Stephen Muss (born 1928) is an American real estate developer known for leading the resurgence and redevelopment of

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which sep ...

Early life and education

Muss was born to a

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

family in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

South Florida Business Journal: "Born to build - Muss, Soffer progeny develop joint project : Fontainebleau II" by Stephen Van Drake
March 11, 2002 and raised in

Bensonhurst, Brooklyn Bensonhurst is a residential neighborhood in the southwestern section of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. The neighborhood is bordered on the northwest by 14th Avenue, on the northeast by 60th Street, on the southeast by Avenue P and 22n ...

.''Fool's Paradise: Players, Poseurs, and the Culture of Excess in South Beach'' By Steven Gaines
pages 100 -110 His father, Alexander, was one of eleven children, six of them brothers who worked for their father's construction company building homes during and after the Great Depression. Muss worked for the family business first as a laborer and then in sales and construction supervision.

Career

Muss eventually went into a partnership with his father founding Alexander Muss & Sons developing 30 acres of tract homes on Long Island. From 1952 through 1968, they went on to develop over 20 subdivisions with about 20,000 houses in Queens, New Jersey, and on Long Island; they also built over 4,000 multifamily units.
May 17, 1992 In the 1950s, his family moved to Florida where his father, now a multi-millionaire, built the Seacoast Towers in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. It was incorporated on March 26, 1915. The municipality is located on natural and man-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay, the latter of which s ...

, known for the distinctive

MiMO In radio, multiple-input and multiple-output, or MIMO (), is a method for multiplying the capacity of a radio link using multiple transmission and receiving antennas to exploit multipath propagation. MIMO has become an essential element of w ...

architectural style, the Towers of

Key Biscayne Key Biscayne ( es, Cayo Vizcaíno, link=no) is an island located in Miami-Dade County, Florida, located between the Atlantic Ocean and Biscayne Bay. It is the southernmost of the barrier islands along the Atlantic coast of Florida, and lies sout ...

, and the Towers of Quayside. In 1967, Stephen took over the Florida business, now named the Muss Organization, becoming Miami Beach's single largest landlord. In 1978, Muss bought the largest hotel in

Miami-Dade County Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...

, the aging

Fontainebleau Hotel The Fontainebleau Miami Beach (also known as Fontainebleau Hotel) is a hotel in Miami Beach, Florida. Designed by Morris Lapidus, the luxury hotel opened in 1954. In 2007, the Fontainebleau Hotel was ranked ninety-third in the American Institute ...

(founded by Ben Novack), for $27 million rescuing it from bankruptcy. He injected an additional $100 million into the hotel for improvements and hired the Hilton company to manage it. In 2005, the Muss Organization sold the Fontainebleau to

Donald Soffer Donald Soffer (born September 20, 1932) is an American businessman, investor, and philanthropist. He is a real estate developer who developed Florida swampland into what was to become the city of Aventura, Florida. Early life and education Soff ...

Turnberry Associates Turnberry Associates is a real estate development and management company in the United States. The company has developed over $10 billion worth of properties during the course of its history. Current holdings in its portfolio include the Aventura ...

for $165 million. Muss was seminal in getting Miami Beach to implement a 3% "bed" tax to rebuild the city's aging infrastructure which included refurbishing and expanding its convention center. He was the president of the Miami Beach Redevelopment Agency. In 1994, he sold the Seacoast Towers for $94 million.

Philanthropy

Muss is the chairman of the

Alexander Muss High School in Israel Alexander Muss High School in Hod HaSharon, Israel is a pluralistic study-abroad program in Hod HaSharon, Israel, for high school students. Programs run throughout the year and range in length from 6 weeks to 18 weeks. The school is a fully accre ...

and honorary chairman of ''The Lapid, Coalition for High School Age Programs in Israel''.The Jerusalem Post: "Spotlight on new Trend: High School Programs in Israel" By ALEXANDER MUSS HIGH SCHOOL IN ISRAEL
February 26, 2012 Muss has served as Board Chair of Temple Emanu-El and also served on the board of the

Miami Art Museum Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a coastal metropolis and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in South Florida, United States. With a population of 442,241 at th ...

and on the Board of Governors of

Haifa University The University of Haifa ( he, אוניברסיטת חיפה Arabic: جامعة حيفا) is a university located on Mount Carmel in Haifa, Israel. Founded in 1963, the University of Haifa received full academic accreditation in 1972, becoming I ...

.Jewish Miami: "The Main Event Featuring Keynote Speaker Dan Senor and Entertainment by Tararam - Honoring Stephen & Sandra Muss with the Friend of Israel Humanitarian Award Muss"
2011

Personal life

Muss married the ex-wife of his friend and CenTrust banker David L. Paul, who was sentenced to eleven years in federal prison. His wife Sandra is a daughter of

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivors and was Board Chair of the Holocaust Memorial in Miami Beach. She is currently a member of the Board of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). The Musses are members of Temple Emanu-El in Miami Beach.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muss, Stephen People from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn 20th-century American businesspeople Jewish American philanthropists American real estate businesspeople 1928 births Living people Philanthropists from New York (state) 21st-century American Jews