The Coastal Star June 2015 Boca

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Serving Highland Beach and Coastal Boca Raton

June 2015

Boca Raton

Old condo project with new name no closer to start

By Mary Hladky

The New Mizner on the Green “ultra-luxury” condo project has a new name, a new architect and a completely new look. It’s now called Sol-AMar. The project’s original “starchitect,” Daniel Libeskind, whose list of credits includes the original master plan for rebuilding the World Trade

Center in New York and the Jewish Museum in Berlin, is out. West Palm Beach-based architectural firm Garcia Stromberg is in. And following through on promises made in January to significantly downsize the project, developer Elad National Properties has scrapped plans for four towers,

See CONDO on page 12

Even in Sol-A-Mar’s scaled back version, four of the seven proposed buildings would still exceed the city’s 120-foot height limits. Rendering provided

Manalapan

60 years on, Chillingworth murders

still shocking

By Tim Pallesen The abduction and drowning of Circuit Judge Curtis Chillingworth and his wife, Marjorie, from their Manalapan oceanfront home still ranks as the county’s most terrifying crime 60 years later. It was 1 a.m. on June 15, 1955, when the county’s senior judge answered a knock at his back door. The judge

Change is brewing New laws will benefit local craft beer makers. Page AT6

and his wife were abducted in their bedclothes by two thugs, forced into a boat, weighted down and thrown in the ocean to drown. The case was a twisted tale of judicial betrayal. The thugs later testified that a corrupt West Palm Beach municipal judge had ordered the higher judge’s killing. Chillingworth was one of only two circuit judges in Palm Beach County at

Life’s a beach

Exhibit explores a century along the Boca Raton shore. Page AT1

Boca Raton

Council’s OK of Chabad plan faces appeal By Sallie James

the time. The county had only 150,000 residents back then, compared to more than 1.3 million today. Manalapan had only 27 registered voters. Police arrived at the couple’s twostory cottage near 1550 S. Ocean Blvd. after the judge didn’t appear for a 10 a.m. hearing and his courthouse colleagues became concerned.

It has been a bumpy ride for Chabad of East Boca and it’s not over yet. Plans for one of the most hotly contested developments in city history got the nod last month when the Boca Raton City Council voted to allow the proposed beachside synagogue’s height to exceed the 30 feet allowed by city code. The vote was supposed to pave the way for construction. But the victory was short-lived: Even before council members cast their final votes on May 27, an appeal citing injury and protesting the house of worship’s construction at 770 E. Palmetto Park Road had already been filed with the city. Now council members must address that appeal in July or August before anything else can happen. “This is going to happen, God willing,” said Rabbi Ruvi New, Chabad of East Boca’s spiritual leader. “We are not going to be deterred by this appeal. It’s totally baseless. “I don’t think there is any legitimate grounds for the appeal whatsoever. It may cause a short delay until the appeal is heard, but I am confident just as we have received a positive vote three times that that will continue to be case.” Residents who live in the neighborhoods on the barrier island near the proposed

See CHILLINGWORTH on page 24

See CHABAD on page 12

Judge, wife were abducted from Manalapan home and drowned 60 years ago this month

Inside

Volume 8 Issue 6

Coastal Star

Wayne Barton created the Pearl City youth center. Page 2 Pearl City centennial is celebrated with festivities. Page 21


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