Philip Hanson Hiss

Philip Hanson Hiss III (1910-1988) was an American real estate developer, who supervised the redesign of schools in Sarasota, Florida and helped found New College of Florida. Hiss was also a photographer and his collection is held at the University of California, Santa Barbara and the American Museum of Natural History.

Background Hiss was born on February 2, 1910, in Brooklyn, New York. He attended several prep schools, graduated from Choate, (precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency).

In 1948, Hiss had a 48-foot yacht built for himself and left New York City for Sarasota, Florida.

Although a Republican in a largely Democratic town, Hiss won a seat on the Sarasota Board of Public Instruction (school board) and between 1953 and 1960 oversaw the building of nine new schools in Sarasota.

In June 2021, SRQ magazine called Hiss "the primary catalyst of the modern architecture movement in Sarasota, concurrent with an exhibit "The Vision of Philip Hiss" (November 2021-April 2022). Netherlands America (1943) A Selective Guide to the English Literature on the Netherlands West Indies (1943)