hotel reopened in 1936 when two retired Army officers, Gen. Richard C. Marshall III and Col. H. Cabel Maddux, purchased it at auction. In the years that followed, the Gulfstream underwent a renaissance of sorts, hosting many of the city's most important galas, dinners, and junior and senior proms. Despite the turmoil surrounding the hotel since the beginning, little had changed about its exterior. The six-story, 100-room structure still sits on Lake Avenue, yards from the Intracoastal Waterway near Lake Worth's downtown. The sandy-yellow building has 18-foot-high archways on the ground floor and a tiled entry. For decades it was the only hotel in the beach community of 35,000.
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During World War II, which brought a surge of activity to South Florida's military bases, the hotel was considered the biggest social venue in the history of the city. Sixty hotel rooms were set aside for military officers and their families. For most of the next decade the hotel flourished - the Gulfstream was the site of political rallies and chamber of commerce meetings, socialite luncheons and New Year's Eve parties. "In its time, it was the height of Lake Worth society," city historian Helen Greene said. It was THE place for Palm Beach's rich and famous to gather at the rooftop restaurant and dance club.
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But instability seemed to follow the hotel. Its owners sold it again in 1978, and by the early 1980s, the Gulfstream was struggling. Its dated look lost favor with the younger demographic, coinciding with the emergence of more modern hotels being built along the oceanfront. It almost became forgotten until optimism returned in 1989 when a group of Finnish investors purchased the Gulfstream at auction for $3 million with the hope of marketing it to European vacationers and the region's large Finnish population. Four years later, it was back on the auction block and remained closed until 1997. Then purchased in 1998 it was renovated with much of the hotel's original 1920s charm: arched doorways, white pillars, chandeliers, and brown rattan furniture. Success, however, was short-lived as the doors were closed again in 2005 just waiting for life to be breathed into it once again.
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Located “Where the Tropics Begin” the Gulfstream was originally conceived under the name El Nuevo in 1923 when investors secured $225,000 from two local banks and applied for the building permit, at the time the largest permit in the city's history. Hoping to complete El Nuevo in time to capitalize on this growth, the hotel's creators found them-selves beset by delays and financial troubles. When it ultimately was com-pleted two years later, at the tail end of the development boom, the cost had ballooned to $600,000. Built during one of South Florida's development booms,
The Palm Beach Post
Wed, Jun 08, 2005
Page 33
By PAUL OWERS Palm Beach Post Staff Writer ALLEN EYESTONE/Staff Photographer
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The GulfStream Hotel opened in 1925 but was forced to close when the 1928 hurricane filled the lobby with sand.
The 106-room GulfStream Hotel in Lake Worth is going to Ceebraid-Signal Corp., although a spokes-woman refused to discuss plans until the sale is complete. The owner bought it for $6.1 million in 2003.
Condo converter buying Lake Worth's GulfStream
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Other projects
Ceebraid-Signal's local projects:
â– Brazilian Court, Palm Beach
â– Il Lugano, Palm Beach
â– Bacara Condominiums, Boca Raton
â– Eden Condominiums, Boca Raton
â– Village Club, Palm Springs
â– Union Square, Palm Beach Gardens
â– GulfStream Hotel, Lake Worth
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LAKE WORTH — The owner of the Brazilian Court Hotel in Palm Beach is set to buy another signature property: the GulfStream Hotel in Lake Worth.
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A spokeswoman for Ceebraid-Signal Corp. confirmed Tuesday that it has a contract to buy the 106-room hotel on Lake Avenue but declined to discuss its plans or disclose financial terms until the sale is complete. That could be as soon as next week. West Palm Beach-based Ceebraid, one of South Florida's leading condominium converters, is turning the Brazilian Court, which it bought in 2002 for $18 million, into a condo hotel. Although it isn't known whether the company would do the same with the GulfStream, some real estate observers expect that to happen. Condo hotels are one of the hottest trends in real estate, becoming more popular in urban areas rather than just in vacation destinations. People buy the units and let property managers rent them out when they aren't there.
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"We're seeing more and more of these, especially in the last 12 to 18 months," said Jack McCabe, a Deerfield Beach-based real estate analyst. "Affluent Baby Boomers and other people like the idea of having hotel amenities as opposed to regular condo living."
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Lake Worth Mayor Marc Drautz is worried that tourists who come to the area for only a few days could have trouble finding a room at the six-story GulfStream if it becomes a condo hotel. They might have to pay more, or they could be shut out altogether because some unit owners prefer to rent weekly or monthly.
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"It's an historic hotel, and obviously it's a landmark in our town," Drautz said. "To see something change over in that way would be upsetting."
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But former Mayor Tom Ramiccio, now head of the city's chamber of commerce, isn't as concerned. Lake Worth has plenty of smaller family-run motels that can accommodate tourists, he said.
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"You have to be innovative in today's marketplace," Ramiccio said. "You have to do things that will increase the bottom line. If this is the trend, then we support it. I think it's really exciting for Lake Worth."
