Interview with Kenneth Schwartz (November 16, 1987)

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

This Oral History is copyrighted by the Interviewee
and Samuel Proctor Oral History Program on
behalf of the Board of Trustees of the University of
Florida.

Copyright, 2005, University of Florida.
All rights, reserved.

This oral history may be used for research,
instruction, and private study under the provisions
of Fair Use. Fair Use is a provision of United States
Copyright Law (United States Code, Title 17, section
107) which allows limited use of copyrighted
materials under certain conditions.
Fair use limits the amount of materials that may be
used.

For all other permissions and requests, contacat the
SAMUEL PROCTOR ORAL HISTORY PROGRAM at
the University of Florida.

Interview with Kenneth J. Schwartz in his office on Sheridan Street on

"November 16, 1887 at 9:15 a.m. The interviewer is David Dadrill.

D--Would you tell a little bit about your background? Start with the date

of birth and tell a little bit about your education.

K--Born in Boston, July 12, 1926. I'm a graduate of the oldest high school

in the United States, Boston Latin School here in 1944. Went in the Marne

Corp, actually applied at graduation. And served in the Pacific Theatre

of war, participated in the invasion of Okanowa, and then went to China,

stayed there briefly, fortunately got yellow jaundis, came out, came back.

Attended the Wharton School at the University of PennsylvainA, graduated

in 1950 and worked in Philadelphia in the ice cream business during the

college years. Went to New York briefly to work for a year or two, then

went back into the ice cream business in Baltimore. Managing a venture

a unitype program selling ice cream in Baltimore and Philadelphia.

A long line in Washington of 100 of these trucks that ride down neighbor-

hoods and ring the bells and while I was there I became friendly with a

young man who introduced me in 1950 to the Rosen brothers, who at that

time were owners and mangers of a venture called Charles Antell, which

at-that time in the early days of television was probably one of the most

aggressive--and that's an interesting word, aggressive, in terms of their

lives--a very aggressive merchandiser by means of T.V. and raido. In

about 1955, the Rosen brothers who had checked a product that was used

for hair treatment--a shampoo or treatment for neatness of the hair, I

can't remember which--but I remember Lanolin was a very significant

discovery.

D--They discovered the patent on it?

K--I think they probably--it wasn't anything as significant as purchasing

a franchise-but if I remember it correctly, Leonard and Jack had a

partner named Charles Kasher. To find out his name you can look

through motion picture history or Broadway history because he was

2

a producer of several films and a Broadway show was made into a film,

called Hadrian. He also produced a very well known Michael Cain film.

I'll probably think of the name as we go along. But anyway, Charlie

Kasher was an intimate part of the lives of the Rosen brothers. It

was true of so many other people who passed through their lives. He

was one who was friendly with Leonard, therefore, in most cases friendly

with Leonard and therefore someone disliked or at least treated with

some degree of hesitation by Jack Rosen. That was a very important

thread that ran through the wires of the two brothers and was an

essential ingredient if anyone wants to understand the Rosen brothers.

They have to understand the syndrome of a powerful, dynamic, hard-hitting,

aggressive--that really applies to Leonard, not Jack. Because Jack was

in many ways a very shy and a very sweet man. Anyway Kashqr was a

very close friend of Leonard Rosen. I don't think that their relation-

ship was a fraternity brother or Harvard MBA. It was born in the

carnival days. Leonard Rosen was a very colorful carnival character.

And I believe it was during the years that he travelled for the carnival

that he learned about this product. And as I remember he paid some

minor amount of money for the rights to it, if there was such a thing

as rights. And, where did the name come from? I think Charlie Kashear

was very imaginative, creative partner had a family named called Ante..

And I think that was the way they adopted the name Charles Antel and those two

words were very very important. Because by the time that I met them, they

were rather successful people with money in the bank and net worth.

Back to Charles Antel. I guess what interested me the most about

Charles Antel was first of all, the picture of Leonard Rosen. The way

he made the carnival pictures, the people he became friendly with during

that era, some of whom carried full into his later life. But I think

especially significant was the creativity he and Jack showed in the pioneer

days of television when they went to television stations, most of which

3

would close at 10:00. Your dad and mother would remember. The televisDon

stations, as I would recall, in the early 50's late 40's would come on

around 6 p.m. There was no such thing as daytime television. And the

rest of the nation saw what Ft. Myers was during the 60's. And that is

one television station per town. I think the larger cities each had a

network affiliation. But I think that Leonard and Jack and Kashear,

specialized in smaller towns in going to the television stations which

were on from 6 to 10 pm. And they would close down at 10. And the

Rosen brother's concept was: as long as you close at ten, why con't you

sell us time after you close. And the theory that they articulated to the

owners of the station was: you are closed anyway, so you have in effect

an empty theatre. So what we are asking you to do is to sell us space in

your theatre after closing hours. This led to the Rosen brothers having

a full fledged, dynamic time acquisition plan that was managed by a bril-

lant lady, Bernice Treiberg. Bernice is as important as the history of

that venture. I guess of all the names you showed me the most important

name is Tom Weber. And probably Bernice is among the top two or three.

Bernice was in charge of acquiring this time. It was called bartering.

It was the first time I'd ever heard the word barter, and simply stated

she was buying time on a. station in DesMoines, Iowa.. She would buy an

hour or two hours or three hours and she would then either utilize that

time for Antell. See, Antel wasn't just a 30 second spot. Antel was a

one, five, ten, twenty,or thirty minute commercial. And many people can

remember graphically sitting down and being captivated by this commercial

that would last as long as thirty minutes. It would go on and on and on.

And basically what it said was you should use Charles Antel La'nolin be-

causes you've never seen a bald sheep. And there was an oil that came

from a sheep that you took and rubbed it in your hair, you would have good

hair. It was part of grooming or washing your hair. Maybe both. What

the Rosen brothers and Kashear did was to acquire this huge horde of time,

S4

some of which they used for Charles Antel and some of which Bernice and

her team would utilize for trading purposes. And they would own this

huge block of time all over America and they would trade it of to people.

I don't even remember what they got for it. They would sometimes get

money, sometime services, sometimes goods. And this time became a

median of exchange for them. And So anyway when I met them in '57

they wer in the midst of managing the Charles Antel venture. One of the

names on your list had by then surfaced prominently, Saul Sandler. Saul

was married to the then only surviving sister of Jack and Leonard.

Leonard and Jack were two of four children. Two boys and two girls. The

sequence, as I recall (this is rather important because it was Mrs. Fan-

nie Rosen who was just a magnificent lady, the matriarch of the family who

kept things going. The father of the Rosen children died at a rather

early age. I guess ifi-the 1940's which would have made him a man in his

40's or 50's.).

D--Do you remember his name?

K--I don't remember the name of Mr. Rosen, Sr. He might of died even in

the 30's because now that I remember, Leonard quit school around the

5th or 6th grade. And I believe his first business venture was derivitave

of the little grocery store that Mrs. Rosen ran to help raise her four

children. And I have a faint recollection that it was situated maybe

a little west of Charles Street and a little north of Baltimore St. to

locate it. It was in Baltimore. Leonard wasn't satisfied to wait in the

store for people to come to him. This was an interesting period in his

life. And he opened up some kind of a sidewalk stand down the street to

get a little bit closer to where the prospects were. And that was sort

of a little preview of what was to come in life. I would guess that Jack

probably went to high school and maybe finished. They were both very

well read people, Leonard particularly, even though he had no formal

education. I doubt that there was any year in his life that he didn't

5

read 20 to 40 books. And therefore was in many ways a brilliant scholar.

D--You were telling me about the four children.

K--The sequence of the four children went as follows: Edith Rosen Straus,

Leonard Rosen, Jack Rosen, and Sylvia Rosen Sandler. Tragically three

of them died very young in the following order. Edith Rosen Strauss

died around 1955. Because I became an employee of theirs in 1957 and I

seem--to recall that there was still a period of mourning. And instead of

just sitting back and mourning in frustration. They established the Edith

Rosen Strauss charity fund. That group which is probably still in busi-

ness raised money for cancer research in memory of Edith Rosen Strauss.

I can't remember whether she left any children. I seem to remember

she was estranged to the person "nm-d Strauss. So when I came on the

scene in 1957 there was the mother, the three surviving siblings and

Mrs. Rosen lived until 1963. That was very severe loss to everybody

because she was such a magnificent woman. One of the little episodes

I remember about her was her first visit to Cape Coral. I was sort of th6

3 > on the scene person so I had the delight of conducting the tour,

and seeing the reaction of people. To me it was the one great love affair

of my entire life. When I took Mrs. Rosen she was just astonished at

what was going on with all the machinery and all the activity going on.

It was very early in the sales days before we really became huge. As it

was to all of us, and particularly to her, it just became overwhelming

magnitude and the tempo of the venture. And I can remember her eyes opening

when I took her around the properties and in the very beginning of 1958.

She said "I can't get aver it. My son building a city." "He couldn't

keep his room clean and now he's building a city." That was a line I could

always remember. Mrs. Rosen died in 1963. Because I was still employed

by the Rosen brothers then. The next one to pass away was either Sylvia

Rosen Sandler or Jack. They died about the same time. I think Sylvia

died in maybe 1970. She had been suffering from cancer, the same disease

\1(
6

of which her sister died; She was a lovely, very gracious woman. She

left two children. And then shortly after Jack Rosen died (I think it

was '70 or '71) at the age of fifty. Which was a particular tragedy.

He had always been dogged by, not ill health in the sense of being sick.

But he was always sort of a troubled person. And that's why I mentioned

earlier the relationship between Jack and Leonard. Because that was

the dominant factor in Jack's life. Every problem that Jack ever had

in life he always scribed to Leonard., Ther is no way you can study

the history of Cape Coral without understanding that.. Because it was

a very extraordinarily complex relationship. I won't go into all the....

D--Well, think a little bit more about the relationship between the two

brothers.

K--Jack was a very creative fellow. He was either enormously jealous

of Leonard or in the very least had a difficult time accommodating him-

self. Basically he was a very gentle fellow and Leonard's aggressiveness

was something that he had enormous problems with all his life.. I gues

probably understand that one simple little reference would explain it

all. Whenever one talked to Mrs. Fannie Rosen, even on Jack's birthday,

all one would hear was how wonderful Leonard was. So if you multiply

that times a lifetime of inconsequential episodes you could probably

then underscore the reason for Jack's mental or emotional difficulty.

D--How do you think Leonard felt about Jack?

K--He adored him. He didn't have the patience to conduct... It wasn't even

a day to day relationship. It was an hour to hour, minute to minute

relationship. Jack was a very difficult person to live with. Leonard

was a real fun person and Jack was very tough to take. Except in times

of adversity. When things were good Jack would just annoy you to hell.

SAnd I happen to be sort of a nemesis of his & that was a problem for

me, emotionally and vocationally. But Jack's finest hours were those

moments when things got tough. He was courageous and very supportive,

7

but when things were good he was sometimes merciless, not cruel, but Jack

was very good at rallying people during tough times.

D-Can you think of a situation.?

K-Oh I can remember a lot of cases where things got difficult. For instance

the Saturday Evening Post came out with a blistering indictment of the

Rosen brothers and some of the real milestones in terms of the deteriora-

J tion of the Rosen brothers. The attack by the Saturday Evening Post, Trevor

Amhbrister wrote this article. I can remember the Miami Herald coming out

with a harsh and probably well justified attack on some of selling

records of some of the Rosen brothers. At times like that when everyone

was in a state of frenzy. It was the one time when Jack would be cool,

encouraging" supportive, non-panicy. It was regular time when something

minor happened, Jack would just be angry and upset. I can think of so

many episodes mostly which have something of vulgarity so I can't really

repeat them on the tape. But basically his jealousy of Leonard would be

the overwhelming aspect. Therefore he would be a little bit unforgiving

or unintentionally cruel. My own demise of the Rosen brothers came about

from the tension between them. I don't know if you've come about this in

your research, but you were either a Jack person or a Leonard person. You

couldn't be both. In my heart I really saw myself as both, and I really

Liked Jack all the way through. From the moment I met him to the moment

he died. (We were then pretty much estranged.) I always was able to see

that he was basically a decent guy, a generous guy. Much more generous

than Leonard. Leonard was in many ways very selfish. Leonard got by on

charisma, on that magic personality of his. Jack was a guy that if you

did something well, that he'd want to reward you for it. With Leonard

if you did something well he would want to use his magic to find a way

to give you praise or to motivate you but not necessarily give you any

type of material reward.

8

D--How did Jack reward somebody?

K-Try to give him more money. He was the fellow who came up with the con-

cept of stock options for the offices of the company. I'm confident

that Leonard never would have given us the stock options. He would have

come up with some way to give us more cheerleading. I guess the best way
b
to describe,Leonard would to tell you a little story about my partner,

Lester Engel. At one time around 1969 I was employed very briefly by a

fellow named Joe Klein. He was in many ways the worst enemy ever of the

Rosen brothers. To a large degree was probably a significant contributor

to the ultimate downfall of the Rosen brothers. Keep in mind that there

was a certain arrogance in Leonard Rosen. Almost a self-defeating

stubbornness. You would then be able to recognized that a few people

played an important role. One would be Armbrister and his article in the

Saturday Evening Post, another would be an unnamed person in the Wall

Street Journal another would be Joe Klein. There were a handful of

people who provoked Leonard to the point where Leonard had to get

revenge. And instead of just stepping aside and just letting something

pass, particularly the Joe Klein situation, Leonard and Jack Rosen kept

going after Klein on some dispute that reached the point where ultimately

the Rosen brothers structure began to collapse because of revelations

about their sales methods and you eluded to it. None of which were

typical of or even necessary from the Rosen Brothers.

D--Speak a little bit more about this Klein guy.

