Paris Singer

Paris Eugene Singer (20 February 1867 – 24 June 1932) was an early resident of Palm Beach, Florida. Singer was an American real estate developer and philanthropist and he was noted as being a "man of luxury".

Personal life

He was 22nd of the 24 children of inventor and industrialist Isaac Singer of Singer Sewing Machine Company fame, from whom he inherited money; and the fourth child of Isabella Eugénie Boyer's six.

Born in Paris, Singer was raised at Oldway Mansion in Paignton, Devon, England, and educated at Newton Abbot Proprietary College alongside fellow students Arthur Quiller-Couch, Percy Harrison Fawcett and Bertram Fletcher Robinson. In 1885 he matriculated at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, but like his elder brother Mortimer left without taking a degree.

Singer married Australian-born Cecilia Henrietta Augusta ("Lillie") Graham (1867–1951), who bore him five children. He had a tempestuous romance with famous dancer Isadora Duncan, whose career he helped, and with whom he had another son, Patrick (born 1910, drowned 1913). Singer Island, Florida, is named for him.

The Palm Beach projects In 1917 Singer met the future Palm Beach architect Addison Mizner; they became "inseparable." Deciding to build one in Palm Beach, after consulting with Mizner, he bought a large parcel of land on which the "Touchstone Convalescent Club" was to be built. He hired Mizner to build it, and Mizner moved to Palm Beach.

Paris Singer was the president of the Everglades Club, as the convalescent home soon became (the war had ended), and lived there in an apartment constructed for him. He planned on what became Singer Island a hotel, the Blue Heron, designed by Mizner, to be the most luxurious ever built, as part of a large new resort. An "aerial ferry" would connect it to the mainland, with 12 cable cars 136 feet above the water, since West Palm Beach refused to permit a bridge. It was the largest building Mizner ever designed. Because of the Florida real estate collapse of 1926 and its effects on Singer, the hotel was not completed. It was known as "Singer's Folly" until razed in 1940. This also contributed to the end of Singer's close friendship with Mizner, which ended in 1927.

Financial decline and death The real estate collapse forced the Everglades Club into receivership, as Singer was unable to service the loans for which the club was collateral. He was arrested in April 1928 at the club, on charges of real estate fraud. A judge dismissed the charges three weeks later, but Singer, having been publicly humiliated, left Palm Beach immediately and never lived there again.

The stock market crash of 1929 further depleted his funds, and he spent his final years quietly with his wife and former nurse Joan Balsh in his Moorish house (since demolished) in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, France. He died in London.