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The Mogul of Montauk

Carl Fisher created Miami Beach, but his plan to duplicate the feat on LI ended in ruin

By Steve Wick | Staff Writer

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Carl Fisher was a blustering, cigar-chomping promoter. Above all, he was a dreamer.

Born in rural Indiana in 1874, Fisher was only 12 years old when he began making money by staging downhill sled races to advertise a dry-goods store. He dropped out of school and opened a bicycle shop at 17. His goal, he told friends, was to be a wealthy inventor. He was a multimillionaire while still in his 30s.

The invention that made him rich was a device that allowed gas to be compressed into tanks. Fisher parlayed the profits into a business that manufactured automobile headlights. Once, he advertised the business by filling the tires of a stripped-down Stoddard Dayton with helium, attaching it to a balloon and flying it over Indianapolis. He dreamed big. By 1915, he was rich enough to help start the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Fisher is best known as the man who, with John Collins, created Miami Beach out of a mangrove swamp. In 1910, Fisher and his wife, Jane, bought a house in Miami. Inspired by the potential of the area, he helped pay for the construction of a wooden bridge that connected Miami to the ocean beach; soon, he was clearing wetlands, pouring sand from the ocean floor onto the beach, and building luxurious hotels and homes for the wealthy. It was Fisher's genius that transformed the beach into Miami Beach.

In 1926, Fisher turned his attention to Montauk Point.

That year -- just as land prices began to plummet in Florida -- Fisher and four partners purchased 9,000 acres on the Montauk peninsula for $2.5 million as part of a grand plan to turn it into the Miami Beach of the North -- an exclusive, expensive summer resort two hours east of New York City.

Fisher's vision was to turn the high, rocky moraine into a place where the ``best'' people -- meaning the wealthiest and most socially prominent -- kept second homes, and where they could fish, hunt and swim. ``Miami in the winter, Montauk in the summer'' became his slogan.

``His idea was to turn a very sleepy little community that was home to a small group of fishermen into the Miami of the North,'' said Peg Winski, author of ``Montauk -- A Century of History,'' published in Southampton in 1997. He saw the same potential in Montauk that he had seen years before in Miami's mangrove swamp. ``There was really nothing here when he arrived,'' Winski said. ``He wanted to build a hotel, golf courses, yacht clubs, beach clubs and expensive homes.''

Between 1926, when he arrived at Montauk, and the beginning of the Depression three years later, Fisher -- who maintained an office in Port Washington -- built enough to leave his legacy today. One of his first constructions was Montauk Manor, an elegant 178-room hotel, with a dining hall that sat 500 guests. It opened July 4, 1927, and 25,000 guests showed up. The Manor is a condominium complex today. He also built a seven-story office tower he called the Carl Fisher Building, which still exists just off Montauk Highway, the marina complex at Star Island; the string of Tudor-style stores along Montauk Highway, and a mansion for his family that overlooked the ocean. And he built beach clubs and stables that still stand.

``The Montauk that tourists see today is in large part the vision of Carl Fisher,'' Winski said.

If Long Island throughout its history had always been a place where people could dream big, Fisher was in his element. Soon after buying the land, he employed more than 800 workers who built roads, planted nurseries, laid water pipes and built houses. Overnight, Montauk had become a factory town.

To improve Montauk's appeal to deep-sea fishermen, Fisher had a dredge cut a channel at the northern end of Lake Montauk to connect the lake to the sea. Boats could now dock at Star Island and the Montauk Yacht Club and motor out to the open sea in minutes. Fisher had Tudor-style homes built on the hillsides overlooking the lake, and he donated land for churches. Polo fields were put in, as were a theater and tennis courts.

But the 1929 stock market crash, and the earlier collapse of land prices in Florida, helped put Fisher out of business. Work on dozens of projects was halted, and the plans for others scratched. In 1932, his Montauk Beach Development Corp. went into receivership.

``He loved this place,'' said Peggy Joyce, the president of the Montauk Historical Society. ``But the Depression three years after he arrived put an end to his plans. I've always wondered what Montauk would look like today had the Depression not put him out of business.''

``He spent millions and millions at Montauk,'' said Jerry Fisher, the developer's cousin and author of a book about him called ``The Pacesetter.'' ``A hurricane hit Miami in 1926, and that hurt him financially, but the Depression finished it. His Montauk bonds came due and he couldn't pay them. He loved Montauk. He thought big and he acted big.''

On July 15, 1939, Fisher, 65, died of a stomach hemorrhage in a Miami Beach hospital. His estate was valued at $52,000 -- a tiny fraction of his worth in the mid-1920s, estimated at more than $50 million.

His dream of a Miami of the North died with him.