K--Klein. Oh I'll tell you first bout what I was referring to that will

describe Leonard Rosen briefly. I was trying to convince Lester Engel

that he should join Joe Klein. Klein was a fellow who was so lavish

in what he would pay people. If a guy was making 25,000 a year and Joe

Klein wanted that guy he would pay him 50,000 and give him a Cadillac,

9

American Express card and whatever else they took. Not long afterwards

when the period of disenchantment would set in he would then get rid of

the guy. I learned that afterwards. But I remember saying to Lester

E ngle who was then a lawyer for the Rosen brothers that he ought to

consider leaving the....He had come up to see Joe Klein. Joe was aggres-

sive during that phase. He met with Lester and I saw Lester that evening

after he had finished meeting with Joe Klein. And I asked him what he

was going to do. He said 'I'm going to stay where I am." I said "don't

stay where you are. Go with Joe Klein because you can get a lot of -

money with him." So Lester said he was going to stay. I said "Lester,

you are never going to get any money with Leonard Rosen." Lester said

+-ht he had changed a lot and wasn't the same Leonard Rosen that you

remember. And I can remember with some characteristic reasoning of saying

the following: "Lester,Leonard Rosen may understand with his mind that

he has to pay the money. He might even understand with his heart that

he should pay the money. But the thing that would preclude him from

paying the money would be his stomach." And I think that sort of

describes him. I think even to this day, regretably the last words I

had with Leonard Rosen in his life, which was just a few month ago,

related to a dispute about money. An angry dispute about money. Anyway,

you wanted to go to Joe Klein.

D--What type of business was he in?

K--Klein started out as a prospect recruited for some letters that someone

had invented called OPC. Outside Public Consultants. That OPC was also

known in the trade as a canvaser. And he or she would ply the trade near

a hotel or an attraction. It became such an important part of the ultra-

aggressive life of the Rosens that one could go to the Vatican to watch

the Pope and be approached by a canvaser, could go to Buckingham Palace.

Someone came up to me there and I had friends in such far away places,

Costa Rica and Paris., Everywhere else in the world, there was always

3Cp

10

a canvaser there who would come up and invite one to attend a cocktail

party at some hotel near the place. And in return you would get a free

camera or some novelty or some other treat. The finest of all the can-

vasers in all the world was the assembleage put together by Joe Klein.

Joe Klein was a significant contributor during a certain period of the

Rosen brothers' lives. I had gone by then, I left in '64, I came in

in '57. Drummed out basically because of Jack's problem with me. And

I can remember all of that very clearly, but I won't burden you with

that except to stick to the subject. Joe Klein became more and more

important in the lives of the Rosen Brothers by virtually the amount of

leads or prospects that he furnished. He had people covering all the

beaches of Dade, Broward County probably. And the Rosen brothers would

arrange to pick up these people somewhere near the hotel and come over

to Cape Coral. By then Cape Coral was a little less important. Golden

Gate became important, and I didn't have much to do with Golden Gate.

Golden Gate was a much more aggressively managed venture. After Golden

S Gate then came termuda Ranch Grants in Collier County which was even more

aggressively run as was River Ranch up in Polk County. There was also

Barefoot Bay and then ultimately Poinciana. Those are the names that

I associate with the Rosen brothers., I don't remember what it was that

Joe Klein and his father Zola who is a rather netarious character--Joe

was a rather charming and very engaging man. Bad blood rose between the

Joe Klein people and the Jack Rosen people. Jack Rosen was ultimately

responsible for the selling aspect of the Gulf American.

D--V1ho were some of those Jack Rosen people?

K--The Jack Rosen people were, in order of their importance, Charles Hepner,

in more or less of the management end. Bob Carroll who was more the
administrative end. Bob was the number one administrative person under

Jack. Such things as booking hotels for parties or namely managing

38\
11

expenses. Bob was always kept away from the creative aspect. That was

Hepner. Hepner was originally a television director and came with the

Rosen brothers several years before I did. And he was the only.... I al-

ways identified myself as the first employee of the Rosen brothers. I'm

not sure how accurate that was. It wasn't accurate because first of all,

Tom Weber was there when I showed up. So I was probably the second

Florida employee. But Hepner was on the scene the day I came to Florida.

First in 1957. The Jack Rosen story began in Baltimore. Leonard moved

to Florida somewhere around September of '57. Why September? Because he

had three school-age children at the time. Linda was about 15, Connie

was 13, and Sandy was 9 or 10 and the apple of her father's eye. All three

of their lives, unfortunately, were adversely affected by Leonard's behav-

ior. When I say vulgar he was really in many ways extraordinarily coarse.

He was just a notorious womanizer. He was unbearbly insulting to his wife

who was and is a magnificent woman and to his three children. And I

can't help but feel for them. Lack of respect caused and various kinds

of difficulty for the children. And regrettably when Leonard died he was

almost estranged completely of his son Ronnie, which was especially

tragic. Fortunately he did retain a relationship with his two girls.

Anyway, back to Jack Rosen. Jack Rosen's creative person always was

Charles Hepner. One of the person's that made the transition with Leonard

to Jack, keeping in mind that you either had to be a Jack person or a

Leonard person. While I wanted to make the transition, I never made

the cut. But there was a fellow named Eddie Pacelli who was an old Ft.

Myers hand, having come to Ft. Myers in the military service, having mar-

ried a magnificent woman named Rosie Pauese back in the late 40's. Stayed

on in the bar and restaurant business in Ft. Myers Beach.

212

Got a real estate licesne through the Bill Reynolds office in Ft. Myers with

the William H. Reynolds Co. Then opened a real estate firm there. Then Eddie

had been instilled as a friend of Billy Reynolds and Eddie and Connie Mack

were both hired by Leonard Rosen long after I came to the company. I was

a veteran of about two or three weeks at the time. So when one put things

in order of seniority, I was already well seated there. Connie came in

as the public figure, Connie Mack, Jr. His father's was then well known.

Still is, but was very prominent then as Mr. Baseball. His son was a

very sweet and lovely guy who worked industriously on behalf of the Rosens

but could never really come to peace with their aggressive behavior.

Forget for the moment any misrepresentation or exaggeration. Even that

part of the Rosen brothers which was just plain aggressive, hard-hitting,

but had no other negative connotations. That was a problem with Connie

Mack. As was my personal tempo and behavior, that was a problem to

Connie. It was one of the things that I regret that being young and not

as deliberate as I should, I can think of a lot of things that I did that

probably disturbed Connie. Connie was a Leonard man. Pacelli was a

Leonard, but Pacelli switched over to the Jack side, which made Leonard

very happy because Leonard always felt that Eddie wasn't quite trustwor-

thy. Finkernagel was probably both. Finkernagel was an exquisitely

competant person. And he was hired by Leonard but through his raw

competence was rather well liked and certainly respected by Jack. Weber

was a Leonard man, Herzfeld was a Leonard man. Finkernagel was both,

Sanborne was under Finkernagel. Sandler was really mistreated by both

Because he had the unfortunate status of a brother-in-law. He was looked

down upon because he was a brother-in-law. Eddie Chaut whose name isn't

on here because he wasn't really important but he was Sandler's brother-

in-law. He doesn't really do anything except when you look at the guy

13

who was the brother-in-law of the Rosen brothers and the contempt that

they felt for him, and then you look that he had a brother-in-law and

you can imagine how far down the line Chayt was. Connie Mack, Jr. was

a Leonard man. Hepner and Pacelli were Jack men. Maddlone was a Leo-

nard man. Carroll was a Jack man. Carroll is still with the surviving

company, by the way. John Cavalier was never a factor. He was an admin-

istrative person under Saul Sandler. I was surprised his name was on

here. John Crandell I don't remember too well. I think he was an

accountant. And Milt Shapiro I do remember. He was an accountant. So

I don't know if you want more.

D--Anything else about Leonard that you think was particularly noteworthy.

K--He got up in the morning when he would engage in a period of prayer.

Leonard was a devout, religious, observant Jew. Probably the single most

important word in his whole life was Jew. He was aggressively Jewish.

He would defensively Jewish. He was a person in many ways who was a

scaldy and moral sensitivity to his Jewish heritage. I don't know if

he was that way towards the end, my guess is that he was. But I can

remember when we first started, I had never been exposed to the Jewish

very much. Although I was born in a Jewish family. And actually I

reminded Dorothy Rosen after the funeral, probably the one person that

I had to thank in my life for the discovery of being Jewish was Dorothy

Rosen and to a degree, Leonard. Leonard was an ardent Zionist, very

generous giver, as was Jack. But even more important, Leonard was a

more generous getter of philanthropic funds. Beyond what he gave him-

self, he was a very dynamic fundraiser. You can't really talk about

Leonard unless you can understand the history of the Jewish people:

if you can understand the holocaust, understand that when Leonard was

reaching his prime in terms of community acceptance and in terms of

financial where with all, it coincided with the two single most important
happenings in the history of the Jewish people. A'; the holocaust and B,

14

the establishment of the state of Isreal. And Leonard was very much

involved. My fondest memory of Leonard, I was long gone but still

maintained this spell-bound relationship with him. In 1967 he was

one of the powerful fundraisers when the six day war broke out. And

at the time a womaan from Isreal came here named Golda Meir. I don't-remem-

ber what her position was. She had not yet become Prime Minister. She

might have been foreign minister. Or might have had some other post.

But she came here to Miami and Leonard and she would go all over to

raise funds, morning to night. And I can remember, and I know this

is more than just an anti-anecdote. This was a fact that I'm told

that the war was going on. He was working her so hard that finally

she said "I better get back to Isreal and get some rest." Leonard

landed up on his back. I can remember coming to see him in 1967.

A lot of us were involved by then. By then I was sort of involved

and travelling around to the smaller cities to try and raise funds to

help, and Leonard was just outstanding during that period. And the

prior and subsequent periods in terms of trying to help the Jewish

people. So that's an essential ingredient in Leonard's life that

one has to understand. That to some degree might have had a relation-

ship to his aggressive behavior, to his pugnacious manner. What else

about Leonard Rosen? He was a spellbinder in terms of his one-on-one

relationships. During most of his life he was very careful to keep...

as crude and vulgar as he would be...he would never allow any relation-

ship to end on a bad note. He was just a person who would never accept

a burnt bridge. He worked very hard to maintain a good relationship, even

when he hurt someone's feelings. He would find a way to repair those

feelings. That was a very nice aspect of his makeup.

D--Any specific instances of that that you recall?
K--I guess I can think of my own life when I was over here in Miami at the

Bats Mitzvah of Leonard's niece, Kathy Sandler, the only daughter of

52q
15

Sylvia and her husband Sol. It was a very joyous evening. We were

the best total the Synagogue in North Dade where ultimately my partner

became president, Lester Angle. And when evening after she did her por-

tion and there was what was called --- which is a little session where

refreshments are served, and Leonard came over and said';whats doing?" I said

"I hired a doctor today." He said, "What do you mean, you hired a doctor?"

I said,that one of the things we needed was some kind of indication that

Cape Coral was civilized and settled. I said that I had made a deal with

a guy name Dr. Da.vid and giving him some space in the shopping center.

And he's going to call a couple days a week and we can now say that we

have a clinic, a medical facility. And he got really angry and asked me

what right did I have to do that and how did you pay him. I had agreed

that we would furnish the facility for him and we would pay the rent and

give x amount of dollars a week. Leonard was really outraged at my ac-

tions having done that. I don't remember whether Jack was a factor in

that particular decision. It took a while before Jack.....It was part of

the Cape Coral management and I sort of ran that in those glory days.

But anyway, Leonard got really angry and I was enormously, tremendously

responsive to every move of Leonard's. I went home that Friday night and

was really heartbroken that that was how angry he was. And the following

day he called me up and he said,"I thought it over, and if there's anyone

in the world who knows what's right for Cape Coral, it's not I, it's

you. And therefore I was out of line to have said what I said." That

really floored me. That was a kind of really great motivation that a

young person had for working under Leonard's leadership. He did that

with a lot of people. He was very good at giving one a job to do and

letting him do it. And respecting the way the other person did it.

He was not a guy that second guessed. He was not a guy that sat around

and wondered if it was the right decision. Jack did. Jack was

enormously deliberate and reflective. I guess the best way to describe

i/ J '
l1 16

the difference is that when you said something to Leonard or you did

something, you moved on to the next thing. Whereas with Jack if you

did something, Jack would wonder what you meant by that, what you said,

what did you mean when you said that, what was your real motivation, what

inspired you to say that, what was the background to that. Meanwhile

Leonard was on to building new tasks. Jack would agonize over every-

thing. That is a capsule description of the difference between the two.

D--What the Rosen Brothers' motivation behind building Cape Coral and some

of these developments? Was it simply to mare money, was it to build a

city? Was it to have a Fortune 500 corporation? What do you think

motivated them?

K--I don't think wealth was ever a factor. Neither of them ever took any

money out of the company, to my knowledge. You have to understand that

they started this venture in '57. I left in '64. It got bigger and

bolder after I left. I don't think they were ever motivated by being

rich. Being rich meant nothing to the Rosens. Had-they made ten times

as much money, neither of them would have been a lavish liver, spender.

My gues is had things gone well for them and had they continued to

reap more money, the chances are that they would have given more money

away to charity. They were really much nicer people than the record

would show. That tragedy, I can remember one little episode that re-

minded me of the Rosens and the differnece between what I saw in them

and what the world saw in them, When I was drummed in 1964 which was

probably the most heartbroken time of my life, I was honored by the

merchants of Cape Coral. I had a very lovely relationship with the

people in Cape Coral and that was really the reason why I was so heart-

broken to leave, to be drummed out. A little dinner was held in my honor,

and my guess is that there were about 17 or 18 people at this dinner. It

was held in the city of Ft. Myers. The merchants of Cape Coral were sit-

ting at a long table and I was at the end of this table, wide enough for

-7 c f K--So here I was at the end of the table standing up to acknowledge the

DO7) plaque they had given me, and the kind words they extended toward me.

And they 10 or 12 or 16 people there were sitting back smoking. In those

days it was fashionable to smoke, cigarettes and cigars. And they were

all sitting back in their chairs and I said, "I guess the time has come

now for the inside story of the Rosen brothers." And it was spellbinding

to me to see how each person moved his body forward and moved closer to

the table. And it was at that point that I said that I thought the

Rosen brothers were really honest, honorable people. The difference

between their public image and the kind of people they were was so

traumatic, so the opposite of what you see. Often times you hear so

many nice things about a business person, but underneath he is really

a rat. They were seen adversely, but they were basically nice people.

I don't really remember that they ever encouraged anyone to lie, te

exaggerate, to misrepresent. I can remember that when I was in charge

of the selling I knew for certain that I was reflecting what they wanted.

When I applied two rigid, unbreakable rules. And that is you never mis-

A' represent to a client, and you never abuse him. You can do anything else

that you want. Try as hard as you can, keep coming back, keep persisting,

because that was a very important part of the Rosen brothers' training.

