Fisher Island, Florida facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Fisher Island, Florida
Census-designated place
Fisher Island, South Pointe Park, and Government Cut (foreground) and Virginia Key (background)
Location of Fisher Island in Florida
U.S. Census Bureau map showing CDP boundaries
Country	United States of America
State	Florida
County	Miami-Dade
Area
• Total	0.27 sq mi (0.69 km2)
• Land	0.24 sq mi (0.62 km2)
• Water	0.03 sq mi (0.07 km2)
Elevation	10 ft (3 m)
Population  (2020)
• Total	561
• Density	2,328/sq mi (899/km2)
Time zone	UTC-5 (Eastern (EST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-4 (EDT)
ZIP Code	33109 (Miami Beach)
Area code(s)	305, 786, 645
FIPS code	12-22375
GNIS feature ID	1853250

Fisher Island is a census-designated place in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States, located on a barrier island of the same name. Since 2015, Fisher Island has the highest per capita income of any place in the United States. It is located in the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. As of the 2020 census, the population was 561.

Named for automotive parts pioneer and beach real estate developer Carl G. Fisher, who once owned it, Fisher Island is three miles off the shore of mainland South Florida. No road or causeway connects to the island, which is only 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

Buildings under construction in the summer of 2001

Fisher Island was separated from the barrier island which became Miami Beach in 1905, when Government Cut was dredged across the northern end of the island. Construction of Fisher Island began in 1919 when Carl G. Fisher, a wealthy land developer originally from Indiana, purchased the property from businessman and real estate developer Dana A. Dorsey, South 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 died 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 to 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, Atmospheric, and Earth Science at 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. Julia Roberts, 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.

The Fisher Island bankruptcy case

One of the last developable parcels of land on the island, a 15-acre (6.1 ha) 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 judgment handed down by the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida on October 16, 2013, upheld in the US a previous 2010 judgment from the Supreme Court of Gibraltar that comprehensively dismissed the "wholly unconvincing" case brought by Joseph Kay. The development then moved forward, under the supervision of Inna Gudavadze and the Patarkatsishvili family.

Geography

Fisher Island is located 3 miles (5 km) east of downtown Miami at 25°45′41″N 80°8′39″W / 25.76139°N 80.14417°W / 25.76139; -80.14417. It is bordered to the north, across Government Cut, by the city of Miami Beach, and to the south, across Norris Cut, by Virginia Key, within the Miami city limits. Biscayne Bay is to the west, and the Atlantic Ocean is to the east.

The entire island has a total area of 0.362 sq mi (0.94 km²), of which 0.267 square miles (0.69 km²) are within the census-designated place(CDP), the rest being part of the city of Miami Beach.

Demographics

2010 and 2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 561 people, 197 households, and 131 families residing in the CDP.

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.

As of the 2010 United States census, there were 132 people, 94 households, and 85 families residing in the CDP.

Education

The island has a private school, Fisher Island Day School, which includes preschool through eighth 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.

The island is served by Miami-Dade County Public Schools. It is zoned for South Pointe Elementary School, Nautilus Middle School, and Miami Beach Senior High School.

Notable current and former residents

See also

In Spanish: Fisher Island para niños