
Don Soffer, who sketched an idea for Aventura on a napkin, dies at 92
Real estate mogul Don Soffer, developer of Florida's Aventura Mall and the city's 'godfather,' died Sunday morning at 92, his son-in-law Craig Robins and The Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center said. The synagogue was founded by Soffer.
In a statement to CBS News Miami, the city of Aventura called Soffer a 'visionary developer and philanthropist whose leadership and foresight transformed South Florida swampland into the thriving, vibrant community we proudly call home.'
The condo community, once an unincorporated slice of Miami-Dade, became a city 30 years ago.
'Mr. Soffer's legacy is etched into the very foundation of Aventura,' the city said in a statement. 'His development of what would become the city's heart — from Aventura Mall to residential communities and the Turnberry golf course and brand — laid the groundwork for Aventura's incorporation in 1995. Without his vision, the city of Aventura would not exist as we know it today.'
In addition, there's a charter school, Don Soffer Aventura High School that was named after him in 2019; the Don Soffer Clinical Research Center, a part of UHealth, the University of Miami Health System on Northwest 14th Street in Miami; and a three-mile Don Soffer Exercise Trail on West Country Club Drive that rings Aventura.
In June, Aventura Mall, under the stewardship of his daughter Jackie Soffer, chairman and CEO of Turnberry Associates, the real estate development group that has principle ownership of Aventura Mall, was voted the best in the country in USA's Readers Choice Awards.
MORE: This Miami area mall was just voted best in the country. Here's why it's No. 1
Real estate developer Robins, who developed Miami's Design District and co-founded Design Miami, is married to Jackie Soffer. He called the family patriarch his 'hero' in an Instagram post on Sunday.
'He had the vision and fortitude to take swamp land and transform it into a city,' Robins wrote. 'Following such a dynamic and visionary parent can be especially hard for their successors. Jackie has managed to brilliantly take what Don did and carry it forward.'
Soffer was a 'builder of community.' He turned Aventura into 'a model city that continues to grow and flourish. Though Don Soffer never held a formal title in Aventura's government, he was, in every sense, the godfather of the city,' the City of Aventura told CBS News Miami.
Famous folks like tennis champ Jimmy Connors and his wife Patti Maguire Connors, John McEnroe and Princess Caroline once owned Aventura condos. Cirque du Soleil hosted its first big show in South Florida at Turnberry in 1989. Pop superstar Elton John, a frequent guest at Turnberry Isle in the 1980s, lit the torch for the venue's Whole Earth Run in 1986. Actors James Caan and 'Where the Boys Are' co-star George Hamilton dined with Soffer in Turnberry Isle.
The Monkey Business
Soffer's success also afforded him the opportunity to own a mega yacht. Alas, that yacht's name became infamous after the Miami Herald exposed a scandal concerning Democratic presidential candidate Gary Hart in May 1987. Hart was aboard the Monkey Business yacht he'd leased from Soffer. So was his date Donna Rice. They weren't married.
A photo of the pair — Hart clad in a white T shirt reading 'Monkey Business Crew' and Rice perched atop his lap — ran in the National Enquirer in June 1987, weeks after Hart ended his campaign. The Herald's reporting on the affair led Hart to suspend his campaign as a Democratic candidate in the 1988 presidential race.
After the Coast Guard seized half a marijuana cigarette on The Monkey Business in June 1988 — no one said to whom the roach belonged but the feds were into 'zero tolerance' at the time of television's 'Miami Vice' — Soffer had had enough.
'I'm thinking very seriously of changing the name,' Soffer told a Miami Herald columnist in 1988. 'They handcuffed the crew and confined them to the fly bridge under armed guard. Then they came up and said, 'Look what we found.' They could have brought the thing on with them. They just wanted to see where Donna Rice and Gary Hart slept. If this hadn't been the Monkey Business, it never would have happened.'
Soffer teased the new name for the Monkey Business could be 'The None of Your Business.' Instead, he sold the yacht.
Building Aventura from a napkin sketch
MORE: What did Aventura Mall look like when it opened four decades ago? See for yourself
All of this fame, success and admiration from associates, friends and family stemmed from notes scribbled on a cocktail napkin. In the 1960s, the Pittsburgh Soffers, including Don, loved visiting Miami 'to golf, boat and swim in the ocean,' his family said.
