Fisher Island, Florida


Fisher Island is a census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, located on a barrier island of the same name. As of 2015, Fisher Island had the highest per capita income of any place in the United States. The CDP had only 218 households and a total population of 467.
Named for automotive parts pioneer and beach real estate developer Carl G. Fisher, who once owned it, Fisher Island is three miles off shore of mainland South Florida. No road or causeway connects to the island, which is accessible by private boat, helicopter, or ferry. Once a one-family island home of the Vanderbilts, and later several other millionaires, it was sold for development in the 1960s. The property sat vacant for well over 15 years before development began for very limited and restrictive multi-family use.

History

Fisher Island was separated from the barrier island which became Miami Beach in 1905, when Government Cut was dredged across the southern end of the island. Construction of Fisher Island began in 1919 when Carl G. Fisher, a land developer, purchased the property from businessman and real estate developer Dana A. Dorsey, southern Florida's first African-American millionaire. In 1925 William Kissam Vanderbilt II traded a luxury yacht to Fisher for ownership of the island.
After Vanderbilt's death in 1944, ownership of the island passed to U.S. Steel heir Edward Moore. Moore died in the early 1950s, and Gar Wood, the millionaire inventor of hydraulic construction equipment, bought it. Wood, a speedboat enthusiast, kept the island a one-family retreat. In 1963, Wood sold to a development group that included local Key Biscayne millionaire Bebe Rebozo, Miami native and United States Senator George Smathers and then former U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon, who had promised to leave politics. During his subsequent presidency from 1968–1973, and during the Watergate scandal, Nixon maintained a home on nearby Key Biscayne known as the "Key Biscayne Whitehouse" that was the former residence of Senator Smathers and next door to Rebozo, but none of the three ever resided on Fisher Island.
The Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science of the University of Miami maintained the Comparative Sedimentology Laboratory on Fisher Island from 1972 to 1990 under the leadership of Robert Ginsburg.
After years of legal battles and changes in ownership, further development on the island was finally started in the 1980s, with architecture matching the original 1920s Spanish style mansions. Although no longer a one-family island, in 2005, Fisher Island still remains somewhat inaccessible to the public and uninvited guests, and is as exclusive by modern standards as it was in the days of the Vanderbilts, providing similar refuge and retreat for its residents. The island contains mansions, a hotel, several apartment buildings, an observatory, and a private marina. Boris Becker, Oprah Winfrey, and Mel Brooks are among the celebrities with homes on the island.
In 2005, the island attempted to incorporate as a town, but the Miami-Dade County Commission did not support this initiative.

Controversies

In 2006, the Service Employees International Union began organizing the workers on Fisher Island in preparation for a petition for recognition as those employees' bargaining representative. The campaign culminated on June 15, 2007 with a march to the mainland ferry terminal that ended with a worker's arrest. The New York Times wrote an exposé on the situation. In the article, residents were portrayed as not caring about the welfare of the community, but residents dispute this characterization, insisting that the island includes financially successful, compassionate people who have established several charitable activities on the island, provide health insurance to their employees and are involved in various arts organizations in the Miami-Dade area. The union argues that the wages provided by the island are too low for employees to care for their families and that the health insurance provided is out of the reach of most island employees.

The Fisher Island bankruptcy case

One of the last developable parcels of land on the island, a 15-acre site approved for residential development facing the shipping channel that separates the island from Miami Beach, was for a number of years subject to a protracted legal battle between Inna Gudavadze, the widow of the late Georgian billionaire Badri Patarkatsishvili, and investors aligned with his distant relative and former business associate, Joseph Kay.
A judgement handed down by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on 16 October 2013 upheld in the US a previous 2010 judgement from the Supreme Court of Gibraltar that comprehensively dismissed the "wholly unconvincing" case brought by Joseph Kay. The development is now being completed under the supervision of Inna Gudavadze and the Patarkatsishvili family.

Geography

Fisher Island is located at .
According to recent census data, the CDP has a total area of, all of it land. The entire island, is slightly larger at.

Demographics

As of the census of 2000, there were 467 people, 218 households, and 149 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 1,362.6 people per square mile. There were 532 housing units at an average density of 1,552.3/sq mi. The racial makeup of the CDP was 92.08% White 3.21% African American, 2.14% Asian, 0.64% from other races, and 1.93% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino people of any race were 14.8% of the population.
There were 218 households, out of which 19.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 61.5% were married couples living together, 5.5% had a female householder with no husband present, and 31.2% were non-families. 26.6% of all households were made up of individuals, and 7.3% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.14 and the average family size was 2.51.
In the CDP, the population was spread out, with 15.6% under the age of 18, 3.2% from 18 to 24, 20.3% from 25 to 44, 45.6% from 45 to 64, and 15.2% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 51 years. For every 100 females, there were 101.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 99.0 males.
The median income for a household in the CDP was in excess of $200,000, as is the median income for a family. Males had a median income of over $100,000 versus $85,789 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $236,238. None of the population or families are below the poverty line.
As of 2000, English was the first language for 84.61% of all residents, while Spanish was the mother tongue for 15.38% of the population.
In April 2018, Bloomberg reported that the average income for Fisher Island, was $2.5 million in 2015, according to a Bloomberg analysis of 2015 Internal Revenue Service data. This makes Fisher Island's zip code the wealthiest in the United States.

Education

The island has a private school, Fisher Island Day School, which includes pre-kindergarten through 6th grade for both on-island and off-island residents. The school was founded by Lexie and Robert Potamkin and Valerie and Michael Pearce in 2001. Approximately 30% of the students come from off-island, predominantly from the nearby Miami and Miami Beach neighborhoods of Star Island, Hibiscus Island, Palm Island, the Venetian Islands, Bayshore, South Beach, Pinecrest, Coral Gables, and Coconut Grove.

In popular culture

Fisher Island is referenced in the 2012 Tom Wolfe novel Back to Blood.
Fisher Island is also referenced as the home of Jeb Bush and his family in the 1996 movie The Birdcage.
In the Revenge episode, "Duress", it is said that Conrad and Victoria Grayson have a house on Fisher Island when they are finalizing their divorce.

Notable current and former residents