Summary of John Glatt's The Prince of Paradise

Everest Media

Description

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.
Sample Book Insights:
#1 Ben Novack, the home invader, first arrived in New York City in the mid-1930s. He had a retail clothing store with a man named Kemp, but they soon split up.
#2 Carl Fisher was the father of Miami Beach. He made a fortune co-inventing Prest-O-Lite, the acetylene gas used in car headlights for night driving. He then spent his fortune on building a resort on Miami Beach.
#3 Ben Novack, who had arrived in Miami with his new wife, Bella, in February 1940, used the $1,800 he had received from liquidating his and Kemp’s New York clothing store to buy a lease on the Monroe Towers. He then spent a year fixing it up.
#4 In 1942, the US Army took over Miami Beach, and used it as a training center for pilots before sending them off to fight in Europe. Ben Novack, who had made his money from the hotels, went into partnership with Harry Mufson to build the Sans Souci.

Sujets

• True Crime
• Organized Crime

Informations

• Publié par: Everest Media LLC
• Date de parution: 01 juillet 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9798822540705
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Insights on John Glatt's The Prince of Paradise
Contents Insights from Chapter 1 Insights from Chapter 2 Insights from Chapter 3 Insights from Chapter 4 Insights from Chapter 5 Insights from Chapter 6 Insights from Chapter 7 Insights from Chapter 8 Insights from Chapter 9 Insights from Chapter 10 Insights from Chapter 11 Insights from Chapter 12 Insights from Chapter 13 Insights from Chapter 14 Insights from Chapter 15 Insights from Chapter 16 Insights from Chapter 17 Insights from Chapter 18 Insights from Chapter 19 Insights from Chapter 20 Insights from Chapter 21 Insights from Chapter 22 Insights from Chapter 23 Insights from Chapter 24 Insights from Chapter 25 Insights from Chapter 26 Insights from Chapter 27 Insights from Chapter 28 Insights from Chapter 29 Insights from Chapter 30 Insights from Chapter 31 Insights from Chapter 32 Insights from Chapter 33 Insights from Chapter 34 Insights from Chapter 35 Insights from Chapter 36 Insights from Chapter 37 Insights from Chapter 38 Insights from Chapter 39 Insights from Chapter 40 Insights from Chapter 41 Insights from Chapter 42 Insights from Chapter 43 Insights from Chapter 44 Insights from Chapter 45 Insights from Chapter 46 Insights from Chapter 47 Insights from Chapter 48 Insights from Chapter 49 Insights from Chapter 50 Insights from Chapter 51 Insights from Chapter 52 Insights from Chapter 53 Insights from Chapter 54 Insights from Chapter 55 Insights from Chapter 56
Insights from Chapter 1

#1

Ben Novack, the home invader, first arrived in New York City in the mid-1930s. He had a retail clothing store with a man named Kemp, but they soon split up.

#2

Carl Fisher was the father of Miami Beach. He made a fortune co-inventing Prest-O-Lite, the acetylene gas used in car headlights for night driving. He then spent his fortune on building a resort on Miami Beach.

#3

Ben Novack, who had arrived in Miami with his new wife, Bella, in February 1940, used the $1,800 he had received from liquidating his and Kemp’s New York clothing store to buy a lease on the Monroe Towers. He then spent a year fixing it up.

#4

In 1942, the US Army took over Miami Beach, and used it as a training center for pilots before sending them off to fight in Europe. Ben Novack, who had made his money from the hotels, went into partnership with Harry Mufson to build the Sans Souci.
Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Bernice Mildred Stempel, the daughter of William Jack Stempel and Rowena Sweeney Burton, was born in 1922. She was a nervous child, and was so traumatized by her parents’ bitter divorce that she withdrew into her own world.

#2

When Bernice was ten years old, she and her sister were hired by a talent scout for the famous Conover Model Agency. They were paid a pittance, but they were sent to model hats, jodhpurs, and other riding outfits for society outfitters in Manhattan.

#3

In the 1940s, Bernice Stempel was the top fashion model in New York. She was introduced to Salvador Dalí, who wanted to paint her naked, but she fled. She eventually married a nice middle-class guy.
Insights from Chapter 3

#1

Ben Novack first met Bernice Drazen at the La Martinique nightclub in early 1945. He began writing her love poems, and she began seeing him. Her husband, Archie, was still fighting in Europe, and they had little passion between them.

#2

Bernice’s sister, Maxine, said that their father had always encouraged his daughters to be socially ambitious. Bernice had ambitions, Maxine explained. We inherited that from our father. He’d always say, ‘Remember who you are.

#3

In 1948, Ben Novack opened the Sans Souci hotel in Miami Beach. It was an instant sensation. With its gleaming fin of blue glass tiles rising up the front of the building, it looked more like a pleasure palace than a humble hotel.