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GulfStream owner Brett Engelhard did not return calls Tuesday. Engelhard bought the property from a Pittsburgh real estate company for $6.1 million in 2003. Engelhard has talked publicly about building another hotel on a neighboring parcel just west of the Gulf-Stream, Ramiccio said. The hotel opened in 1925 but was forced to close when the devastating hurricane of 1928 filled the lobby with sand. The GulfStream sold for $60,000 at auction in 1936. It went through a series of owners and bankruptcy before the Pittsburgh real estate firm bought it for $2.4 million in 1996. Ceebraid says it has repositioned more than 25,000 residential units throughout the Eastern United States.
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The Palm Beach Post
Sun, Apr 01, 2018
Page B1
By Kevin D. Thompson Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
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Developers of Gulfstream Hotel being sued in racketeering lawsuit
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"The defendants have engaged in a pattern of fraud to induce our clients to invest in projects in Lake Worth like The Gulfstream Hotel," said Stuart Kaplan, a managing partner at Kaplan & Parker, the Palm Beach Gardens law firm that applied the suit. "We believe this is not an isolated event, and it's a pattern of behavior that has been ongoing for some time."
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The Gulfstream Hotel project would transform the 106-room downtown hotel, built in 1925, into a 87-room hotel with a downstairs restaurant, a champagne room and a rooftop sky bar while also building a five-story hotel annex to be branded by the Curio Collection, an upscale Hilton Hotel brand. Kaplan said his clients are south county developer Bill Milmoe and vitamin kingpin Carl DeSantis. Both are looking to reclaim 100 percent ownership of the Gulfstream and are owed in excess of seven figures, Kaplan said. We want a full accounting, and Carl DeSantis wants to be made whole in money that he's expended the last couple of years ... my client has been carrying this property," Kaplan said. "One of the moving targets is we can't get these people to commit to accounting."
CGI is suing developer Steven Michael, who runs Hudson Holdings, a Delray Beach developer, and South Florida developer Andrew Greenbaum. The Palm Beach Post reached Michael on Tuesday night. He said he was not aware of the suit and wouldn't comment until he read it. The Post tried reaching him again Wednesday, but he would only say in a statement he denies all the allegations in the complaint, and that the parties were agreeing to jointly issue a statement together.
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"The latest filing is a litigation strategy meant to push us to a certain result in the already-filed state court action," Michael said. "Were we to defend against these salacious allegations, we have no doubt we would prevail."
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Kaplan said the talks are underway, adding his clients have Michael and Greenbaum's attention now.
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"I think they recognize that it would be in their best interests to sit down and try to resolve this," he said. "I would be overly optimistic (on an announcement Wednesday night). It's a complicated scenario that's going to take some time to ensure that whatever is discussed is discussed in the proper forum."
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The suit says Michael and Greenbaum have used a variety of legal entities to commit fraud. Both, the suit added, have run a business that affects interstate commerce through racketeering. "The class of individuals and business entities that have been defrauded by Andrew Greenbaum and Steven Michael are so numerous," the suit said.
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The suit cited a lawsuit filed Feb. 8, 2017, Terry v. Woods, against Greenbaum and Michael for fraudulent misrepresentation. The suit said Greenbaum's company, Hudson Orlando Acquisition Group, defaulted on a convertible promissory note for $400,000 for a loan.
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The suit cites two other lawsuits filed against Michael and Greenbaum. "There are numerous lawsuits filed by numerous plaintiffs throughout the United States against (Greenbaum and Michael) ... which show a pattern of fraudulent activity," the suit said.
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As for the Gulfstream Hotel, the suit said Michael and Greenbaum told Milmoe and DeSantis they had a deal to buy the mortgage note of the hotel for $7.5 million. They said it was a great deal because the property was bought for about $13 million. Greenbaum and Michael, the suit said, told Milmoe and DeSantis they only needed about $1 million to guarantee a bank loan of $5 million and that they were getting a property worth about $16 million. Michael and Greenbaum later told the plaintiffs they would become a partner in the ownership of the hotel and would pay 50 percent of the costs of the operation.
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Many of the comments by Greenbaum and Michael were false, the suit said, including the one where they told Milmoe and DeSantis they would earn a great profit of more than 100 percent on their $1 million investment. "They knew that the statements that they made were false," the suit said. "Plaintiffs acted and made the investment in 115 Gulfstream Land Holdings based on the reliance on the correctness of the statements made by (Michael and Greenbaum)."
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The suit claims Milmoe and DeSantis have been damaged by the actions of Greenbaum and Michael. "When Greenbaum and Michael induced plaintiffs through its representatives to acquire an interest in the property, Greenbaum and Michael never intended to use their own monies ... to operate the property," the suit said.
Twitter: @KevinDThompson1
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LAKE WORTH — CDS Gulfstream, the company that owns 51 percent of the $65 million Gulfstream Hotel renovation project, on Tuesday sued partner HH Gulfstream, claiming company owners for years engaged in racketeering activities to lure investors into the multimillion-dollar project.