Be persistent. Don't accept the first, second, or fourth no. Keep talk-

ing and trying to sell. But the Rosen brothers, in my opinion, would never

want anyone to exaggerate, to misrepresent, or to abuse a client. I don't

think that ever changed from the time we made our modest start, the first

few weeks of 1958, certainly to the time I left in 1964, and probably far

beyond. The Rosen brothers just were victims of their own over-ambition,

certainly. And I don't excuse them because my belief is that a venture
.not
that is properly managed would have had some of the problems that arose

in the Rosen brothers' lives. They unfortunately happened sufficiently

early in their lives that they both went down in flames, which is tragic

because it really doesn't in anyway approach what they deserved.

D--How did the Rosens come to choose Cape Coral or Southwest Florida for

probably their grandest operation? Or as we look back on it now, their

most successful?

K-The Rosen brothers were running Charles Antel. I think it is safe to

describe Leonard as a fellow who had a little bit of an attention span

problem, as brilliant as he was. And one he would get a venture going

I think that his dynamic personality would motivate him to :want to move

on. He wasn't what one would call administrative. He was more of a

builder. And my guess is that one the Antel operation started to build

She handed that over to Jack Rosen and Jack managed it. Jack was a much

more creative person than Leonard, by far. And much more of an experi-

menter. Remarkably creative person. One of his great qualities was that

there was no human being that he wouldn't talk with. You could say that

at two o'clock in the morning there is a guy coming in here and he's got

with no arms and no loegs and he's got some idea about a certain kind of

sales promotion. "Wher did you meet him?"

"I met him in this bar room and he was drunk."

No matter what the background Jack or Leonard would be willing to meet

with this person, to hear him out, and to try the idea. There was no

experiment that they weren't willing to try. That was very encouraging

for salespeople. So the sales gang that surrounded the Rosen brothers

certainly had plenty of motivation. Not only by virtue of the instinctive

brillance of the Rosen brothers in terms of sales and marketing, but

even more important, their encouragement to try anything, no matter

how half-baked an idea it was. What was your question?

D--Oh. How they came to choose Cape Coral.

K--Leonard had a problem with his feet, I-don't know if it was arthritis.

I think it was arthritis. Leonard used to wear these funny shoes called

Murray's Space Shoes. They were molded out of some kind of plastic. They

would come around his feet and they were molded so his feet would fit in

there and he could walk comfortably. Leonard was a very good tennis player.

Although he always walked very hesitatedly, as though he was very ill, very

-feeble. I can remember sometimes watching him. I couldn't play tennis

with him, except in the last years of his life because I couldn't even

give him any kind of a game. But I can remember how he would just

shuffle out on to the tennis court, sort of the way a person would go

from his room to the community dining room in an old-age home. But once

he was on the tennis court he would always win. Anyway, he was having

some kind of particular problem, I guess it was maybe in 1956, with his

feet. And he found his way to a spa in Charlotte County called the

Charlotte Harbour Spa. While he was there he met up with a man whose

name is not here. Probably more important than Tom Weber, Chalie Hep-

ner, Finkernagel, and all the rest combined. Milton M. Mendelson who I would

describe as the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo. Milt was brilliant,

colorful, immodest, and he died broke too. Milt was living at that

moment in a place called Harbour Heights. It was one of the many

promotions with which Milt was associated. And Milt and Leonard met

up there at the Charlotte Harbour Spa. And I would guess that Milt, who

just recently passed away. All in all, I understand there were about

four people at his funeral which is just tragic. He was mistreated.

Hated by Jack and mistreated by Leonard. Which was true of a lot of

people. I shouldn't say hated. I don't know if Jack hated him, but no

matter how much Jack disliked you, he would never intentionally be un-

fair to you. Whereas Leonard, no matter how much he liked you, would

always try to beat you out of money if he could. Through the very last

moments of Milt's life, Milt was ---writing a biography of Leonard

Rosen. I had the occasion through a secret source to read this biography,

sometime within the last year or so. I got to read it a few months before

he died. It was the probably the single worst piece of writing I've seen

in my life. It was just horrendously bad. Anyway, so right up to the

very end of his life, Milt was still involved with Leonard Rosen. Milt

had had some few years of experience in the land sales business. He had

started in Chicago with a fellow named L.B. Harris to the recreation land

business. That means involved in a piece of land somewhere around Wiscon-

sin or what one might call suburban Chicago. From there he was in adver-

tising. He came down to Florida and met up with Lee Ratner who is one of

the three....There was four names in the history of the Florida land sales

business. At least on the west coast of Florida there would be the Rosen

brothers, in general development, theMackle brothers in General Develop-

ment, and Lee Ratner. Those would be the four prominent names. [The

other name was Louis Chesler.] The Mackal brothers were notorious

anti-semites and all the rest of them were Jewish. All creative, all

brilliant, and all of them got into problems of one kind or another.

None of them ever did any better than the Rosen brothers, I say with

still a sense of parochial pride. Milt Mendelson was involved somehbw.

I don't know if he's the one who introduced Lee Ratner into the land

sales business. I think he was. Lee Ratner's number one person during

all those years was a guy named Jerry Gould. Jerry Gould and Milt Men-

delson were part of an advertising agency. Jerry acknowledges that

Milt was a mentor to him. As. to a degree, Milt was a mentor to me.

Although I was never creative on the advertising side the way Jerry

Gould was. Jerry Gould ended up ultimately in the presence of Lee

High Acres working under Lee Ratner. By then, Milt had left. He had

Lee High Acres and gone with a group whose name I don't remember and

had started Harbour Heights. He burnt that bridge. It was hard or

impossible to burn a bridge with Leonard Rosen, I mentioned that to you

earlier. So Milt Mendelson, who was in many ways responsible and very

difficult to manage was brilliantly managed by Leonard Rosen. When I

was hired as a young rookie, the first thing Leonard said to me was

Milt Mendelson never signs anything, he is never allowed to make any

commitment on our behalf. You can make commitments, you can sign, I

don't want Milt to sign anything. Make sure you listen to what he tells

you and learn from him. And that was an understatement because I

learned an awful lot from Milt Mendelson. He was the person who helped

find the possible land that became Cape Coral. He was involved. He

was the one who invented the concept, insofaras the Rosen brothers were

concerned. My guess is that while Leonard was lying in a facility up at

Harbour Island, Milt was talking to him or telling him about some of the

opportunities, and this caught Leonard's imagination. Leonard then went

back. My guess is that almost every Leonard would talk to Jack and tell

Jack about this idea and then he would go up and Leonard put together a

group of people to help finance the venture, bought some land. And hired

Tom Weber, started to divide up the land, hired an engineering firm and

then that was sort of the beginning. None of it certainly could not have

happened as well as it did happen if it hadn't been for Milt Mendelson.

The timing was right. It was an industry that was just beginning to grow.

The existing ventures at that moment were the aforementioned Port Charlotte

operation of General Development. Which at that time was co-managed by

the Cheslers and the Mackals. By Lou Chesler and the Mackals who ultimate-

ly have a big falling out. And Ratner's operation in Lee county called

Lee High Acres. In which in its best day was never run nearly as well

as the Rosen brothers operation. Nor was it ever located on magnificent

waterfront exposure the Rosen brothers had. The Rosen brothers certainly

had Cape Coral. To my knowledge the best of any installment development

in the history of Florida., That's a pretty important statement, I

wouldn't say that they had....If you asked me to name the two greatest

developers in Florida history, I wouldn't think of the Rosen brothers.

I would think of Arvida and Coral Ridge Properties. Arvida was on both

coasts. Coral Ridge Properties was mainly on the east coast, although

they ended up in Naples. They did much of Ft. Lauderdale, they did

Coral Springs. It was just a very brilliantly operated venture by two

people name Hunt and Tarabella. Both are gone now. I guess the reason

why I'm a little bit whistful that there is nothing named after the

Rosen brothers is because there is a very nice high school in Coral Springs

called Tarabella High School. And it would seem to me that there should

be a high school name id after the Rosen brothers or something named af-

ter them. But I guess the difference is that the Hunt Tarabella endeavor

didn't get into any kind of problems. Whereas the Rosen brothers, mainly

because of their belacrose nature--Jack and Leonard's particularly--didn't

keep as good a name they were entitled to. Anyways, so Mendelson stayed

on the scene for several years. And was always somewhat of ---- to the

Rosen brothers. wT was never with the company, to my knowledge. He was

never employed. One of Leonard Rosen's brilliance, he could sense that

left to his own devices, Milt Mendelson would get in trouble.

D-What years was he associated with?

K--He was with the Rosen brothers from the moment the ventrue was conceived,

which would probably be in 1956 or 57, right until the day the day that

Milt Mendelson died in 1985. With a couple of interruptions. Because

Milt Mendelson basically was always going to jipped out of any kind of

ownership, and he knew that. I can even remember one day sitting in the

office in Ft. Myers before we even moved to Cape Coral we were up in a

/ little wooden building on the Tamiami Trail on the corner of Pondella and

U.S. 41. I can't remember what that 2nd corner was. The one closest

to Charlotte County. There used to be an orange juice stand owned by

a man named George Jud who was sitting in that little wooden doorway.

Milt was trying to get some kind of compensation, a reward or compen-

sation from Leonard. Finally, to end the conversation, Milt said to

Leonard, "What I'm going to do, Leonard, is I'm going to trust you,

that I'll be treated right." Leonard just shook his head and said,

"Milt, I'm sorry to hear that because that's liable not to work out

well for you." He said it sort of half jokingly but the fact is is

that when you'trusted Leonard to treat you fairly, he would do it.

but Milt stayed on and in his own way was a loyal, devoted guy. A

very nice guy. He was such a creative artist that he didn't really

have patience for much of the day to day activity. But when it came

to any kind of a problem there was no on'in the world to go to. Be-

cause there was no one like Milt to give you a creative answer. Some

of which were real, some of which he would invent out of his extraor-

dinarily nimble mind. So Milt was really the architect of the whole

concept of Cape Coral and was involved in all of the future ventures:

Golden Gate, Remuda, River Ranch. He was always there with Leonard

as a personal advisor. Now, again, Jack didn't like Milt. However,

this was typical. He would dog nose, he would really persecute Milt

cruelly, but when the time came that Milt decided to leave it was Jack,

not Leonard, that fought to get him to stay. But by then it was too

late. Milt was in another group and started another community called

Rocket City which was midway between Orlando and Daytona Beach. And

that tragically caused Milt to get in trouble and he landed up in jail.

Which was so....I'm not going to say unjust because he probably deserved

it. But he was a guy without an evil bone in his body. He was a guy

who perhaps was irresponsible, and that was something that Leonard

recognized. He went to jail. I don't know if the Rosen brothers

showed any affection or loyalty to him during the time he was in jail.

He came out of jail. He was sort of an old man, a broken man. He came

back with the Rosens and probably did not come back with any glory. And

probably, knowing Leonard, got a salary that would fail to recognize the

debt that he owed to him, to Milt. You have to remember that at any

given moment the Rosen brothers were worth 128 million dollars. Now that

would not have been possible without Milt Mendelson. And my guess is

that at the peak, at 128 million dollars, it would not have occurred to

them to give a few hundred thousand dollars to Milt Mendelson. It would

maybe occur to Jack. But it certainly would not occur to Leonard, but

would have been dismissed as an idea someone had articulated. So anyway

Mendelson stayed on and I don't know if there is too much more to report

about him.

D--If Milt Mendelson was the guy that helped bring about the idea of Cape

Coral, how did they decide on that piece of property, that location, as

opposed to further down the coast or further up the coast?

K--I don't know how Leonard found his way to two well-known real estate

people in Fort Myers in the year of 1957, namely William H. Reynolds, Jr.

and Tom Baker. But at that time Bill and Tom were partners in an office

downtown in Ft. Myers. My guess is is that they came to Ft. Myers and I

remember the story. Again I don't know if this is true or if this is

just a fable, but the story goes Leonard walked in, in sneakers & tennis

clothes. Leonard was not a natty dresser by any means. He would pay

a lot of money for suit. Maybe in those days when a hundred dollars was

a lot he would pay four or five hundred dollars for a suit. The suit

was generally rolled up in a ball and thrown in the trunk of his car,

underneath some telephone books and some maps and an old flat tire. But

he walked in the door of Reynold's office, we're told, I should say

"legend has it", and looked sloppy, people dismissed him and said,

"Who is this Bum?" But allegedly Bill Reynolds said, "Can I help you?"

And Leonard said, "Yes. I want to buy some land." Anywasy it ended up

to be hundreds of acres and ultimately thousands of acres and after that

tens of thousands of acres. And I know that Bill Reynolds was the main

party in terms of assembling properties for the Rosen brothers. You may

not of heard this and may not hear this from anybody else, Dave, so I've

got to digress for a minute and explain how sales were made in those days.

These were different. There was no zoning in Lee County. There was no

statewide land sales laws of any kind. And interestingly, Leonard would

have either a handshake of a written agreement to buy parcels of land.

We would, through Mendelson's relationship with the engineering firm,

prepare the map, as we would call it. And we would add this section in

here with block numbers and block numbers. Once we would sell a certain

amount of that, Leonard would then go ahead and maybe sign an auction on

v it. After we sold it with a contract, we would then go ahead and maybe
negotiate to take an auction. There was no relationship between acquiring

a piece of property. The timing is way off now compared to the right way,

the old way to do it, where we would sell it first and we would get

plenty of payments in because you needed to get 2 or 3 or 4 payments

in to make certain that you had a real good solid sale. Then if you had

enough sales the Rosen brothers would perhaps go out and get serious

about acquiring the land. But fortunately, to my knowledge, there was

never any problem. In later years, there was that problem about what's

called "double decking" where you sold a piece of property to Mr. John-

son and then later, in my opinion, by error the same piece of property

was sold to Mr. and Mrs. Farnsworth. And then that led to Mr. and Mrs.

Johnson being moved or something like that. But anyway, in the early

stages, the way it was done was the way that I just described it.

D--How big of a piece of property did they start out with in Cape Coral?

27(

K-They started out.... I don't know if you ever had a chance to see some of

the original literature, but there is a guy named Charlie Roberts in St.

Petersburg who still has it all. Charlie was one of the early advertising

people. But not on the Jack side in Baltimore, he was on the Leonard side

down here.

D-And you say he has a lot of the documents?

K-He would have the original brochures that we used. We had a party for

Leonard's brithday about 6 or 7 years ago and Charlie came down and

he gave us some of the material and we used it that evening at that

party. I had the film of it, but unfortunately my wife cleaned house

and decided to throw it away.

