Aventura

Thanks and Goodbye, George Berlin

Aventura pioneer dies at 85

George Berlin

By Randy Abraham

George Berlin, a partner in the pioneering Aventura development firm Turnberry Associates, passed away Sunday, March 16, of a heart ailment at the age of 85.

Services were held Tuesday at Temple Sinai in North Miami Beach, where Berlin had served as president.

Berlin was the right-hand man of Turnberry Associates founder Donald Soffer since Soffer first put up $6 million for 785 acres of mostly soggy swampland in unincorporated northeast Dade County.

Soffer’s vision of an upscale resort community and Berlin’s engineering background and attention to details were behind the good planning, excellent waterfront location and savvy marketing that led to the rapid success of the developing Aventura community. Early projects such as the Turnberry Isle Resort and Aventura Mall set the tone and pace for his and other developers’ projects. After those successes, the Buena Vista, Coronado and Eldorado high-rise developments were introduced. 

To promote Aventura, Turnberry targeted affluent buyers in the northeastern United States, in South America and Europe; an aggressive advertising campaign followed, ensuring that the name “Aventura” was known to brokers and agents in specific markets around the world.

“We couldn’t sell them fast enough,” Berlin said at the time. “To many, the developments — close enough for commuters working in Miami or Fort Lauderdale, but secluded — offered the best of both worlds. We’ve got the benefits of living in the suburbs, but also the excitement, the pace and amenities of big-city Miami. And because Aventura was conceived according to a master plan, we have been able to develop without experiencing the problems of a lot of growing communities. When we developed the original projects, there was hardly a project with a single good golf course, let alone two.”

Just as the early Turnberry condo developments upped the ante for every other luxury condo developer in South Florida, the Turnberry Isle Country Club succeeded in redefining 1980s nightlife and the South Florida social scene. At a time when mature coastal communities such as Miami Beach, Hollywood and Fort Lauderdale were beginning to need redevelopment, and with once-glamorous Miami Beach becoming a staid retirement community — before the South Beach redevelopment boom of the late 1980s — Aventura bustled with sassy, youthful energy. And the Turnberry Country Club, with weekly Thursday night dances and an almost endless parade of visiting celebrities, provided local residents entrance to social circles populated with movie stars, notable athletes and a host of internationally recognized entertainers.

“George Berlin was a great partner,” Soffer said, “and his integrity and creativity were outstanding and contributed to making Aventura the great city it is today.”

Unlike many developers who lose interest in a community after selling all of their units, Berlin and Soffer continued their efforts and created the Joint Council of Aventura to manage such things as street lighting, landscaping and security.

“George Berlin was a gentleman who looked out for the community,” said Leonard Brenner, the longtime president of the Joint Council of Aventura. “I worked with George since 1974, and if there was any information or assistance you needed, he would get it for you, ungrudgingly. George never asked for anything and he always gave willingly and with an open heart. People in the community admired him. He was soft-spoken and he never promoted himself. He looked over and nurtured the community.”

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