John D. MacArthur knew how to sell.
He became one of the richest men in the world in the 1940s by selling insurance policies through the mail for $1 a month.
And he figured if he could attract Disney World to Palm Beach Gardens, his new city — founded on June 20, 1959 — would explode.
He was right about the growth that Disney would attract. Just look at Orlando.
But this is one sale that didn’t go through.
MacArthur spoke about the deal in an April 1974 interview with Bob Burdick of the Palm Beach Post-Times. Burdick’s story is in the archives of the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society.
MacArthur leveraged his relationship with Radio Corporation of America, which owned the NBC television network, to make a three-way deal that would bring Disney World to three square miles MacArthur owned at Florida’s Turnpike and PGA Boulevard, what is now PGA National.
RCA wanted Disney’s popular Sunday TV show to jump from the ABC television network to NBC.
MacArthur wanted RCA to open a plant in his new city, to bring jobs. And he had sway with RCA because he owned more than 10 percent of its stock.
As MacArthur described it, he and RCA agreed to finance a Florida Disney World, Disney agreed to switch from ABC to NBC and RCA agreed to build a plant in Palm Beach Gardens.
Two prongs of the deal came together, with NBC landing the Disney show and RCA rejecting sites in North Carolina and Texas to build at Monet Road (now RCA Boulevard) and State Road Alternate A1A, the current Northcorp Corporate Park, bringing 2,000 jobs.
But Disney put off its new Florida amusement park.
Instead, the company took a contract to build the General Motors Pavilion at the New York World’s Fair. It also expanded California Disneyland.
As a result, Disney made enough money that he no longer needed financing from MacArthur and RCA, MacArthur told Burdick.
“Disney was interested in the property at the northwest corner of the (Florida’s) turnpike and what is now PGA Boulevard,” MacArthur told Burdick. “He told me he wanted three square miles with a mile of it along the turnpike.
“I told him he had it if he wanted it, and I also told him I didn’t know why he wanted it along the turnpike,” MacArthur said.
“Walt Disney told me that any car going to Miami that had kids in it and drove for a full mile alongside a Disneyland would have to stop,” MacArthur said.
MacArthur’s version of events didn’t mention a critical scene related by the late Jerry Kelly, MacArthur’s friend and real estate adviser, to The Palm Beach Post’s Joel Engelhardt and included in a Post profile of MacArthur published in May 2005.
MacArthur and Roy Disney, Walt’s business-minded brother, were ironing out final details of a deal, Kelly said. MacArthur and Walt Disney had agreed earlier on 320 acres (far less than three square miles) but suddenly Roy wanted more land.
He feared neighboring landowners, meaning MacArthur, would cash in on the growth Disney World would bring, as they did at Disneyland in California.
MacArthur wanted to do just that but he saw Roy Disney’s demand as breaking the handshake agreement he had with Walt Disney. And he didn’t like it.
MacArthur waited until lunch, stood up and excused himself.
Kelly, sensing that the deal was about to die, stopped him and asked how he could leave at that critical moment.
"I have to get the hell out of here or I'll hit that goddamn beagle right in the nose," MacArthur replied.
In 1965, Disney announced its plans to bring an amusement park to the Orlando area. It opened in 1971.
In 1989, Palm Beach Post reporter Tim O'Meilia related the tale of Disney’s dalliance with Palm Beach County. He described the property west of the turnpike as stretching from Northlake Boulevard to Hood Road.
That land, O’Meilia reported, would have sold for $1,200 to $1,500 per acre. Disney, he reported, bought 27,400 acres near Orlando at a cost of $182 an acre.
— Joel Engelhardt
Check out the Palm Beach Gardens Historical Society archives here.
Watch videos on our Youtube page of the society's three panel discussions to mark the city's 65th Anniversary:
Panel 1: How the MacArthur Foundation shaped Palm Beach Gardens here.
Panel 2: The Turning Point: Life After MacArthur here.
Panel 3: Growth and Traffic in Palm Beach Gardens here.
Comments