D--He's in St. Petersburg?

K--So if you want to find the film, you would call Ronnie Rosen, Leonard's

son, with whom I have throughout maintained a very close relationship.

Ronnie just moved recently from Los Angelos to Aspen and his phone number

is (303) 927-4723. If you get ahold of him, he'll have a copy of that

file of Leonard's birthday, and it's an interesting piece. Because a

few of the featured players of Leonard's life were there, including Milt

Mendelson. So you could at least tie in some faces with some names.

Charlie Roberts, I don't know how to find him, but there was an advertis-

ing fellow who worked under Charlie who now is doing advertising for this

venture I'm involved with. His name is Arthur Jacobson. In South Miami,

he's at 667-7013. And Arthur could tell you how to get ahold of Charlie.

Arthur himself might have some literature on that era- Arthur was the

inventor and certainly would have material to reflect it of the great

billboard called "See the other side of Florida.' Which was an award

winner. And this was when the Golden Gate was started. Arthur's con-

cept was to rent billboards. He had dozens of them. And showed the

back side of a gorgeous woman with a magnificent body and the teasing

22Z
headline was "See the other side of Florida." This was for the east

coast of Florida to suggest that people should go to the west coast of

Florida. So Jacobson could help you get a hold of Charlie Roberts.

And that would enable you to have a picture of what we were doing.

Because I remember the property that was put on sale to begin with was

somewhere around 1200 acres. It wasn't all owned. That was also part

of the option arrangement. And then after things went well there,

Leonard then moved forward to acquire the Phipps property. That was

an important name to us then. The original founder of the Phipps family

was a man named Henry Phipps, and he was a partner of the original Andrew

Carnegie. And his descedant, probably his grandson, was Ogden Phipps,

an internationally known sportsman and playboy and a very nice gentle-

man. He had a large estate near us called the Matlacha Plantation. The

Matlacha Plantation was used by Mr. Phipps and his guests who were counts

and countessess and princes and princesses. That's how high he was on the

international social level. And ultimately, we bought the property from

Mr. Phipps for, I think, $500.00 and acre or less. And that was all part

of Leonard's excellent negotiating skill. So the property started at

around 1,000 acres but ultimately became 60,000 acres. The bigger it

got, the more unreal it became. See, 1000 acres or 2000 acres or, even

in the case of Coral Springs, 10,000 acres was doable. But as it got

bigger it just became unmanagable, it became unreasonable, it became

irresponsible.

D--Let's back up a little bit. How did you come to be a part of the whole

operation?

K--I was working in Baltimore in the ice cream business. The company that

we bought all our products from was managed by a local family in Baltimore

and there was a nephew of the owner named Sylvan Abrahms. Slyvan doesn't
figure prominently in any of the history of Gulf American, except that

he was a very close intimate associate of Jack Rosen. Jack Rosen was a

fellow who emotionally needed to have pals, friends. I don't remember

that Jack would ever get on a airplane to go from A to B alone. He

generally was accompanied by someone, the way a movie star or a rock

singer would not ever go alone, for a variety of reasons. Not the least

of which there would be some sort of emotional comfort in having some-

body go along. And Slyvan was what you might call a spear carrier for

Jack Rosen, and therefore was despised by Leonard from the beginning to

the end. And vice versa. He despised Leonard. Slyvan and I were

friendly because we met at the ice cream plant all the time. And I don't

remember how the subject arose, but he said, "Maybe you'd be interested

in going into cosmetics business' And I really didn't know very much

about the cosmetics business. There was one name that I could remember

and that was Revlon. Anyway, he arranged for me to meet, as I recall,

Jack Rosen. From Jack Rosen I was interviewed by Sol Sandler. I was

captivated by Jack Rosen, because I could see in him that he was a

brilliant fellow, although a little on the cooky side. And after having

made the cut from Jack Rosen to Sol Sandler, who was underneath Jack.

He was always a very sweet and lovely guy. His wife died, Sylvia

Sandler and he remarried recently--several years ago to a very wonderful

woman. And I was interviewed by -Sol and then Jack called me one day and

said; "My brother is coming to town. He's basically the decider, and he

wants to interview you." And so I went in and was interviewed by Leonard.

I though we were going to talk about the cosmetics business. He said,

"What do you know about land development?" T said nothing. He said,

"Well, what do you know about real estate?" I said nothing. What about

engineering, direct mail, hard-hitting aggressive advertising? I said

I don't know anything at all about any of them. He said, "Well, I might

be interested in sending you to Florida to build a community." I'll

23'2

save you the hours and hours of stories I could tell you about how that

thing played up, just to say that finally through some suffering I paid

a very dear price. I guess I should tell you this little part, because

although I don't want to be too burdensome, you can't Leonard Rosen very

well unless you know these two little aspects. Number one: I came down

to Florida in October or November of 1957 as Leonard's guest to look at

this property. I was then about five years with this ice cream compnay

and was really thinking about moving on and so Sylvan introduced me

to these fellows and I found them to be very captivating guys. And I

thought I'd be really interested to learn the cosmetics business. I

flew down here and went over to the property in Ft. Myers with a guy

named Harry Dempsey who was a writer. He came from the carnival days

and stayed right on with the Rosen brothers for several years after this

all began. He was a very brilliant kind of a carnival carny type guy,

all of his expressions. All of his language reflected his carny back-

ground. And he and Milt Mendelson, and Charlie Hepner, and Leonard and

I went to visit the property. That was the first time I ever laid eyes

on Tom Weber. He was the onsite person then. And I can also remember

onelittle interesting aspect at that. Leonard was very excited. Leonard

was just a guy who was so up. You had to understand that. No matter what

it was he was very up, enthusiastic guy. And I can remember getting up

on top of this scraper it was called.And he got up on top of that thing

and he says, "Hepner, we're going to build a city here." Hepner says,

"Leonard, get off there. You are going to break your neck." Anyway we

looked at the property and he showed us what his dream was, and I was

pretty swept up with it. And then the time came to leave and I was to

go back to Baltimore from the Punta Gorda airport. I guess there was one

of those little private planes or commuter planes to go to Miami or

Tampa. So Leonard took me to the airport and said, "O.K. I want your

decision. I made a fatal error I regretted. I said, "I'd like to dis-

cuss it with my wife. You just didn't ever hesitate like that with

Leonard Rosen. Had I been smart, I would've said absolutely yes and

then thought it over. That was a fatal blow. At that moment and from

then on, Leonard dismissed me as if I never lived. And I went home and

after a day or so I decided that I wanted the job and I started calling

Leonard. No answer, no answer. I couldn't reach him when I called. So

then I repaired to my only refuge. I started to call Jack. He was kind

enough to (A) take my phone calls, and (B) understand that I regretted

my horrible, inexcusable faux paus. And ultimately he arranged for me to

get to see Leonard. I don't remember how long it was. It was several

weeks of agony. I know that. Because by then I was fancying myself as

a big land developer or a plantation owner. And finally.... I didn't

explain to you, but the first time I met Leonard it was before I came

down here, he hired me. I can remember saying to him, not to be a wise

guy, but I remember saying "Mr. Rosen...." He said to me, you're hired.

He said, "How much do you get paid now?" And I lied and I think I said

I was getting 200 a week and I was getting 150 a week. He said, "O.K.

You're hired, I'm going to pay you the 200 a week." I said I was getting

12,000 a year when I was really getting 10,000 a year. And he said "O.K.

You're hired. I'll pay you 12,000 a year." But then, after my unmarkable

transgression at the airport I was finally able to worm my way back into

an interview with Leonard, head to head. Who I remember I was on the

phone with him one Friday night and he was really chastising me. He was

saying, "How do I know I want you, you don't know anything about land

development, you don't know anything about real estate, you don't know

anything about aggressive, hard-hitting, direct mail advertising, mail

order advertising." All of the things that I didn't know that he had

said in the beginning were no problem, now they were all cards against
me. And I don't remember....I thing he then came to Baltimore. We met

and I was really putting on every pressure that I could. I knew a couple

of people that knew Leonard and I had them go to Leonard and tell them how

great I was. Then he was willing to see me and he said, "O.K. You're

hired." I was so relieved. He said "O.K. You're hired, effective

next Monday." Meanwhile I'd been running this company for five years,

and couldn't come next Monday and it would be the following week. So

he reluctantly agreed on that. So another long delay. A whole weak

taken out of his life to wait for me. And he says "You'll start at

10,000 a year." I said, "Leonard, you told me 12,000." He said, "That

was then." Well. I didn't say, let me thing it over some more because

I knew that would be fatal. I said, "O.K. I'll be here." And that

was a negative. I'll tell you, there were only one or two positives in

my whole life with Leonard Rosen. The next one was a positive. I showed

up for work. I was supposed to work from November to December in the

Baltimore office. You have to understand what happened. I was supposed

to be in the cosmetics business, but by then it really was pretty much

transferred over to becoming part of their land operation. And they

were going to send me....They decided they wouldn't send me down which

was a good idea on their parts, because I was good at that, and it was

a wonderful idea for me because I really loved it and I really was

learning so much, mainly form Leonard at that time. Because Jack didn't

become a factor until later. But the best decision I ever made was that

I showed up for work and was supposed to spend a couple of months learn-

ing Baltimore. And after one week I was put under Bernice Treiberg.

After I was there for about four or five days, Leonard came in and said,

"How long is it going to take this kid to learn the business?" Bernice

i/ said, "He's ready now." He says,"You mean he can leave now?" She says,

"Yes." He said, "O.K. You leave on Monday." I went home and took my

wife on some kind of goodbye party that Saturday night. On Monday I

came to the office with all my suitcases, to Leonard and Jack's Baltimore

office. It was a blizzard. So, Leonard came to me a little bit later

that days and he says to me, "Cancel your trip. The weather doesn't

look permittive." I said, "Mr. Rosen, I'm going." By then I was getting

a little bit smart. He said, "No, it's impossible. You can't go. Just

wait until the weather clears." And off he goes. I found my way to

Washington. These were the days of propeller planes. I can remember

being on the runway and watching for a couple hours. They keep coming

around the runway with the hoses to take the ice off the wings and every-

thing. The plane finally took off and I landed in Florida. The following

morning I was in the only existing company facility. It was Tom Weber's

Buick Roadmaster car. This is before the company got a jeep. We were

riding down the road and by then I was just captivated by the whole

thing. And the phone rings in his car. Now this was before the cellular

era. And it was Leonard, who then and forever after was called by Tom

Weber Mr. Rosing. He said, "Hi. Mr. Rosing, how are yu doing?" So

Mr. Rosen said to him, "Tom, I'm sending a young fellow down there by

the name of Kenny Schwartz. I don't know when he'll be there." He

said, "Oh, he's here now." So Leonard says, "Put him on." So I get

on the phone and Leonard says, "Kenny, I'm proud of you, give me back

to Weber." Now I'm fighting my way through a snow storm, not expecting

the negative conditions, going forward through adversity. That fulfilled

the highest norm of Leonard Rosen's ideas. By then I was smart enough.

I won't tell you how I finally got the 2,000 dollars back because that

would take a whole other hour. Remember, I worked for 10,000 dollars

instead of the 12,000 I was told that I was going to get.

D--I'll ask you for that story next time. Going on a little bit. I've

enjoyed this thoroughly, I really have.

K-I'm cutting everything extremely short here because I know that you want

2.T :3

to do this within the next couple of years.

D-Were there other developments going on in the state that were different

than what Leonard had envisioned, or was this to be...?

K--What ever you think what was the vision, you wouldn't be fair unless

you used three names. Leonard was the public figure. But there was

really never a decision of any importance made without especially the

contribution on Jack Rosen, and to a large degree, the imaginative con-

tribution of Milt Mendelson. So while it was always called Leonard's

place, which was part of the agony of Jack Rosen's life, because in many

ways Jack was more of a contributor than Leonard, but the world never

noticed it. At the time...In the first few years the Rosen brothers

had one good quality, they never took their eye off the ball. If you

came to them with 12 great ideas.... As I told you earlier. Any idea that

had to do with that business, they would listen very patiently and general-

ly would try it no matter how half-baked a scheme it sounded. If it

were legitimate. They would never do anything that on the surface was

improper or immoral, dishonest, circumventing the law. But the great

quality that they had was that they would never digress for some other

business, some other venture. So during those first several years, it

was just five or six years, I don't think that they ever took their

minds off. Meanwhile, I forgot to tell you, a couple of years after we

started, the Rosen brothers sold Charles Antele. So now they were both

free to be full time into Cape Coral.

D--So, they still owned Charles Antel for the first couple years.

K--The first couple years. Saul Sandler and'Jack stayed on and Bob Carroll

who was always a righthand administrator to Jack. And I think even

Charlie Hepner who was more a Jack man than a Leonard man right up to

the very end. Hepner stayed on. And I guess in 1959, it seemed like

many years later, but maybe it was a year later that the Rosen brothers

sold Charles Antel and now Jack was, it was obvious to anybody that the

cosmetics business at the very best had a modest growth potential, whereas

the land sales business was capable of going to the moon. So they sold

that and then Jack devoted himself with Leonard exclusively to Cape Coral.

I don't remember when the new horizons began. I guess it was in 1961 or

62 that they started the Golden Gate. As I look back, I think having

done Golden Gate and all the succeeding developments turned out to be

a bad idea. Had they just taken their enormous power and Cape authority

and devoted it exclusively to Cape Coral, I think that they would have

been enormously successful. So, your question was...

D--Let me ask you another question. I had on here about how Gulf American

was organized. In other words, what were the main divisions in the

corporation? Were they sales? Was advertising part of sales?

K--One of the great characteristics of that operation, kind of like a lot

of companies that are managed by engineers or financial people. The

7AL / great charactistic about that venture from its first day to its last

day was that sales was always the dominant factor. So if ever there

was any question as to where priority should be put, sales was always

the emphasis. That was a very great motivator to a sales person or

sales manager. The company was operated fragmentally for a while in

that once the Antell operation was sold, Jack remained in Baltimore for

reasons that could be understood if you looked at the rivalry between

the two of them. Sort of a unilateral rivalry in the sense that Leonard

didn't have any rivalry at all with Jack, but Jack had all kinds of very

difficult problems. And I guess I couldn't emphasis that problem if I

ended every sentence with mentioning it. So Jack stayed on in Baltimore

for years and I can remember very clearly that I first began to understand

what the word headache meant, and I mean that very seriously, because I

used to be called to Baltimore, and I don't even remember how often. It

I seemed like every week, but it was probably twice a month. I think I

would go up on a Friday and on Saturdays we had sort of a skull session.