The Aventura and Turnberry neighborhood began when Soffer visited Northeast Miami-Dade with his father Harry Soffer, a Pittsburgh mall developer, in 1967. The father-son duo were scouting sites for a possible shopping mall.
'The first thought was to build a mall here,' said Soffer, then a principal of Turnberry Associates in a 1988 Miami Herald story. 'Most of the land was under water. I sketched out on a napkin what I thought would fit into this property beside the shopping center.'
Soffer kept that napkin for years. More than 20 years after scribbling on it, and about 16 before Aventura Mall opened in 1983, and seven years before the city of Aventura was officially incorporated in 1995, Soffer told the Herald reporter in 1988 that he'd found the cocktail napkin.
'It's remarkable how close it is to the actual development,' Soffer said.
Early life and education
Donald Morley Soffer was born on Sept. 20, 1932, in Duquesne, Pennsylvania. In 1954, Soffer graduated from Brandeis University in Massachusetts with a bachelor of arts in economics. He attended Brandeis on a football scholarship.
After graduation, Soffer weighed a few choices. He had an opportunity to join the San Francisco 49ers, the military or the family business. He chose the latter two options, his family said in an obituary.
Soffer served in the United States Army's 101st Airborne Division, today known as the 'Screaming Eagles.' He then returned to nearby Pittsburgh and went into construction and real estate with his father to develop suburban shopping centers.
Aventura means adventure
In 1967, Soffer and his business partners co-led a groundbreaking deal to acquire 785 acres of swampland in Miami-Dade. He founded Turnberry Associates to realize that vision, his family said.
Not everyone was on board. Environmentalists and controlled growth advocates didn't share Soffer's vision for the land. Through a friend, Soffer secured a five-minute meeting with then Florida Gov. Claude Kirk in Tallahassee.
Soffer, his family said, often shared the story that he convinced Gov. Kirk that his idea to employ 4,000 people in a $100 million construction project to create a modern city where 100,000 people would visit daily was actually Kirk's own idea.
'That way, Kirk could pitch it to his cabinet and take full credit. That salesmanship sealed the deal,' his family wrote in his obituary. In 1969, the county approved Soffer's ambitious 23,900 condominium unit master plan.
Over the 1970s and 1980s, Soffer and his business partners would go on to create what is now the City of Aventura, building everything from high-rises and golf resorts to libraries, fire stations and Aventura Mall.
According to a January 2012 Biscayne Times article, local author and historian Seth Bramson said Soffer came up with the city's name after telling his father, who died in 1972 at 63, that developing the city would be an 'adventure.' Aventura is Spanish for adventure.
Soffer expanded his footprint with other real estate projects like Turnberry Isle Resort and the purchase and restoration of Fontainebleau Miami Beach.
Turnberry is currently led by his daughter Jackie Soffer, who used to lead it with her brother Jeffrey as co-chief executives before they split ownership in 2019. Jeffrey Soffer currently leads Fontainebleau Development and owns the Miami Beach Fontainebleau hotel and the Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
Aventura Mall secured South Florida's first Macy's when it opened in 1983. The Northeast Miami-Dade mall, under his daughter's leadership, recently welcomed Florida's first Eataly Italian marketplace. Other Florida first recent arrivals include Massimo Dutti wardrobe store, the fashion boutique Cinq à Sept, Dolce Vita footwear and Kim Kardashian's Skims store.
Philanthropy and honors
Outside of construction and real estate, Soffer, who championed an outdoors lifestyle through frequent fishing, boating and camping excursions with his children, was a philanthropist. He donated $15 million to Brandeis University.
He was given an honorary doctorate at Brandeis in 2023 and inducted into the Brandeis Athletcis Hall of Fame in 2009.
Soffer also supported the University of Miami, Mount Sinai Medical Center and helped establish the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center in honor of his parents, Ida and Harry, as well as helping to build the New Hope orphanage in Haiti, his family said.
His other contributions include City of Hope, Best Buddies, Breast Cancer Initiative and the Humane Society of Greater Miami.
He received the Simon Wiesenthal Center Humanitarian Award in 2024.
Survivors and services
Soffer's survivors include his wife, Michele King Soffer; his sister Rita; children Marsha, Jackie, Jeffrey, Brooke, Rock and Abigail; 13 grandchildren and a great-granddaughter.
