The Mizner Brothers, Rogues of the 1920s Florida Land Boom

In Boca Raton, South Florida's version of Beverly Hills, there's an 11-foot-tall statue on a towering stone pedestal right in the center of town. It looks not unlike the statues of Lenin that were once scattered around the old Soviet Union. This statue serves as a monument to architect Addison Mizner, a founding father of modern day Boca Raton.

While most of Boca Raton consists of scores of gated communities of new-ish mini and not-so-mini mansions, there still exists a small tasteful slice of old 1920s land boom Florida in a charming neighborhood known as Old Floresta, not far from Mizner's statue.

Old Floresta

Architect Addison Mizner designed 29 of the lushly landscaped, immaculately preserved, and understated Spanish-style homes that still exist in Old Floresta. In the twenties, the Mizner Development Corporation, started by brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, were in the thick of the land boom. They first built the posh Ritz-Carlton Cloisters Hotel Resort for the rich and famous in Palm Beach and then aimed their sites at developing mostly rural Boca Raton into a new community for the newly wealthy. Among the Corporation's high profile investors were composer Irving Berlin, actress Marie Dressler, and millionaires W.K. Vanderbilt II and T. Coleman DuPont.

Boom and Bust

Unfortunately, in 1926, the Florida Land Boom went bust, causing Addison Mizner's bankruptcy and losses for his investors. Some have claimed that this was just another one of many of the Mizner brothers' famous and infamous con games.

The Mizner Brothers

Addison and Wilson Mizner were two out of eight children born to an upper middle class family in the northern California town of Benicia. Their father, Lansing Bond Mizner, was the former American ambassador to Guatemala. Addison and Wilson were the black sheep sons.

In the 1890s, the two brothers traveled to the Alaska Gold Rush. Gold, however, wasn't their goal. They went to Alaska to trim suckers. Addison had already been trained as an architect. Wilson was the adventurer. In Alaska, they ran "badger games", setting up wealthy married men with prostitutes and then blackmailing them. Their con games eventually sent them fleeing for their lives.

Addison

Addison went to San Francisco, where he attained a name for himself as an architect.

Wilson

Wilson went to New York to become a playwright and wound up marrying a much older wealthy society widow. During the marriage, he had some of the widow's masterpiece paintings duplicated and he sold them as originals. After the inevitable divorce, Wilson managed several boxers, fixed some of the fights, and developed an opium addiction. In 1919, he was arrested for running a gambling operation on Long Island.

Although Wilson Mizner's plays were hardly Broadway hits, he became famous as a member of Manhattan's literary coterie, the Algonquin Roundtable, tossing about bon mots as memorable as those uttered by the likes of Dorothy Parker and George S. Kaufman. Some of his most famous quotes include:

"If you steal from one author, it's plagiarism. If you steal from many, it's research."

"Be nice to people on your way up because you'll meet them on your way down."

"He'd steal a hot stove and come back for the smoke." This last line may have been appropriate for the Mizner brothers.

The End

When the Florida land boom ended, Addison stayed in Florida and faced the music. Wilson left for California, where he became manager and co-owner of the world famous Brown Derby Restaurant.

In 1933, Addison Mizner died broke. Three months after his death, his brother Wilson died in California. One of his dying statements was "I want a priest, a rabbi, and a Protestant clergyman. I want to hedge my bets."

Aftermath

Today, all traces of the brothers' larceny have been forgotten. Addison especially has been lionized as his "dream city" of Boca Raton continues to flourish.

In 1999, composer Stephen Sondheim and author John Weidman collaborated on "Wise Guys", a musical about the Mizner brothers' escapades. Like the Mizner brothers themselves, the production has been plagued by numerous delays and lawsuits.

SOURCES:

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0594594/bio

"Les Miz Brothers", Jerry Floyd, URL: (http://www.sondheim.com/features/les_miz.html)

http://www.bocaraton.com/index.aspx?pid=143

http://www.bocahistory.org/boca_history/br_history_timeline.asp

http://www.bocaraton.com/index.aspx?PID=144

http://www.theledger.com/static/top50/pages/mizner.html

http://www.cigaraficionado.com/Cigar/CA_Archives/CA_Show_Article/0,2322,893,00.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bounce_(musical)