By then, Jack was letting me tie up sales operations. Leonard was concen-

trating on the areas that he was particularly skilled at and that was

the financial end of the business. He was responsible for providing the

money that was needed for sales and development and other expenses. And

I remember I flew to Baltimore and often times Jack would have some rea-

son to be angry at Leonard and I would....I think, I don't really under-

stnad too much about psychology, but I think I was the embodied Leonard.

That was a source of great pain. Because I can remember more than one

occasion talking with Jack. I would put my hands up and say, "Well, let

me explain this to you." And he would stop me and say, "Don't do the

Leonard with me. Sit down." I can remember once thinking the horrible

error. Jack came to town, to Cape Coral. I saw myself the proprietor

of Cape Coral. That was also a very serious problem that ultimately led

to my demise because I was sort of the persona, I represented....Not that

anyone felt that I was the owner. Everyone knew that the Rosen brothers

were the owners, because I was very comfortable to explain that and I

was a great fan of theirs and it was a source of great pride for me to

talk about them and tell about the kind of people they were. But people

really saw me as the embodiment of the company. I was there from the

very moment that it started. I was the first one there. One particular

day Jack was in town. That was always a source of some discomfort for me

because I was generally under enormous pressure. That is why I say I

started to get headaches then because there was always something that

upset Jack about something. And I was over that. And this one particular

day he expected me to come over to the room. I came over there and I

don't know why I did it cause I was wearing tennis clothes. Jack hated

tennis clothes because tennis clothes represented to him the attire

that Leonard always wore. Ther:were a couple of things about Leonard that

just disturbed Jack. One was his womanizing. I can remember some episode

associated with that that was particularly unpleasant. And the other was

his whole casual way of dressing. When I appeared at the door wearing

tennis clothes it was another outright insult from Leonard to Jack.

Because it was another case of me emulating Leonard. That was a word he

used, "Don't emulate Leonard with me." And he sent me home to change.

There were people in the room and he said, "You go home and change."

Normally Jack would not humilate me, but he humilated me at that point.

As I said, I really never would want him to humiliate me and on a couple

of occasions he would apologize for his hot temper. But anyway I was

sent back home and I changed my clothes and I came back.

D--Did the organization of the corporation change at all throughout the

years?

K--Yes. I think one of the things that I was fairly good at was under-

standing the company that had to go. That I couldn't be part of every-

thing. In the earliest days I was part of everything, which was very

exciting. When Jack came in, the sales leadership went from property,

where I was sort of the link between the Rosen brothers, mainly to

Leonard. When Jack came in the sales headquarters was transferred to

Baltimore. The organization was set up where the administration was in

Miami. The administration was handled by Sol Sandler and under him

I B was Jim Layden. Jim's name is probably as important as most of the names

on your list. Jim was a fellow who came out of a Firestone store or stores.

An administrative person, a very bright fellow. And he was an administrator

but had a good touch for sales. He inadvertently contributed to some of

the later problems of the Rosen brothers and of the venture. Because he

was put in charge of the long distance telephone operation. That was

an ingredient that was a source of an enormous amount of problems. I

D73

don't know if you are aware of that, but if you ask what caused the down-

fall of the Rosen brothers, the answer would be overly aggressive selling.

By goin into long distance telephones, by going into the airplane business

and flying people in from all over the world, they were just forcing sales.

It was sort of like the passer that steps back into the backfield and

there isn't a clear-cut open receiver. You'll see a guy and you might be

able to try and force the ball in there, but the ball would get intercep-

ted. The problem with the Rosen brothers was that they forced sales.

Jim Layden was the embodiment, probably a little bit unfair, of the long

distance telephone operation. He ultimately became, by then I was his-

tory. Layden, four or five years after I left, let's say '68 or '69

when the whole wall came tumbling down on the Rosen brothers. He was

the sacrificial lamb. At that time Claude Kirk was governor and there

was bad blood between the Rosens and Kirk. Some stupidity on the part

of the Rosen brothers and probably some lack of integrity on the part of

Kirk. But as I remember there had to be a sacrifice to make some sort

of a public evidence of the rehabilitation, at least the recanting of

the Rosen brothers. They got rid of Layden. I don't know what it was

that they gave him or what they did, I don't know whether he left with

bitterness. I really have never seen Jim, maybe I talked to him once

or twice, but that's it. But he was the figure. He was second in com-

mand of the Baltimore administrative operations. Number one in command

in the administration of Sol Sandler. A very sweet and nice guy with

a moderated degree of natural aptitude for the position. He was a

phar;aicist by profession. And probably would have done better had he

not ever gone to work for the Posen brothers. Because he was sort of

indirect victim of nepotism. Sometimes when someone has a son or a

brother-in-law that hirer is really the victim of hiring his son or

brother-in-law. In this case I think Sol could have made more or his

D3

life, had more of a sense of vDrsonal pride had he not ever been involved

with the Rosen brothers. But he was a very lovely guy. He was in charge

of the administration because he was 100% trustworthy, not brilliant.

But the Rosen brothers knew who they could trust and he stayed on with

them. And he left once or twice and came back and up to a couple months

ago he was still with them. Living here

he goes back and forth to Vegas helping Leonard out.

D-Would he be someone who would be interesting to interview?

K--Yes. A very lovely guy. YOu could find him....I wonder if I still

have Leonard Rosen's phone number in Vegas. (800) 634-6431. His

secretary's name at the time of his death was Marsha and the name of

his firm was Preferred Equities. Now Sol I don't know if Soi is

re-retired. But Sol was living right here in this neighborhood in

between his periods of service to the Leonard Rosen operation. Here it

is. 962-1296. Sol Sandler. Also he was a devout loyalist. Very large.

I don't know how many people, but I think it turned out to be hundreds

of people working in the Miami office. They built this big skyscrapper,

this 11 story building at the time was sort of the cat's meow.

D--That's the operation that Layden was overseeing?

K--That's the operation that Sol Sandler was in charge of. Jim was next

in command. There was a tension between them. But Jim Layden didn't

have one fraction of the basic integrity that Sol Sandler had. My

guess was that Layden was a bit of a opportunist. But in any case,

he won Leonard's heart. And I can remember at the time that I left

the company through all of the anger and hurt and bitterness that I

/ felt,Leonard was asking, "What do you think of Jim Layden?" Did he compromise

the company? I remember telling him that I didn't think that that was

a good idea. But anyway, Layden stayed on and actually became even more

strong in the management of the venture. I think --- was.... He of course

felt Jack's dislike because he was a Leonard man. So to answer your

question about structure. I guess that from the moment that Jack became

prominent in the company which was maybe a year or so after we started.

I think that he always had his group and Leonard had.... But I can't say

that Leonard had his group because Leonard never saw people in terms of

himself and Jack. He was oblivious to that. But to Jack it was very,

very clear. You were either a Jack man or you were' t. And so Connie

Mack and Saul Sandler and Jim Layden and Kenny Sahwartz were seen as

Leonard men. Pacelli made the transition. He was a Jack man. Hepner

was a Jack man. So there were two separate....It was funny, Paul .Venzi,

did you ever hear of him?

D--I've heard the name.

K-- Venzi was a cousin, but almost a brother to the Rosen brothers. I

remember Venzi's mother died when he was young. He was taken in by

Fannie Rosen so he was sort of a fifth child. Very lovely guy. Really

a wonderful guy. Very religious, very observant. Paul was always in-

volved in the advertising end. Paul had his own company called Paul

Venzi and Associates which was really owned by the Rosens. My guess

is that they probably never paid him too well either because of the

stomach problem that I was describing to you earlier. So Venzi would

be on the Jack side. More and more as Leonard stepped a little bit fur-

ther away and got involved in the land acquisition and finance. Pretty

much the rest of the venture fell under Jack's leadership so by then,

you either in Jack's mind a Jack man or else you were history. The only

person that I think was above that was Tom Weber. I don't think Tom was

ever considered by Jack to be someone that Jack didn't like, or that Jack

had any problem with. I think Tom was above all of that. But I can't

remember anyone else in the history of the conipany who wasn't one way or

another perceived by Jack to be a Jack man or a Leonard man.

D-If sales was the dominant feature, was construction able to keep up
with that-putting in a street or stuff like that. Or did sales far

outstrip?

K-Sales outstripped development which was a bit of a problem because....

It wasn't that sales outstripped development was the problem, but sales

were so strong development in itself moved so swiftly that both of them

far outstripped the selling of the community. So it was then almost a

laughing matter that some people would fly over Cape Coral to see all

these streets and fly over Lehigh acres and Port Charlotte. Remember the

three biggest development in Florida history were all in a few minutes of

one another from the air. You could fly over them and you'd see these

tens of miles or hundreds of miles of streets and canals and nothing there.

And that probably played a role in some of the ultimate problems. Because

after all these streets were paved and nobody living there they started

to get grown over and gave off a very unpleasant picture. I don't know

what it is now. I guess a lot of the streets are settled, There's

about 60,000 people living there.

D--What about promotion? Was that part of the sales and advertising was

that part of the sales?

K--Promotion was always Jack Rosen. Leonard in the very early stages. But

anything promotional, anything really imaginative or creative either came

from the mind of Jack or came from those hundreds of thousands of people

that had ideas. But the Rosen brothers always were very interested in encour-
aging. Promotions were....Well, actually both of them were very promo-

tional, but I think Jack was more promotional, more creative. Because that

was the area that interested him the most. He was interested really in

land development. He never had anything to my knowledge whatever to do

with financing. He never was on an airplane flying to different banks,

or different lenders to keep the money coming in. So....

D--Was Bob Finkernagel head of all that promotion?

K--Bob actually wasn't intended to be, but he had such a brilliant, creative

i
mind. He came in really to run the community. As I remember he was

the executive vice president in the Gainesville, Florida Chamber of Com-

merce. I can't remember how we met. I think it was through Alan Robert-

son who had been the head the head of the Fort Myers Chamber of Commerce

and then went up to become an officer at the University of Florida. I

believe that's how we met Bob. And Leonard and I interviewed Bob and I

liked him immediately and though he would be wonderful. That was an under-

statement the he would be wonderful. He came down with his wife and three

children around 1960 or '61. He really took over for me. I had really

been in charge of the community and in charge of sales. And Bob I

think worked under me and was in charge of the community, all aspects

of the community. But one of the interesting things about Bob was that

he was very promotional in terms of golf tournaments, tennis tournaments.

He always knew to put the name Cape Coral in every.... I remember this

about him. Whervever the camera would focus, there would always be the

words Cape Coral. They were always very bright. And both the Rosen

brothers liked him very much. Leonard like him more than Jack did. I

don't know why I had to say that, but that's always such an overwhelming

factor in my memory that I elude to it. Bob became part of the Jack Rosen

team in terms of various kinds of promotional ideas and was never involved

in land sales. For some reason they kept him out of sales. He never had

a direct sales responsibility. Never to my knowledge was there a sales

manager on the site or off the site who reported to him. But he was very

involved with Bernice-Freiburg. And one of the poignant recollection

when Leonard passed away was I went to Baltimore with Leonard and with

Lester Engel, my partner and spent the day with Bob Finkernagel and Ber-

nice Freiburg which was very interesting and gratifying as an experience

for me. I think of those two old veterans who worked so well together for

so many years.

called American Variety, later called American Department Stores. He

was so well-liked that that kind of creative and affirmAtive prejudice

in favor of Jewish people. Because most of those folks were country

people. They had never heard of Jewish people. But because of Sam

Posen and a few others in that community being so well-liked and such

fine people, and along came Leonard Rosen and Kenny Schwartz. We were

sort of the beneficiaries of this favorable bias. So anti-semitism was

not effective in Ft. Myers and Lee County in any way. The Chairman of the Jupiter

County Commission when I arrived was one good thing that somehow....

I don't know why I get into these things. Here I was, an ivy-league

graduate who could easily have easily become a sadistic arrogant person,

who looked down his nose at a little dirt farmer which our country chairman

was. Wilson Piggott was a dirt farmer in Ft. Myers. But instead through

some God-given gift or maybe partially due to Leonard Rosen's basic human

qualities, I developed a friendship with Wilson Piggott. Mac Jones, and

some of the other county commissioners, and I was appointed to the

first Lee County planning commission. There was no planning or zoning

in Ft. Myers at all. In either Ft. Myers or Lee County. I was appointed

to the first commission which was charged with the responsibility of

creating a zoning and planning concept, which we did. Though it may

seem strange and the other guys that identTfied with the most aggressive

developer and here he is vice-chairman of the board. Somehow that....

Chairman of the Board was originally Carl Johnson who was a wonderful

man who died. His name is on the causeway over on the Gulf of Mexico.

YOu hear that name. It is associated with something over on Ft. Myers

Beach. He was the first chairman and I was a member then. Foster Pate

who was a pretty aggressive land salesman became chairman and I became

vice-chairman. But we had a good sense of community responsibility.

We never would think to sit back and say, "Well, let somebody else do

2.Z1

D--Tell me a little bit more about your job during your years there at Gulf.

What were you responsible for?

K-I was responsible originally for helping to put the organization together.

I was sort of the energy,as I would describe myself, the arms and legs of

the Rosen brothers, mainly Leonard at that time.

D--Would you be considered like a general manager?

K-Yes I was. That was my title. Vice-president and General Manager of Cape

Coral. And almost everything there reported to me except the development

aspect. That always reported to Weber. Weber was understated, an absolute

delight to work with. Even in the selling situations. Once in a while

Tom was a very shy guy. Very quiet guy and really the finest person in

history of the whole venture. I regret that I've never been able to find

him. Long before you asked me to find him. No one knows where he is.