His funeral service was held on Monday, July 21, in the Harry & Ida Soffer Sanctuary at the Aventura Turnberry Jewish Center.
Miami Herald news partner CBS News Miami contributed to this report.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles

Business Insider
11 minutes ago
- Business Insider
Mark Cuban said the Trump administration needs to crack down on ads in AI models
"Shark Tank" star Mark Cuban said on Saturday that the White House should "make it illegal for AI models to offer advertising." Cuban said in an X post addressed to David Sacks, the White House's AI and crypto czar, that the administration should "examine referral fees as well." "The last thing we need is to have algorithms designed to maximize revenue driving LLM output and interactions," Cuban wrote. "They are already recommending brands and we don't know if they are getting paid for it. We need to have learned our lessons from algos in social media," he added. Cuban said in a subsequent post on Saturday that he would be willing to accept advertising on AI models if they are "identified as an ad" and kept "completely independent from the user generated chats." Cuban's proposal comes just days after the Trump administration unveiled its 28-page " AI Action Plan" on Wednesday. Back in January, President Donald Trump had signed an executive order calling for "existing AI policies and directives that act as barriers to American AI innovation" to be revoked. Trump has adopted a relatively light-touch approach toward AI regulation compared to his predecessor, President Joe Biden. In October 2023, Biden signed an executive order demanding greater transparency from companies developing AI tools. Trump's new "AI Action Plan" proposed withholding federal funding from states that want to impose "burdensome" AI regulations. Cuban and the White House did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider. Social-media déjà vu Cuban's worries may not be unfounded. Major AI players such as have been deepening their leadership bench with former executives from social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. In May, OpenAI chief Sam Altman said he had hired Fidji Simo, the CEO and chair of Instacart, to serve as OpenAI's new CEO of applications. Before she joined Instacart, Simo worked at Meta, where she oversaw Facebook's app and advertising products. Last year, OpenAI hired Kevin Weil as its chief product officer. Weil was previously vice president of product at Instagram and senior vice president of product at Twitter. OpenAI's rival, Anthropic, made a similar move in May 2024 when it hired Mike Krieger, cofounder and former CTO of Instagram, as its chief product officer. Cuban has long warned about the risks and dangers that could come with AI tools like chatbots. He told comedian Jon Stewart in a podcast interview that aired in 2023 that online misinformation "is only going to get worse" with the proliferation of AI tools. "Once these things start taking on a life of their own, it will be difficult for us to define why and how the machine makes the decisions it makes, and who controls the machine," Cuban said. Last week, Cuban wrote in an X post that he expects AI companies to hoard talent and intellectual property to stay ahead of their competitors. "If you create valuable IP, encrypt and silo it. Let companies bid on it. Or just use it for your own behind a paywall model. IP is KING in an AI world," Cuban wrote on July 20.

Associated Press
an hour ago
- Associated Press
Can his golf course 'further' US-UK relations? Trump will use meeting with prime minister to try
EDINBURGH, Scotland (AP) — President Donald Trump once suggested his golf course in Scotland 'furthers' the U.S.-U.K. relationship. Now he's getting the chance to prove it. British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is meeting Monday with Trump at a golf property owned by the president's family near Turnberry in southwestern Scotland — then later traveling to Abderdeen, on the country's northeast coast, where there's another Trump golf course and a third is opening soon. During his first term in 2019, Trump posted of his Turnberry property, 'Very proud of perhaps the greatest golf course anywhere in the world. Also, furthers U.K. relationship!' Starmer is not a golfer, but toggling between Trump's Scottish courses shows the outsized influence the president puts on properties bearing his name — and on golf's ability to shape geopolitics. While China initially responded to Trump's tariff threats by retaliating with high import taxes of its own on U.S. goods but has since begun negotiating easing trade tensions, Starmer and his country have taken a far softer approach. He's gone out of his way to work with Trump, flattering the president repeatedly during a February visit to the White House, and teaming up to announce a joint trade framework on tariffs for some key products in May. Starmer and Trump then signed a trade agreement during the G7 summit in Canada that freed the U.K.'s aerospace sector from U.S. tariffs and used quotas to reduce them on auto-related industries from 25% to 10% while increasing the amount of U.S. beef it pledged to import. The prime minister's