Stephen Muss

Stephen Muss, a third-generation New York real estate developer who became a multimillionaire power broker after migrating to Florida — where, by reviving the flamboyant Fontainebleau Hotel, he helped transform Miami Beach from a refuge for older adults into a gaudy global resort — died on Aug. 23 2005 at his home in Williamstown, Mass. He was 97. The death was confirmed by his daughter Melanie Muss. Muss bought the hotel for $28 million — as a civic venture, he said. He invested well over $100 million in renovations, enlisted the Hilton chain to manage it and, in 2005, sold it for $165 million to the Soffer family’s Turnberry Associates. Muss is survived by his partner, Amy Jeschawitz; his children, Marilynn Rothstein, Jeffrey Muss and Sherry Muss, from his marriage to Carol Matelson, which ended in divorce; two daughters, Melanie and Heather Muss, from his marriage to Maureen Haver, who died in 1993; seven grandchildren; 12 great-grandchildren; and two sisters, Cynthia Lawrence and Lauren Muss. Another sister, Deborah Morgan, died. A later marriage, to Sandra Paul, the former wife of a banker friend who had been sentenced to prison, also ended in divorce.