But he certainly was among the top two or three most valuable players in

the history of the venture. And he reported directly, always, to Leonard

Rosen. And later to Jack Rosen. But, as I say, he was above being ident-

ified as a Jack man or a Leonard man. He always liked Leonard very much

and vice versa. And really had an enormously responsible position be-

cause as time went on I believe we were the largest developing activity

in Florida history except for governmental work. Outside of highways or

something- where state or federal funds were being spent. We spent more

money on developing than anyone in The history of Florida. And Tom had

sole responsibility for that. And again, he would say, "I need four

bulldozers or three draglines." And Leonard would do the rest. Tom would

probably line up the resource and get competitive bids and send them on

to Mr. Rosing, as he called him. Leonard was a guy who never took over-

night to make a decision. Maybe once or twice he would say, "Let me call

you back tomorrow, Tom." But they worked very, very

well together. And my responsibility was number one to handle anyone who

came to the property. First it started by people coming by mail, not in

person. They would answer ads that we would put in Outdoor Life or

retired military magazines. People would send 20 dollars and we

would send them a contract. WE did the original administrative work in

the Fort Myers area, actually handling all the mail. It was two people

who helped us there. Milt Mendelson helped us to develop letters because

a lot of people wouldn't send us money, they'd send us letters saying,

"Well, how am I going to land there?" Or, "Hew much will it cost me to

build a house?" Or is there a hospital nearby or do you allow dogs,

or will you have a golf course and what would be par or how deep will the

water be? All these letters would come in by this many, a dozen, then

dozens, and hundreds, and thousands. And Milt Mendelson was in charge

of helping uIs to set up all kinds of responses to the letters. And we

"
who was a lovely woman and is still there at Cape Coral. And Gwen was

in charge of getting all of the letters answered and I believe she was

in charge of processing the contracts. We had a few administrative

people in Ft. Myers even before the office moved to M-ami. And I was in

charge of all of that. I was in charge of putting together an on site

selling port which grew ultimately to be maybe be thirty or forty sales-

people and sales managers. I started to tell you earlier that the one

thing that I think I did well was to understand that one person couldn't

run everything and then as the venture grew there had to be more people

brought along. And I think we did a good job at building people. We were

able to delegate authority to various people and put together a nice

sales team.

D--Who wer the people, the groups that were directly responsible to you?

K--To begin with, 'Pacelli was responsible to me. Pacelli was a guy that we .sent

out around the country to open up brokers. He would call me every day and

he would call me from St. Louis or Chicago.. Aid I could always remember

Pacelli's early years. The one characteristic I can remember is where-

ever he went there was sales. Always there were sales, wherever he went

he was just really a very valuable player. He later sort of made the

switch and became a very strong Jack Rosen guy and that caused some pro-

blems between Pacelli and me. But Pacelli was our national guy. Connie

Mack and I were sort of co-equals on the site. I was more the energy fel-

low and Connie was more the sober, dignified, leveler, more even keel.

D--Yes, I know Connie.

K--Connie is really a wonderful man, and that is an understatement. There

was another man, Sy Reis. Did his name ever surface? He was a. pretty

nimble fellow because he would be able to make all the transitions from

Schwartz to Leonard Rosen to Jack Rosen. He stayed on pretty peaceful

terms with everybody, mainly because he was a very energetic, very

creative, very competent guy.

D--What was his job?

K--He was in charge during my era of Florida sales. He was in charge of

opening offices in Florida from which we would bring people to the

property. That was Sy's responsibility. And he reported to me and he

had his own managers in Miami and Ft. Lauderdale and West Palm Beach, and

St. Petersburg and Tampa. We opened offices in various cities. It wasn't

a huge deal, because we could open an office and if it didn't work out we

could close it. It didn't cost us tens of thousands of dollars. The

Rosen brothers, as I indicated to you over and over were very encouraging

to any kind effort. So if we wanted to open an office in Jacksonville,

which we did a couple of times, or Atlanta, which we did several times,

they always encouraged us to do it and they never ever recriminated if it

didn't work out. That's a very important thing to remember. No matter

what crazy sales idea you worked out, they never said, "We tried it before.

It didn't work." They'd always say, because they knew....Jack Rosen

always knew it was the man. He gave a sign that we would put up in our

office that said, "It's the man." That meant it was the man not the plan.

If you tried it seven times in a row but you found the guy that would be

the right guy and you wanted to go with him, Jack would encourage you

to go with him, because he knew it was the man and not so much the plan. So

Sy was in charge originally in the Florida land sales operation. Later

he made a very successful transition to becoming a Jack man and survived

for a good many years between Jack and Leonard long after I ended up.

D--What do you think were some of the biggest innovations made aby Gulf

in land development or sales?

K--Every aspect of the industry was either pioneered by them or improved by

the Rosen brothers. There was no idea that anyone had in the world that

they didn't learn about, that they didn't study. I think the single

greatest characteristic was their insatiable, voracious appetite to learn

and to try. That's why I keep focusing on their willingness to try, well

it was more than a willingness, it was an obcession. So anything that

anyone else did, they did even better. The Ethel Merman song, "You have

the right to do better." They had no false pride. If Chester tries some-

thing and it worked,the Rosen brothers would do it better. Twelve times

as hard. They would work 15 times as industriously and they would get

20 times the results. And the same with the Mackles and the Ratners.

They were not so much innovators as they were emulators and improvers.

The street campusing that I told you about, the OPC (Outside Public

Soliciting), they were the best at that and that caused them some

problems. Again, they got overly aggressive. That made people get up-

set with them. Their direct mail operation was the best in terms of

getting people to send them coupons or money or questions. They were

the best at opening up offices around the country and around the world.

Not always without problems, but Jack insisted that they had to invade

Europe and I don't think he ever made any money there. He opened up

offices in Europe and that was a matter of great pride for Jack and he

probably stuck with that a little too long. As a matter of fact, I

remember Jack died hours after getting off a plane coming from his

European operation. But everything they did, the opening of offices,

the advertising, they were.... They did everything really well, mainly

because of two things. Number one, they were basically, inherently

very creative, capable guys. Number two, they outworked everybody

else.

D--Did they sense competition with the Mackals or with Port Charlotte or

with you know...?

K--They never disliked anybody. They were, until this Joe Klein episode

arose. which was a tragedy--they really never had any problems with

anybody. We met when I was running the Cape Coral operation. I met

with the Mackles and someone from Chesters organization. And we formed

some sort of the land fills industry association. Nothing much came of

it. The Rosen brothers, if there was such a thing as putting money to-

gether to create a seal that said member of the Florida land sales assoc-

iation, we abide by the high ethics which animate this association. The

Rosen brothers would have contributed to that. There was nobody that

competed with them. They were really, I think it's fair to say, there

was only one guy who was really as great as the Rosen brothers, and that

was Herman Pearl. He was a friend of mine. He gave me this sculpture

that he did. He used to do sculpting in his home as a hobby. He was

a lovely guy. He was probably pound for pound the second or third

greatest land salesman in Florida history. I would put Jack and Leonard

Rosen as number one and Herman as number two.

D--What was his last name?

K-Pearl. He was out of New Jersey. He' was associated with the Mackl'es and

with Chesler. And he was wiped out in what I describe as an anti-semetic

Putch. But theMackles, got rid of Chesler and then afterwards they came

in and fired Herman Pearl and his worldwide group of people. Herman was

the greatest sales manager that I ever knew. Greatest motivator that I

ever knew. So he was....But again, he was no enemy to the Rosen brothers.

Leonard and he had a nice relationship. I don't know how well he knew

Jack.

D--Let me ask you a question on that whole issue. Was anti-semetism in.

different things? Did they experience that a lot?

K--First of all let me give you a positive because I guess maybe like a lot

of Jewish people I tend to be overly sensitive to the issue. And

particularly when you go to a little town like Ft. Myers where there

really were no Jewish people. The positive side that I always look back

on especially fond of. The treatment we were accorded by the people of

Ft. Myers and Lee County was without exception, exemplerary. That's one

of the things that I enjoyed very much and I think that if someone said,

"What did you do good?" I think probably that I helped to create a good

feeling in the community. I was active in the community. I eventually

became cochairman of the United Way and I was on the Symphony Board and

I was on the Girl Scout Board. I was president of the Synagogue. The

treatment accorded there was just nothing but magnificent. Part of that

was due to the warmth and the charm of Leonard Rosen. Part of it was

due a citizen of the community, Sam Posnerwho later became my partner

when I left the Rosen brothers, when I was drummed out. I wanted to

stay in the neighborhood so I went into a venture with Sam Posner, a

department store in Ft. Myers. He was such a lovely man. He was a re-

tailer. And he was so well-liked in his

little five-and-ten cent store called the Ft. Myers Variety Store, later

it." For instance when racial problems arose, I was named to the I think

it was called the Lee County Bi-racial Commission, or something like that.

And I think we helped to avoid any ugly episode in the community. I

remember I had the privledge of working with the.newspaper editor,

whom I really liked, Bill Spear Was he before your time? When did you

say your father came here? (William R. Spear)

D--'72.

K--I don't know if Bill Spear was gone by then, but he was just a really

wonderful man. He reminded of that fellow.... Every once in a while,

there was a journalist who stood up for justice and decency. One of

them won the Pul'tizer Prize. I can't remember what his name was now.

Bill Spear in that little community of Ft. Myers was a voice of reason

and grace. That helped the community to get through a difficult period.

So anyway, I'm only pointing out to you that the message from the Rosen

brothers known through the world was that you went into a community and

you accepted your responsibility. You worked industriously. I don't

remember it happening, but if there was a ballet company that would

start in Ft. Myers, I would have the authority to make a pledge, because

I knew that that would be what the Rosen brothers would want. Not be-

cause it would help them to sell more land or that it would help us to

become heroes in the community, but because it was just the right thing

to do. You didn't go into a community just to take, you also had to make

your contribution. So I think we did that and I think that was part of

why we enjoyed a nice relationship. To get back to your question of

anti-semitism. The Mackals, in my opinion, were out and out anti-semites.

Admiral Hunt of Coral Ridge was a notorious anti-semite. A great business

man and pound for pound the greatest person in Florida real estate. But
< ^it played...
I don't know that / Leonard Rosen always felt that it did. If you said

good morning to Leonard in the wrong way, he would assume it was because

you were an anti-semite, even sometim-s later when he found out you were

Jewish, which happened in one case that I can remember. But that was, I

would say, a major factor. As the Rosen brothers were falling, I think

it's fair to say that some of the people who particularly enjoyed their

fall were some of the people who were seen as anti-semites.

D--Well, to kind of skip a little bit. I've done a little bit of reading

and it's talked about how Gulf was accused of a lot of unethical sales

practices, lot switching and stuff like that. You mentioned a little

bit about this before, but do you feel there was basis just for that, or

do feel like that was really overblown?

K--I wasn't around when that happened. I don't mean to wash my hands of it.

D--'66, '67 and there is when the charges were brought up.

K--I think it's really unfair of me to say everything was gold and magnifi-

cient when I was there and then practices changed after I left. That

would not be appropriate. I know the fellows who were in charge of the

operation. The guys in charge of WATS were Jim Layden and Ed Bryan. And

these were guys that were honorable guys. Ed Bryan was sweet and nice

and decent. He was the fellow in charge. I don't know what happened to

him, whether he's still alive, but I know that Ed Bryan would never

consciously do anything dishonest. But more important, the Rosen brothers

would never ask him to do anything dishonest. That doesn't mean that they

didn't screw the thing up, that doesn't mean that they didn't do wrong,
plan
but I know there was no /there was never called for selling the property

to Jones and then switching him over and giving the same property to Smith.

I don't know what it was that caused all those allegations and I know it

was ruinous and I know it was tragic. And I can remember as an outside

spectator with a tremendous sense of nostalgia even back then, with no

bitterness. Because I think that all my bitterness evaporated about a

week or two after I left the company and was replaced by a fond feeling

5 51

of at least being a sideline booster of theirs. I just hope that they

were the-victims of their own greed, their own over-ambition, their own

absence of moderation. I think that everyone got ,wept up in that.

D-Do you think that.... The sales practices you would say would be more

characterized by hardnose, aggressive sales as opposed to things il-

legal or...?

K-The thing that I think.... I don't think the lot switching matter that

you aluded to was something that would in any way 'be doneby design.

Not that that forgives the fact that it happened, but what I think would

be worthy of criticism is the fact that they became so enslaved to in-

creasing their volume. Increasing to a degree artificially their.:..As

you understand they were a public company. In a public company you are

always concerned about the price of your shares. The way that you get

the price of your shares up is by your P.E. ratio, the Price-Earnings

Ratio. You have to get your earnings up. I think if they had not been

a public company, somehow they had a way to finance themselves without
enslave
S/ having to be concerned with being o the pressure of the public,

I think they could've built a wonderful venture. And I think that that

probably is the difference between what ultimately happened to them and

happened to general development and happened to Deltona, which was not

good, compared to what happened to Coral Ridge Properties and to Arvida.

Coral Ridge Properties did become part of Westinghouse, but they were

never under pressure to be, they were never reported in the daily presses,

what their price was. And Arvida was in later years. But they were both

much more soberly managed without that pressure. I think that was right

in there the root of the ultimate demise of the Rosen brothers' venture.

D--Talk a little bit about that early year or two in Cape Coral. What was

some of the day t' day stuff? How many hours a day did you work? Was

it just sun up to sundown.

K-It was just probably for a young fell ow as ideal as it could be. I had

been in the Marine Corp in World War II. I had then gone to Wharton.

School and then had sort of become kind of an Ivy League guy in terms

of living in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore. And that probably

would have been the full range of my perspective in life had I not gone

from there to ....

D--You were talking a little bit about the early years, in Cape

Coral. How it was being in a new community and stuff like that.

K--I think that as one looks back the program was run rather well, mainly

by Leonard Rosen and Tom Weber in those days and we did a lot of things

right. We did a couple of things wrong. The thing we did right was the

S way we handled the community. I think it was wise of the company to put a person
on the ocene. on the property. Not neccesarily tha; it was Kenny Schwartz,

but I think the company was there with a sense of responsibility enabled

the community to get through its early stages. Because we moved people

there. We were the first family to move there. I moved there in April

of '58 and then my family came down from Baltimore in June of '58, We

were the first family to live there and then as families were coming into

the community, I think we handled it very well. We did such things as

Leonard Rosen would send a basket of fruit or something like that. He

never forgot little things like that. And those little touches, even up

to the first couple hundred families, he always sent something. And he

had a very nice gracious touch. And I think that we built in those

early stages very nice relationships. And they helped to carry us through

very good times and a couple of tough times. You eluded in here to the

bridge. That was a very traumatic event. Probably as I look back, one

of the most.....

D--You were talking about the Cape Coral bridge.

