Mystery continues to surround Novack death

Hotelier’s son lived and died in mystery
Jorge Fitz-Gibbon
May 30, 2010
LoHud.com
http://www.lohud.com/article/99999999/NEWS01/105100004/Hotelier-s-son-lived-and-died-in-mystery
Ben Novack Jr. was very much driven by his father’s success – and haunted by his failure.

He ran his convention-organizing business with iron-fisted stubbornness, mimicking the bullying style that allowed his father to open the fabulously ritzy Fontainebleau Hotel in 1954.

Novack was devastated when his father lost the famed Miami Beach hot spot to bankruptcy in 1977 – so much so that he refused to ever drive past it again.

But his bitterness fueled his determination and, at just 21, he started Convention Concepts Unlimited and built it into a multimillion-dollar operation by hosting Amway International conventions.

“I think he was very much his father’s son,” said author Steven Gaines, who wrote extensively about the Novack family in his recent book, “Fool’s Paradise.”

“His father’s entire history is of being needlessly tiresome and annoying,” Gaines said. “And that’s exactly who Ben Jr. was. That’s exactly how he behaved.”

Now, a lifetime removed from the Miami Beach penthouse where Novack grew up, Rye Brook police are trying to determine who bludgeoned him to death in a fourth-floor suite at the Hilton Rye Town hotel a week ago today.

Novack’s closest heir, Narcy Novack, his wife of 18 years, has become a key figure in the investigation.

Rye Brook Police Chief Gregory Austin said that “no definitive suspects have emerged,” but Narcy Novack retained a lawyer later in the week and sought a second autopsy. The media scrutiny brought on by her husband’s violent death has cast an unflattering spotlight on their marriage – and on Ben Novack Jr.’s legacy.

“He was a man that was very in love with his work,” said Novack’s aunt, Maxine Fiel. “He was very conscientious and very exact.

“He was intelligent, educated,” Fiel said. “She was not.”

Novack married Narcy Cira Veliz Pacheco in 1991, and later bought a roomy home on Del Mar Place in Fort Lauderdale.

The two would work the Amway International conventions that increasingly became Novack’s main source of income. Fluent in Spanish, Narcy was vital to the gatherings. “In the end, they were doing more Hispanic conventions,” Fiel said. “She was an asset.”

But things went horribly wrong, to the point that Novack initiated divorce proceedings in 2002, claiming his wife had tried to kill him by orchestrating a violent home invasion during which he was bound and robbed of $370,000 in cash, jewelry and antiques, according to court documents and published reports.

Relatives said Novack’s aging mother, Bernice, found him and untied him.

On June 25, 2002, Novack filed a legal request for a restraining order against his wife claiming that “unless this honorable court enters a restraining order … that (Novack’s) life is in danger.”

According to the document, obtained by The Journal News, Novack claimed his wife had threatened that, “if I can’t have you, then no one will have you.”

Novack said his wife also threatened that “the men that helped me remove the property from the house will come back and finish the job. … I can have you killed anytime I want. … You’re not dead now because I stopped them the other night.”

However, Novack reconciled with his wife after she repaid $100,000. The move frustrated his lawyer at the time, Donald Spadaro, and alienated some friends and relatives.

“The most unusual aspect of the whole thing was that Ben didn’t want to prosecute her,” Spadaro said. “Fort Lauderdale police basically said, ‘If you don’t want to prosecute, we’re not going to follow up with it.’ ”

Novack’s friend James Starberry, a retired Hollywood, Fla., police chief, told the Miami Herald he cut ties with Novack as a result.

“I chewed him out,” he told the newspaper. “I said, ‘You’re absolutely nuts, Benji.’ ”

Things appeared to return to normal for the couple and their growing business.

William Green, a neighbor of Novack’s mother, said he also remained a dutiful son, visiting with her often. Bernice Novack, at 87, had still helped out with her son’s company, and “simply adored Ben,” Green said.

But tension within the family lingered. In April, Novack found his mother dead in a pool of blood – a death ruled accidental by the Broward County Medical Examiner’s Office.

Fiel, Novack’s aunt and Bernice Novack’s sister, said she was kept from the funeral because of lingering tension over Novack’s marriage to Narcy and her role in the 2002 home invasion.

“Details were kept from me about where it was taking place,” Fiel said. “Maybe they didn’t want me there because I would have asked questions. I probably would have asked questions, knowing that Bernice told me about that episode. She was very upset about many things in that marriage.”

With both parents gone and estranged from his aunt, Narcy was now Ben Novack’s only real family.

Novack was born in 1955, the only child of Ben and Bernice Sempel Novack, a former model who had worked with Salvador Dali. She also was the second of Novack Sr.’s three wives.

It was a dreamlike childhood. The Fontainebleau Hotel that Novack’s father built was at the epicenter of Miami society. The historic hotel hosted U.S. presidents, Hollywood royalty and even The Beatles.

“The Miami that he grew up in, not only was his father bigger than life, but it was also a time of high rollers,” said Gaines, the author. “So he was very used to a wildly glamorous life with major characters from the Mafia and stuff.”
It left a strong impression on the younger Novack, particularly after the family lost the hotel.

“What I heard from other people was that Ben Novack wanted to live a life like his father,” said David Mann, former convention services manager at the Sheraton Birmingham (Ala.), who worked with Novack for several years.

After his father died in 1985, Novack Jr. fought over his estate with Juana Rodriguez, a 30-year-old Uruguayan beauty queen who had lived with his father for the last five years of his life.

Novack also went so far as to continue some of his father’s feuds, particularly with Morris Lapidus, the architect who designed the Fontainebleau.

“This was really a family feud,” said Lapidus’ son, author Alan Lapidus. “He came out several times in the newspapers saying Morris just drew up the plans, that (Novack’s) father did the design. … It made him nuts.”

Novack threw himself into his Fort Lauderdale business, which, according to its Web site, was hosting about 60 conventions annually and pulling in $50 million a year.

Mann said Narcy Novack was at his side during conventions at his Birmingham hotel in the 1990s, while Novack constantly popped pills to stay awake at all hours.

Novack made few friends at the conventions, which would begin with a four-page list of strict demands that he would submit before he even checked in.

“When he arrived in your hotel on Thursday till the time that he departed on Monday, he literally took over your hotel,” Mann said. One major hotel chain, he said, was rumored to have “blackballed him from being in their hotels because of the way he treated the employees.”

In one instance, Mann said, Novack made him call the general manager at home so he could chew him out. That was because Novack wanted a fresh tuna-fish sandwich at 2 a.m., and it wasn’t available on the hotel menu, he said.

But the conferences were big business for the hotels, which would be booked solid for the Amway gatherings.

Novack also would hold court at the end of the conventions, when he would make Amway representatives and hotel representatives come to his suite. Only then would he draw their checks.

“He was in control of a lot of money,” Mann said. “He would cut the checks right in his suite.”

“I don’t know when the guy slept,” he said.