#4

In 1951, Bernice took an extended European vacation with friends. She sailed back to New York from Le Havre on the luxury French liner Liberté, arriving home on September 6.

#5

Ben Novack, the owner of the Sans Souci hotel, had a nervous breakdown after his wife, Bella, received the land tract on which the hotel stood. Some speculated that the divorce had triggered the breakdown.
Insights from Chapter 4

#1

After her marriage to Ben Novack, Bernice fell into a deep depression. She rarely saw Ben, as he was too busy running his hotel. She spent her days sunbathing by the hotel pool and her evenings alone.

#2

Ben Novack, the owner of the Sans Souci, was planning on buying the Harvey S. Firestone estate, which was right on the line dividing commercial buildings to the south and residential ones to the north. The rich and powerful Miami Beach citizens did not want any new hotels intruding on their exclusivity. They maintained that the four hundred hotels Miami Beach already had were enough.

#3

The architect Morris Lapidus was chosen to design the hotel, and he agreed to do it for just $80,000, a fraction of the going rate. He designed the hotel's interior furnishings and everything down to the bellhops' uniforms.

#4

In 1954, the bulldozers moved in and razed the Firestone mansion to the ground. Then an army of 1,200 construction workers began work on Ben Novack’s dream hotel.

#5

The architect Morris Lapidus realized the enormity of his mistake in agreeing to design the Fontainebleau for a pittance. By June 1954, he had spent his entire fee, and he informed Ben Novack that he was quitting unless Novack came up with another $75,000.

#6

Ben and Bernice Novack ran the hotel, and they were constantly fighting. Every afternoon, Bernice would come out and sunbathe in her skimpy bathing suit.

#7

The Fontainebleau was the largest American hotel to be built since the war, and a New York–based building union soon arrived in Miami Beach to unionize the workforce. Fiercely antiunion, Ben Novack was livid when the union threatened to disrupt work and cause months of delays. One day, at 4 a. m. , Morris Lapidus got a call from the on-site night watchman, saying a bomb had just exploded.

#8

The Fontainebleau, which was built by the partners of the Sherry-Netherland Hotel, was completed a week before the scheduled opening in December 1954. When Morris Lapidus, the architect, told them about the extra fee he was owed, the partners threw him a fit and threatened to kill him.
Insights from Chapter 5

#1

The Fontainebleau hotel opened on December 20, 1954, with a grand ball for 1,600 specially invited guests. The guest of honor was the mayor of Fontainebleau, France, Homer Pajot.

#2

The Fontainebleau was, by far, the most luxurious hotel in the world. It was built for $13 million ($106 million today), and employed nine hundred staff. The motif was French, and the main curved building had lovely, warm French white marble floors with black bow ties receding into the distance.

#3

The Fontainebleau was a world-class entertainment center that drew the rich and famous like a magnet. It was there that Frank Sinatra became synonymous with the hotel, and other big stars started playing the Fontainebleau.

#4

Ben and Bernice Novack took up residence in a fabulous duplex suite on the seventeenth floor, nicknamed the Governor’s Suite. Their majestic four-bedroom apartment looked out on the ocean and boasted a dining room, a billiard room, and a piano bar with a baby grand piano.

#5

When Ben Novack returned from Europe, he banned his former architect from ever setting foot in the Fontainebleau again. When Lapidus attempted to enter the Fontainebleau for a charity luncheon, security guards physically threw him out.

#6

On January 19, 1956, Bernice Novack gave birth to a baby boy at a Manhattan hospital. When she went into labor, Ben Novack jumped on a plane from Miami Beach. He arrived at the hospital two hours after his son, Ben Hadwin Jr. , entered the world.
Insights from Chapter 6

#1

Ben and Bernice's son, Benji, was not a close relationship. Benji received little warmth or affection from his parents, and Bernice did not raise him.

#2

In 1956, the Eden Roc hotel was opened, and it was clearly visible from the Fontainebleau. The two hotels were the talk of Miami Beach that holiday season, as they were rivals. The media nicknamed Ben Novack’s extension the spite wall because of the bitter feud between the two hoteliers.

#3

The Fontainebleau hotel was always attracting a motley collection of thieves and con men, who preyed on the wealthy guests. The Mafia also had a strong presence there.

#4

Benji Novack, the boy who shot Kennedy, was raised by a strict German nurse named Bella. He was never close with his cousin Meredith, who visited the hotel with her parents as a young child.
Insights from Chapter 7

#1

The Fontainebleau was always impeccably dressed in its own unique style. It was ruled by its chairman of the board, Ben Novack, who was also the star of the hotel.