Stephen Muss, who rescued the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach, dies at 97
Long before it had a world-renowned nightclub, a Michelin-starred chef and plans for an outdoor water park, Miami Beach’s most famous hotel was badly under water.
Original owner Ben Novack, Mr. Fontainebleau, filed for bankruptcy in 1977.
But a New Yorker who adopted South Florida came to the rescue. In 1978, Stephen Muss and partners paid $28 million in bankruptcy court for the Fontainebleau hotel.
He then put in over $100 million into the hotel. At the time, he had little hotel experience. He acquired it as “a civic gesture,” he told the Miami Herald in 2005.
It not only survived but thrived. He held on to it for 27 years.
Stephen Muss died on Aug. 23 in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he lived with his long-time partner Amy Jeschawitz, his family said. Muss was 97.
His decision to take over a troubled hotel, and his effort to turn it around sparked a boom in tourism in Miami Beach, a city that hadn’t been hot since the 1950s. And not just for the Fontainebleau.
“He was a man of determination who believed in Miami Beach,” Russell Galbut, co-founder of Crescent Heights and veteran real estate developer, told the Miami Herald this week. “He helped make it what it is today.”
That included convention business, which he made it a point to draw to the Fontainebleau. That grew significantly, Brian Bilzin, his long-time attorney and a personal friend, said in an interview with the Herald.
“He brought in millions and millions of dollars,” said Bilzin. “It was a great boon to Miami Beach.”
Rugged New York City roots
Muss was born in New York City on Aug. 4, 1928, and raised in Brooklyn. His family and friends say they’ll remember him as an American businessman, visionary, investor and philanthropist.
He did not attend college but started his career working with his father, Alexander Muss, in the family construction business. They co-funded Alexander Muss & Sons, which developed over 20,000 homes and 4,000 multifamily unit in New York and New Jersey.
The Muss family moved to Florida in the 1950s. They built Seacoast Towers in Miami Beach, Towers of Key Biscayne and Towers of Quayside near North Miami. Stephen Muss took over the family’s Florida operations in 1967, forming the Muss Organization, and became Miami Beach’s largest landlord.
Iconic Miami Beach resort
Nearby, the 22 acres oceanfront Fontainebleau on Collins Avenue and and 44th Street was then booming. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was Miami Beach’s most luxurious hotel. Frank Sinatra was a regular. Lucille Ball, too. The 007 film “Goldfinger” was shot there.
But by the 1970s, the hotel and region faced an economic cloud. The stagnant city mostly drew senior citizens, and new hotel construction ground to a halt. And other places, like Las Vegas, siphoned the star power.
Muss considered it crucial to resurrect the Fontainebleau and he upgraded it several times. He also brought in the Hilton chain to run the hotel and it became the Fontainebleau Hilton.
“Whatever he touched he wanted to make better,” Melanie Muss, one of his daughters, said. “There’s no one else you’d rather have on your side.”
She was 8 years old and her sister Heather was 15 when their father bought the Fontainebleau. They mostly grew up there.
“He brought us into everything he did,” Heather Muss said. “He was a selfless, giving father, always there for us and always advocated for us.”
In the 1990s, Muss added 126 luxury rooms to the Fontainebleau in a private club setting, dubbed the “Towers.” The redesign included a private check-in, meeting rooms and private dining areas.
A spark for South Florida tourism
The changes permitted the hotel to go after high-end business travelers.
“I’ve always taken pleasure in blending the elements of the past in this hotel with needed elements for the future, and this renovation is state-of-the-art,” Muss told the Herald in 1995.
“Our new Towers concept creates a luxury hotel within our hotel,” he said. “And makes us competitive with the best properties in this country and around the world.”
These changes came at a pivotal time for the region and its tourism industry. In the mid-1990s, hotels in South Florida saw their reputation fall, in quality and service. That turned away tourists. Many went to Mexico and the Caribbean as alternative destinations.
“We are at a fork in the road where we can either continue the decline or renovate properties,” Merrett Stierheim, then president of the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau, said in 1995, the Herald then reported.
“Projects like the Fontainebleau are leading a $100 million hotel renaissance here, and we need that right now,” Stierheim said at the time. “It sends an important signal to the tourism market in the United States and around the world that Miami is a world-class destination.”
Bilzin, Muss’ friend and lawyer, said he had a major impact increasing the number of tourists and the type that came to Miami Beach.
“He helped prevent it from being viewed as a destination for old people,” Bilzin said. “He brought it back as a major tourist destination.”
Muss told the Herald in 2005 he put in over $400 million into the Fontainebleau. Showing the renovations during a tour, he said, “Take that ballroom. That’s probably half a million.”
Muss said, “We want to tap into the small corporate meeting business while appealing to very upscale leisure travelers.”
Even with the growing success and the endorsement, Muss never quite saw himself as a typical hotel man. “I’m not a hotelier,” he told the Herald. “I don’t even know how to spell the name” of the Fontainebleau, he said.
Instead it was the renovations that inspired him.
“I’m a construction man.”
Bilzin though says his friend was highly active in running the hotel and was there almost every day.
Beyond the Fontainebleau, Muss contributed to tourism in other ways.
He led an effort to impose a 3% hotel bed tax, which led to hundreds of millions of dollars for infrastructure improvements, including the expansion of the Miami Beach Convention Center.
As president of the Miami Beach Redevelopment Agency, he played a leading role in obtaining South Pointe Park from the U.S. Army and making it a public space.
He also contributed to numerous philanthropic causes. In 1980, he endowed the Alexander Muss High School in Israel in memory of his father, helping 30,000 American students take study-abroad programs and connect with their heritage.
He had other successes in hotels, too.
Prior to the Fontainebleau, in 1968, he built what became the Alexander, at 52nd and Collins, naming it after his father. It later drew the famous French chef Dominique D’Ermo, who located his first restaurant in Florida at that hotel.
About two decades later, Russell Galbut bought the Alexander from Muss. Galbut said he went forward with the deal in large part due to the type of builder and the kind of person Muss was.
“He was the creator of a beautiful and luxurious product,” Galbut said.
And during negotiations, “he was an honorable person. When he gave you his word, he honored it.”
In 2005, Muss sold the Fontainebleau to the Soffer family and its Turnberry Associates. Muss was 76 then and had endured his share of South Florida busts and booms. He also felt like the hotel needed another upgrade, and he knew his limits.
Turnberry had promised $150 million for the renovations.
Muss said at that time the Fontainebleau needed an upgrade “to compete with modern and upscale hotels,” the Herald reported then. And that Turnberry had the resources to do that.
“They can do it faster than I can,” he told the Herald in 2005. “I would not have sold this hotel to [just] anyone.”
Survivors
Stephen Muss is survived behind many people including his longtime partner Amy Jeschawitz; children Marilynn Rothstein, Jeffrey Muss and Sherry Muss, all of whom he had with wife Carol; children Heather Muss and Melanie Muss, who he had with wife Maureen Haver Muss; and siblings Cynthia Lawrence and Lauren Muss. Sister Deborah Morgan predeceased him.
Donations
The family asks that instead of flowers, donations can be made in memory of Stephen Muss to any of the following four charities closest to his heart:
The Alexander Muss High School in Israel Endowment Fund, Mount Sinai Medical Center-Miami Beach, Boston Children’s Hospital in memory of Stephen Muss, and Temple Emanu-El.
Funeral plans
A funeral was scheduled for 10 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 27 at Temple Emanu-El, 1701 Washington Ave. in Miami Beach
This story was originally published August 26, 2025 at 3:52 PM.