K--I can't remember a lot about except that to me it was a source of personal

disappointment that people would have argued against the bridge. Our

motive was pretty geniune. Our aspirations were to make sales easier and

to make it easier for people who live there. This was a typical case of

Leonard Rosen's determination. One of the things about Leonard Rosen's

funeral that disappointed me so much was that the Rabbi, who knew Leonard

very, very well would be to capture the try and the power that Leonard

had to achieve an objective. He was a guy who not allow any opposition

to stand in his way. I always felt that Leonard Rosen could put us on

the moon five years earlier than we ultimately got there. His powerful

"single-mindedness. Leonard Rosen decided that we-were going to have

Sa bridge across the Caloosahatchee River.

D--Had that always been part of the plan?

K--Pecularly, David, that was a source of problems because a couple of our

sales managers started to promise it. And I had the responsibility to

remind them that they had no right to make such a representation. I

didn't want it talked about. And the biggest fight I ever had in all my

years was with a guy named Petrie. And ultimately he became the two big-

gest enemies that the company ever had in my era. Or the biggest enemy

we had in my era was Petrie and later Joe Klein became a much more impor-

tant enemy. But Petrie kept talking about this bridge and he promised a

bridge and finally I fired him because of that. And he opened a big sign

up that said "Lots. 40% off." This led to years of incrimination and acts

of violence on our part and retaliation on his part. And escalations and

I put big trees up between one place and the other to block out his of-

fice and it was not a period of great dignity on my part. Probably

characterized mostly by pettiness, But anyway, more and more became

sensible to think in terms of having a bridge across the river. There

was a separated episode that evolved at this point on my part. Where the

guy who owned the land where the bridge was going to go. That was also

not a moment of great pride in my life.

D--Tell me a little bit about that.

K--There were two fellows named John O'Han who lived up in New York state

and his brother-in-law Sam Nahama. They bought, through the good sales-

manship of Eddie Pacelli and Kenny Schwartz a piece of land located on the

Caloosahatchee River. It was decided through our engineers that that was to be the

Cape Coral side of the bridge. And then Because of my close friendship
9-f
with them, I went to them and started nego tiating to buy the property or

trade the property. Originally we agreed pretty much, but then as time

went by, this is separate from the community dispute. O'Han and Nahama

kept escalating their demands. Meanwhile Nahama was living on the proper-

ty. He and his wife and children were very close to me and vice versa

"as were most of the people in the community in its early

stages. As the bridge fight grew, as the disagreement of the bridge

grew, for the first time surfaced some hostility in varying degrees. The

smaller aspect of the acquisition of that property had to do with the

fact that more and more O'Han and Nahama, particularly O'Han was esca-

lating what he wanted. And I remember at one point he wanted 100,000

shares of stock in the company. Finally we were in a situation in my

office, I can't remember which office it was but I think it was in the
trail
office onthe /A because I can remember that it was a wooden building.

I can remember that the building was shaking. I kept saying to him,

you could describe. almost with a passion, my commitment whether it was

right or wrong, I was so swept up with this thing. I said, "You could

describe...." I was at my desk here, O'Han was where you are and Sam

Nahama was verr there. And was there a sales manager named Harry Hirsch,

a little chunky guy about five foot five, a really nice "uv. Harry was

outside with my secretary. I said to O'Han, "You can describe your chanz

of mind any way you want to, but there's only one word that I would apply

to it. You're a welcher." I k-pt saving the word w-'lch. I said it so

many times that he said, "You better not say that word again." Finally

about the eleventh time that I called him a welcher, because I knew for

sure that that word bothered him, he finally advanced on me. AT which

point I must of hit him about five times right in the face. Sam Nahama

was a very strong guy who really liked me, and-he was trying to break it

up. Meanwhile Harry Hurst came in and he tried to break it uT, and I can

remember the building shaking. That whole episode took place and I guess

it took maybe a minute or two, it was one of two classic fist fights I had

during my career with the Rosen brothers, the second of which caused my

demise and I'll tell you about that a little later. But anyway, I

remember two things. One, he preferred charges against me, now whether

they were criminal or civil or both, I don't remember. But I remember

that Rosie Pauses Pacelli's cousin, Frank Pavice was the county prose-

cutor. And I remember that Bill Carmine who was a central figure in

the whole Gulf American story, a lovely guy who was a Ft. Myers attorney,

who later became the chief counsel for the company in Miami. He repre-

l L sented me and we went before Pavice, and I remember him finally

saying that even though I struck the first several blows that his ad=

vancing on me, this was the judicial decision made by this prosecutor,

the fact that John advanced on me was sufficiently threatening that I

had the right to use my fists. So I got through that and I don't remem-

ber if there was also a lawsuit. The criminal suit didn't go and the

other part also was dropped and that was the end of my first fist fight.

We made a deal with O'Han, I don't remember what we gave him, but anyway,

we finally agreed with them and we got this piece of property that we

needed that would be the Eastern terminus of Cape Coral Parkway. As you

1/ go east past Del prado Parkwair the Cape Coral Bank is on your

right and as you keep going you get on the bridge. The bridge goes over

S12-

to the other side, whatever they call that area. In Fort Myers, I forget

what they call it.

D-I believe on the Cape Coral side it's called Harneys Point.
Harnevs
K-Yeah. You're right, it was called Point and the other point was

called Red Fish Point down in. That's where I lived, down by Red Fish

Point. He was a figure with the Seminole Wars, Anyway, so we set-

tled up with O'Han and Nahama and made peace with them. And then came

the real fight which was the fact that some of the citizens of the

community, for various reasons, mobilized to fight the bridge and I

describe that as the most traumatic recollection I have in my life.

Because the tension associated with the voting.

D-Why would they oppose the bridge?

K-Something to do with privacy. Something to do with enmity towards the

company. Something to do with the battle between Tetrie and me. Petrie

aggressive recruiting of people through whatever methods were convenient.

D-Let me back up real quick. Do you know how much was paid for land?

K-I don't have any recollection at all of what we gave O'Han.

D--I'll look that up.

K-I seem to remember we gave him something like triple what he paid and

that was in my mind fair enough and we weren't going to give anymore.

I don't know why he was so stubborn, whether the Rosen brothers were

coaching, I don't know. But I was the leader of the campaign, and I

usual I invested with my customary over-reaction passion. I can't remem-

ber an awful lot about it, except we created a citizen's group called

The Citizens Committee for the Bridge or something like that. And the

fella in charge of that was, the headman was Carl Lowell Mills. One of

the many really super.... We had such a great community, I guess that's

why I loved it so much. The people there were just, almost as if they

were hand-selected to be planners. A lot of them were people who were

in there fifties and sixties and seventies, but there was some, I don't

know how to describe this to you, but there was some kind of magic about

that whole community. There was something that Lehigh Acres never had and

Port Charlotte never had. There was some kind of magic associated with that

whole venture. That's why I was so passionate about it, why I loved it

so much. I raised three of my children there, I had six children. It

was just a very, very unusual set of circumstances. The Bridge battle,

therefore, to me there was hardly anything I was objective about. So I

think, I regret to say this, but if a person wasn't in favor of the

bridge, that meant he was my enemy. And I remember we fought very bit-

terly. I remember the night the vote was taken and we won the vote, and

I guess I never had a triumph like that before or since. I can remember

calling my mother and Jack. I can remember Leonard was in Miami and

Jack was in Baltimore and I remember being so happy that we won

the vote and eventually we built the bridge.

D-Now that vote was a referendum.

K-It was a referendum of the members of the community. Now including, I

know we had another enemy on the other side. We had other enemies on the

other side of the bridge. One of them was a guy named SuuHtiin. He was

a well-to-do Clevelander. He was a friend of the coach of the Cleveland

Browns, at that time, Paul Brown. Paul Brown used to come down to the

Sutphin farm for vacation. Somehow I know Sutphinwas in it, I don't know

if Paul Brown was in it. But feelings were very bitter. It was a very

intense period. It was 1961. sort of the peak of my triumph years.

Anyway, we won the vote and the bridge got built. As I remember, what-

ever bitterness there was, even between Petrie. and me, I remember working

for Petree's son. He had a nice son named Petrie Junior. I wrote a

letter for him to get inot boarding school, later he became a success-
ful attorney. He practicing in Miami now. I didn't know much about

greys. Everything was black and white.

D-I understand there was some resistance on the Ft. Myers side or from the

county commission to the bridge as far as putting up a bond or not sure

whether the bridge..."'

K-The financial arrangements were on the surface difficult, but were total-

ly....All concerns about that were totally wiped away because Leonard

Rosen guaranteed the bridge. Leonard Rosen, as I said earlier, wanted

the bridge to be built. He said he would pay for it himself if he couldn't

get the financing. Maybe that the bridge vote had to do with a bond. It

was a referendum to improve the bond issue, but I think that Leonard

said that even if the bond wasn't approved he would put up the money to

build the bridge. He wanted to have the citizenship build the bridge,

and ultimately they did. And then, as I remember, whatever ill-will had

been created. I don't mean to minimize the intensity of the ill-will

because that would be a unfair question of about how everything went

those days. Cause everything was a labor of love and I had a great pas-

sion. But we got past that and the bridge got built.

D-Kind of backtrack just a little bit more, and we'll be done fairly soon

here. In your opinion, who were the one or two or three most important

individuals, besides the Rosens, in the early success of Cape Coral.

K-Connie Mack was an important figure because of the grace and dignity and

refinement of Connie. Bob Finkernagel came in and solely took over part

of what Connie did and part of what I did. And he was certainly an im-

portant figure. Bob had a great instinct for the right thing to do, in

terms of building a community. His history as a Chamber of Commerce

executive was very important in the end. And he had.... and even to today,

he unfortunately suffers from Parkinson's disease now, but he always was

remarkably bright. The best illustration I can give you of Bob. Long

after I left the company, I still remained friendly with Bob. A certain

arose where I had to get ahold of Loretta Young, the movie star. And I

knew for certain how to do it. I called up Bob and said, "Bob, will you

please get me Loretta Young's phone number?" Somethime between an hour

and three hours later he called me wth Loretta Young's phone number.
U__
That's still a capsule description of Bob Finkernagel. If you wanted

something to be done, smoothly and excellently, Bob Finkernagel. He was

very well-liked in the community, very well respected. He was a real

professional. He wasn't in the real early days, because, as I said,

that even a couple of weeks........But he came in I guess around 1960.

He came at a very opportune moment, because the community was beginning

to grow and my sales responsibility was growing and it was sensible to

have.... Connie was working on a lot of other matters. Connie was a

member of the bord of directors of the company and did a lot with

Leonard Rosen and with Jack, mainly with Leonard. And so Bob really

took over the community. That was something that should never be min-

imized. You have to understand the character and the quality of the

community was such an essential ingredient. That was different cor-

pletely from whatever the world will ever remember about the Rosen

brothers. Because people like the Rosen brothers and trusted the

Rosen brothers. If the the Rosen brothers made a statement or Bob Fin- _

kernagel or Connie Mack or Kenny Schwartz made a statement there were

no questions, would they do it? We said we'd build a road and they

knew a road would get built. I f we said that we would do something

to help a church get started or a snyagogue get started or sponsor some-

thing for the youth of the community. There was no question. It was

just that kind of teamwork and committment. There was nothing that was

ever even questioned.

D-Anyone else in those early days you can attribute responsibility.

K-On the site or overall?

2--7S7

D-Overall.

K-It was, I tried to make clear, the unargueble that the two invincible

people were Leonard and Jack Rosen. Interchangeably and by far more

important than all the rest of the humans being combined., I would

say Tom Weber was critical.

D-While you're on Tom Weber, tell me a little bit more about him.

K-Tom was a very quiet gentleman who.... I don't even know if he was a P.E.,

a professional engineer, by degree or by license. Tom had been travelling

around the world building such things as air bases. He had been to the

Azores before he had come with us. I don't know if he was the number

one person, I think he was maybe with some big company named Perrini, or
or Bechtel
<' / MorrisonTnudson You've heard of the companies, worldwide development

construction companies. Writing up the contract and Tom might have

benn there representing that company. I don't remember and he found one

another, but he was definitely the most magic of all the ingredients,

that mutual discovery. Tom, as I indicated, was responsible for every

decision associated with development and his judgment and teamwork with

Leonard was so distinctive that in that context, one could start a

sentence and the other could finish it. Tome's contribution was

really great. Who else was important? Bernie Herzfeld was one of the

names you have. Bernie was a Baltimore lawyer. he was somewhat unsung

during the early years. he and another gentleman named George Lond6on who

was the accountant for the Rosen brothers. Herzfeld and London, the

attorney and the accountant, respectively were part of the Rosen

brothers' operation from before Cape Coral, probably until after Gulf

American ended. And Bernie ultimately became chairman of the board of

the company, after this whole ugly situation, again I was gone, but what

I can reconstruct. Hertzfeld became chairman of the board of the company.

He was a very soft-spoken gentle man. And he took over the company, I

third if nothing else to give a cosmetic appearance., Because by then

the Rosen brothers were so persona non grata everywhere. They really just spoiled

every line they were associated with, so irreparably that Bernie Herz-

feld came in as Chairman of the Board., And I don't remember if when he

was in charge if the company went bankrupt, I can't recall that part.

So he was an important player. Let me look at this list., Of all the

names on here, I would say Weber, Herzfeld and Finkernage! in an impor-

tant position., Sanborn.., no. Sandler, not particularly, Connie Mack,

not particularly,, Hepner, I would say, is probably one of the most

important names on here outside of Weber., Hepner was very close to

Jack Rosen., And he grew from being an advertising only person to a

full point sales executive. And ultimately, became the president of

S-, the company. The Rosen brothers left. There was anti-semetic,

wipe but- in one afternoon, I think 15 people were destroyed, 11

of them were Jewish, the other two were Finkernagel and a guy named

Bill Baron, for all we know the other people might've thought they

were Jewish too. 13 people were wiped out in one afternoon. It was

the Friday after the GAC people took over. They all went off in there

different directions. I can't remember the timing, it's very important.