office says Monday's meeting will also touch on Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza, and that it hopes to welcome the Trump administration working with officials in Qatar and Egypt to bring about a ceasefire. Starmer plans to stress the urgent need to cease the fighting and work to end starvation and other suffering occurring amid increasingly desperate circumstances in Gaza. Also on the agenda, according to Starmer's office, are efforts to promote a possible peace deal to end fighting in Russia's war with Ukraine — particularly efforts at forcing Russian President Vladimir Putin to the negotiating table in the next 50 days. Protesters, meanwhile, have planned a demonstration in Balmedie, near Trump's existing course, after demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday to decry the president's visit. Discussions with Starmer follow Trump meeting Sunday with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen at his Turnberry course. They announced a trade framework that will put 15% tariffs on most goods from both countries — though many major details remain pending. On Tuesday, Trump will be at the site of his new course near Aberdeen for an official ribbon cutting. It opens to the public on Aug. 13 and tee times are already for sale — with the course betting that a presidential visit can help boost sales. There are still lingering U.S.-Britain trade issues that need fine-tuning after the previous agreements, including the tariff rates Washington imposes on steel imported from the U.K. Even as some trade details linger and both leaders grapple with increasingly difficult choices in Gaza and Ukraine, however, Starmer's attempts to stay on Trump's good side appears to be working. 'The U.K. is very well-protected. You know why? Because I like them — that's their ultimate protection,' Trump said during the G7. Also likely to improve Trump's mood is the fact that the U.S. ran an $11.4 billion trade surplus with Britain last year, meaning it exported more to the U.K. than it imported. Census Bureau figures this year indicate that the surplus could grow. The president has for months railed against yawning U.S. trade deficits with key allies and sees tariffs as a way to try and close them in hurry. Trump is set to return to Britain in September for an unprecedented second state visit. Trump will be hosted then by King Charles III and Queen Camilla at Windsor Castle.

7 hours ago
'Bachelorette' alum Hannah Brown marries Adam Woolard in France: ‘Mr. and Mrs. Woolard'
The couple exchanged vows at Domaine du Mont Leuze on Saturday, July 26. 7:25 Hannah Brown is officially off the market! Former "The Bachelorette" star announced she married Adam Woolard over the weekend. In a joint Instagram post on Sunday, Brown shared a stunning wedding photo with Woolard, introducing themselves as "Mr. and Mrs. Woolard 🤍." The nuptials took place on Saturday at Domaine du Mont Leuze in France, attended by 101 guests, according to People. "We wanted something really timeless and classic, and really just the celebration of our love with our friends and family," Brown told the outlet. For the special day, Brown wore a corseted ball gown with intricate leaf embroidery, paired with Jimmy Choo Staz Mesh Bow Pointed Pumps, while Woolard looked sharp in a classic black tuxedo. "I feel like it is so classic, timeless, but also feels a little unique. I love it," Brown shared. "I always knew I wanted to take up space on my wedding day because there's so many times in life, especially as women, that we feel like we need to be smaller. On my wedding day, I didn't want to feel that at all. I feel like a princess, and I feel like that's exactly how you should feel on your wedding day." Woolard also expressed his excitement, telling People he had always envisioned the moment of seeing Brown walk down the aisle. "I have always had a very clear picture of standing up at the altar and looking out at the audience and really connecting with everybody," Woolard said. "But then seeing Hannah walk down, I think is something that I've always had a very clear picture of and how I would feel in that moment. And I just, as a man, knowing that I'm going to get married, I've always had that image in my mind." The couple, who chose to live apart before their wedding, shared that they're looking forward to moving in together and "putting down roots" in Nashville. "We're really focusing on making this house a home together," Brown shared. "Spending time with our families and just having a little bit of a slower pace for just a little bit." Brown first gained recognition on season 23 of "The Bachelor" in 2018, finishing in the top seven, before becoming the lead on season 15 of "The Bachelorette." Brown met Woolard on a dating app, and they announced their engagement in August 2023, sharing a sweet carousel of photos on Instagram, including one where they touched foreheads as Brown showed off her engagement ring. "so happy," she wrote in the caption at the time. "i love our steady love. ❤️." In addition to "The Bachelorette," Brown also competed on season 28 of " Dancing with the Stars," winning the competition with professional dancer Alan Bersten.