But anyway, Hepner, wherever he went ultimately was contacted by the

GAC people. You have to remember coincidences. Gulf-American Corpora-

tion by then was the name of the Rosen brothers entity. It sold out

something like 180 million dollars. The company was owned about 2/3

by the Rosens and aobut 1/3 by the public. So the consideration for

the purchase was about 180 million dollars in GAC stock. So inci-

dently GAC which used to be called General Acceptance Corporation out

of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Coincedently bought a company which had

the same initials, Gulf American Corporation. So when the GAC people

came down, a fellow named HaywardWills came down. I never met him, but

for everything I ever heard about him, he was a pretty nice gentleman,

who just got involved in something that was far, far, far too much for

him to handle., He surrounded himself with people who I don't think were

that suitable for this industry., After the wipe out of these fellows, the

Hayward Willis people contacted Hepner., And as I remember, they hired Hepner

as president of the company under a built-in, locked- in secure contract,

which was for me is a strange way of business, because it made me feel

good because they were doing a little retribution or justice. Hepner

came back for a couple of years and he brought in Finkernagel. They

were very close. They travelled all over the world., Finkernagel had

a much nicer toudh when it came to people., Hepner was basically quiet.

D-So they headed up GAC properties.

K-Yeah., Hepner was the president of GAC properties and Bob Finkernagel

was sort of, I don't know what title Bob had, but he was the people

person. He helped. First of all, I remember, he organized the visits

from Charlie Hepner among clerical people and administrative people, which

Hepner would never on his own do. He was basically too shy or wouldn't

even think of it. But Finkernagel always had a nice touch about him.

I don't remember how long they lasted or what finally happened, whether

Hepner was president when the company went down the drain, or what, I

don't know.,

D--Well, just briefly, I've only got a few minutes left of tape. I wanted

to ask you something. A couple other people on this list or weren't

even on this list. I've read EileeneBernard's book. Tell me little

bit about her. What position did she have? I understand she was

secretary to Leonard.

K-No. She was not a secretary., She was a writer. She was a public

realtions person., I can't remember what her histroy was. She came

form upstate New York. She was a woman I lover very much. I really

was just very fond of her,. I can't remember why we originally hire her,

but she made it part of that whole procedure to answer all those letters

and everything. But eventually, we asked her to create a newspaper, some-

thing like a house publication, designed not for the employees but for the

property owners. And from there she did a brilliant job.

D-What was that called?

K-That was called the Cape Coral Breeze. The Cape Coral Breeze was a house

publication which later became owned by a guy named Richard Crawford, He

was a good friend. He was a stern, typical Colonel. On a given after-

noon, when Hepner and Finkernagel, when the wipe out took place.

[As long as you don't use my name, you can ask me anything. I'm a

prime source.] When the wipe out took place, Hepner was fired,

Finkernagel, Bill Baron and ten other people. [Ten, maybe 25.]

Thirteen people went on a given afternoon. [There was another level,

like that guy, the one out in California] Rollnick. (When Rollnick went.)

David asked me if there was any anti-semetic overtone to aspects of the

industry. I said there were two levels of anti-semetic overtone. One

was in the early stages of us versus the Mackles and the secondly in

later years when the new GAC people came in I felt there was., You always

told me nice things about Heyward Wills. [In my opinion, Hayward Wills

was a good guy.] Right, and I reflected that to David. Anyway it was

after that that Hepner resurfaced and came back as president and I remember

that a distinguished lawyer represented Hepner, you and the other guy to

get the right kind of contract. The unbreakable contract. Was it then

that he hired such people as Rollnick & Finkernagel. [Finkernagel

resurfaced] Before he was fired, was he the president? [No. Under

the Rosen brothers, when Leonard stepped down, I think Bernie Herzfeld

was acting president.] No. Chairman. Jack was president. Herzfeld

I explained to David, came in becuase of the fact that the cosmetic as-

pect called for, [Gently it was terminated to make peace with them.,]

Yeah. I told him., (Layden was terminated. Mendelson was sent out to

Alaska) Is that far enough away? [I remember, one time we had a party

and Leonard was at the end, going away, and Leonard was carrying on.

H yward jumped up on the table, Leonard's dining room table. He said

something very cute, something to the effect that somewhere way back in

my history, I must've been Jewish, because in Hayward S., Wills the

"S" stands for Sydney. Hayward was a very egalitarian guy. The other

guys so looked down their noses at us because they thought they thought

they were more educated or more formal., They had one guy and I forget

his name, who was a real killer. He came with Hayward., The guy who

was transforming GAC out into this big empire.] Stratner [Stratner]

Wasn'tFerguson also a very damaging person? Ferguson was a guy who

destroyed Claude Kirk. He was his assistant. He destroyed Lou Perrini.

[Ferguson didn't have a brain.] He was a dangerous. [Whatever you

asked him, he didn't understand a question.,] He was a lightweight.

[But he knew how to protect himself. Hayward was a very, looked like

he came out of a German planning committee. That's what he looked

like. He walked around like that.] He knew Stratner. [How much

did that desk cost? Who determines who buys desks? He was that kind of

guy. He never understood the business. Hayward understood the business,

he just couldn't execute. He would turn out to be an alcoholic.] When

they sold the company, Lester [I never liked him.]. When the Rosen bro-

thers sold the company and were allowed to take and contract two people

with them, they took Lester and Hayward. After Hayward spent the month

with us, he like his own people. Look at that list. [Hayward liked the

booze and the girls., Hayward's a very nice guy, a very clean-cut fellow.

Went to Columbia University, a Columbia grad. Took over his father's

business when it was going down.,] That was General Acceptance. [Yeah.,

Turned it around.] I thought it was Bedford-Wills,. [He was very, very

unaggressive guy. Very big personality., Nice guy to be with, pleasant

guy to be with. He went out and got a couple of guys to give him very

big bank loans and then he would reloan the money, rediscount the money.

And he did a good job at that.,] Tell David who was important among these

people., he real important players. [Well, Tom Weber was a real impor-

tant player, but he was a technicrat., Bernard Herzfeld was off premises

and was only involved in the major fleet decisions., He was not a player,

he was an advisor. Solomon Sandler, I would consider him an important

player. Finkernagel was important in the sales sense., Sol Sandler, I

did not know. I knew the name.,] He was on the community, very nice.

He ran the country club. [Finkernagel was important. Finkernagel was

important in the sales sense. Saul Sandler was another important player,

Connie Mack was important in the sales. Hepner was important, very impor-

tant. Eddie Pacelli was very important. Maddlone was a technicra. but

an important player. Bob Carrell was not an important player, but he was

a technicrat-. Johnny Cavalier was definitely not an important player.

In fact he was very, very, low-down in the scheme of things. Ronald

Crandell, these are really names. That's the guy we had to get a lawsuit

out to track down. He was in a room with a girl. I vowed that it was

one of the greatest moments of my career. He left the company and we

had a lawsuit. I was playing lawyer in those days. He was avoiding ser-

vice of process and he left home and I knew he was somewhere between

Melbourne, Orlando, and Tampa. I found him. I found the son of a gun.

And I had the guy serve him when he was in bed. This guy came out of Big-Eight

firm. He was definitely not an important player. I liked him, but he

lost his mind. Milton Shapiro was simply a second-line technicrat. ] We

agreed on the players, right? [Tom Weber was probably the most important

66
technicrat aside from Bill Carmine in the company.) He had never heard

of Carmine. (Carmine was a major player, no questions asked.) Carmine

was the head council and Lester worked under him. (But Carmine had a lot

to do with a lot of things that happened there. A lot of important things.)

Probably one of the most loyal guys. (And a very nice guy.) He got wiped

out also. (Carmine was a guy that if a guy asked for a refund or a guy

made the slightest hint at anything, Carmine gave him his money back. He

just gave a refund. He was a guy that loved the company and he tried. I

remember, I was there that day when he left. He told Leonard that he was

never going to do that Fakahatchee strand piece. Because it was criminal

to take that water off the land. That's what he said. He was a quail

hunter. He was an environmentalist before there were environmentalists.

He just never knew it.)

D--And this was who?

K--Bill Carmine. He was like you. He left high school and went into the

service and worked as a lineman for five or six jears before he ever went

to college and law school. (Carmine, he was a wonderful man. I think that

company would have gone down the drain years ahead if it wasn't for Bill

Carmine putting the brakes on a lot of hairbrain things.)

D--Is Carmine still around?

D--(I don't know. Even when he sued the company, and after he left, he real-

ly didn't put up a defense. I must tell you that. When Leonard said...

When he got to court, I was there and he didn't put up a defense.) Where

they on speaking terms? (Yeah) That's one thing Itold David, that the

one thing about Leonard during all those years he was a guy who never ever

burned a bridge. In the last moments of his life... Well, he burned a

bridge with Lester and me....But in all those years he would never allow a

bridge to be burned, right? The answer to this question is an important

part of what David is trying to do on his master's

degree thesis he's doing., Something to do with the question of ..,.Gulf

American was accused of unethical sales practices such as lot switching,

refusing to refund money, promising rapid increases of lot values. Were

these charges groundless in the end? I'm adding this part. How much of

this was inspired by the Rosen brothers? How much of this was motivated

by the Rosen brothers? [Well, let's handle this one at a time. They

never switched a lot on anyone to cause that person harm or for the

purpose of switching lots because they had something up their sieve,.

They switched those lots because they really screwed up. They put peo-

ple on land that they didn't own. The major lot switching was for the

public's benefit., They put them on 8 acres of lot that they could never

drum up to get their water off. I remember when taht happened. So they

did switch the people. They did switch them knowingly, but it cost them

money to switch them because they switched those people onto better ground.

They never would switch a person onto lesser ground to get more for the

other ground. They never thought like that., They weren't even smart

enough to think like that. That never happened.] I explained to David

that the personal charge of that was basically Sandler, Layden, Bryon.

tBryone and Layden were the switchers.] Yeah, but Bryon was legitimate.

They never switched the guys to put him into lesser ground because they

discovered oil., [They switched the ground because the ground that they

put them into originally was no God D-- good, period.] Question num-

5-7 ber two. Since you were to a large degree responsible for refusing the

refund money. [That's the biggest bullshit in the world.] There was

never a case of refusing to refund money. Even Leonard wasn't justified

Even when a person wasn't justified and would write and say the family

was ill, Lester or Bill Carmine would send the money back. It was a

very..,,.. [It didn't mean anything to us, because we would usually resold

the land usually at a higher price., Promising rapid increases in lot

value, I think that was an area where slesmen did get a little bit out

of hand, but the Rosen brothers original control was lessened as the com-

pany got bigger. That was an area where there was too much aggressive

salesmanship., I told David earlier this morning that one of the bad

turning point in the company was. The two bad turning points in the

company were A. the telephone operation, B, The airplanes and C basically

buying too many properties and having too many ventures going,. [Yeah., I

believe you're right. I think the biggest thing that they ever did

wrong there, which was not done intentionally, it was just sheer inept-

ness and enthusiasm. Was they sold the property originally in Cape Coral

at too low of a price, ] $990 for an 80' by 100' lot, [They couldn't

deliver at that price. They were very naive., They never factored in the

construction, seveh years from now, They were very simplistic. So

then when all that stuff started to catch up with them because a lot of

lots did increase in value, If your sold a lot for 990 and it cost you

2500 to improve it, you're making a lot worth 2500 dollars., It's got

to be worth 2500 dollars. Or 4000 or 5000. That's what got them into

acreage by the way. Because they had really resisted there was a fac-

tion in there that strongly resisted acreage.] This is very important.

[Nobody really wanted to do acreage sales. Underlying all this is the

pecularity about the Rosen brothers was most people who sell swampland

they take their money and run. They never had the intention of leaving.

They never took anybody's money And when they promised a golf course, they

had the intention of putting three in. They were really living this dream.

Maybe one the day they started and I wasn't there, maybe they intended

to take everybody's money and run, but when they were there, they were

really building a city.,] They never intended to take anybody's money.

That's what Lester just said. They never took any money out of it. They

gove very small salaries, they were never lavish livers. [In 1965, not-

for show, Leonard was driving a Ford, two-door, white Ford.,] I don't

think that they ever had a Cadillac., They were modest., [They weren't

selling stock, millions of dollars worth., They had 66% of the company.
k'- AUc
) So if they screwed the stockholders, they were screwing themselves. And

ever unloaded- their stock and they were convinced that they were going

to build this wonderful city and go down in history like the Vanderbilts

and Rockerfellers and everyone else., They were very

naive, but somehow I always believed that they could fight their way

out of anything, but if you look at the original brochure of Cape Coral

and you look at what they deliver for that, it was certainly more taht

the people were going to get happy. If I was to get up and say, "what

am I going to do today?' They never thought three weeks down the line.]

What do you remember about the Cape Coral bridge? [I was there when

it was finishing up that bond issue. ] What was the vote about? Remember

that big fight about the vote in the community, there was a big battle.

[I think one of the battles was the they would not raise enough funds,

as I recall to pay the bond and they couldn't guarnatee the bond. Some-

thing like there would not be enough traffic., And then there was a lot

about the right of way as the bridge came more.] Who was involved in

the right of way? [Bill Carmine was. And somebody else. some guys were

holding out.] But that was when I had my fist fight with O'Han. [I

remember that. A public service to the Calossahatchee. But that company was not

designed to make money, let alone run away with the money. There was

no way that company could have made moneyy] It was designed to make

money, it just didn't work out that way, [Maybe the aspiration, the technical

side would never have allowed it, even if they ever had their hands on

money, they would have bought more'land and done more developing. They

were having a good time. They loved it,- Most developers put in a golf

course or a clubhouse as a necessary evil. They really liked it. Jack

wanted to put in a million dollars worth of roses, They had an expert

76 L 6470
who told them that those roses would never live. It wasn't possible
in south Florida,, They didn't live, but he put them in anyway.....

MILLISECOND	CLASS.METHOD	MESSAGE
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor	Application State validated or built
0	sobekcm_database.verify_item_lookup_object
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor	Navigation Object created from URI query string
0	sobekcm_database.verify_item_lookup_object
0	sobekcm_page_globals.display_item	Retrieving item or group information
0	sobekcm_page_globals.get_entire_collection_hierarchy	Retrieving hierarchy information
0	sobekcm_assistant.get_entire_collection_hierarchy
0	cached_data_manager.retrieve_item_aggregation
0	cached_data_manager.retrieve_item_aggregation	Found item aggregation on local cache
0	item_aggregation_builder.get_item_aggregation	Found 'all' item aggregation in cache
0	system.web.ui.page.page_load (ufdc.page_load)
0	sobekcm_page_globals.constructor.on_page_load
0	html_echo_mainwriter.add_style_references	Adding style references to HTML
0	html_echo_mainwriter.add_text_to_page	Reading the text from the file and echoing back to the output stream
44	html_echo_mainwriter.add_text_to_page	Finished reading and writing the file