Suzanne Oostdyk

5144 Fisher Island Drive

4 bedroom 4 ½ bath 4109 Sq. Ft.
Upgraded Corner Unit Built in 2004

Downtown Miami Skyline views

Don’t miss out, bring your offer now!

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Suzanne Oostdyk, Fisher Island Real Estate, LLC

Call 305-725-9696 or email Suzanne@fisherisland.com

The primary responsibility of the Island is to provide the highest level of security, which is much more than a doorman asking somebody’s name. Fisher Island’s professional security force is operational 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, along with the participation of around-the-Island sea patrols will create a safer environment than probably anyplace in the United States.

It is the intent of FICA and Security to have the most secure island one can imagine without interfering with the ease with which residents and their guests can come and go.

One way is the implementation of a web-based RFID Access Control System which uses wireless technology to facilitate communication. All security personal will be equipped with PDAs and will have access to real time information which should simplify the screening process at the ferry and barge.

Furthermore, the Security will be able to track the entering and egress of all contractors and employees that come on the Island. They will have had to go through a security check before entering and will be issued their own Fisher Island identification cards, even if they’re here just one day.
Almost anywhere in the country, when you have a contractor, individual personnel, and workers coming , they show identification and are permitted entry.

Fisher Island will not except any other ID except the ones they give out. They are actually going to scrutinize each person and company personally and provide each of them with their own separate identification card and perhaps in the future, taking fingerprints of absolutely everybody that comes on the Island that’s not a guest or a resident. It would then become part of each worker’s file.

And everybody knows what that level of intimidation makes. It reduces the potential of anybody trying to fool around. A picture is one thing, but fingerprint, that’s serious.

Because it is electronic, similar to such things as Sun Pass on our roadways, they be able to verify both the contractors and each of their vehicles at a distance through a portable reader that is hooked up to a central database at Security..

Many of these things work together with each other. They are not depending on cameras to catch people in the act of doing something. They are trying to be proactive. To make sure that the people that come on the Island aren’t likely to do something and are intimidated against doing something. It’s more effective. They will have cameras anyway, but cameras, after the fact is not the greatest help in the world.

They take the purpose of security much more to heart than just simply being a secure Island because on this Island, we have a group of most influential group of people on earth in a small area that have to be totally protected at all times with their own guard force.

Where else can you get this type of security in Miami or Miami Beach. All the other islands have one guard house, which is certainly quaint but not effective. But this is a security force of 50 or more dedicated professionals, there is 1 man on the security force currently for every 13 units. That is quite a difference.

P.B DYE AND MIKE DAVIS

I met P.B. Dye last summer while he was restoring the golf course. Though I never published it at the time, I think it is still an interesting interview to read..

SUZANNE: Hello Mr. Dye, Mike. Welcome back to Fisher Island and thank you for taking the time in your very busy schedule to speak to me.

MR. DYE: Always available

SUZANNE: You were the architect for Fisher Island going back to 1987. How did you get the job?

MR. DYE: The real key of how I got this job was they had several architects come up with renderings and routing plans. I was the only one to come up with a driving range and nine holes. Nobody else did. The other architects that were applying for the job got in nine holes and had no room for a driving range! I felt the driving range was important enough that you had to include it. When I talked with Mr. Baumann of Mutual Benefit, He asked me how I got this in here. I said, nobody told me not to put it in there!

SUZANNE: That’s great.

P.B. DYE: The residents love having a place where they can hit balls in the morning and also at night because the driving range is lit up! That’s important, you know, because in the summertime, it’s hot during the day.

MR. DYE: I was really happy to be part of the team that created this course because, if it wasn’t a golf course, it could be wall-to-wall condos, and the value of it is enough that I could say that there’s no question this is the most expensive nine hole golf course in the world unless they decide to build one in Downtown Manhattan or something, you know. But there’s never been anything like this. The island is two hundred acres, right?

SUZANNE: Two hundred and sixteen. MR. DYE: And the golf course covers a total –

MR. DAVIS: Forty.

MR. DYE: So that’s 40 acres of green space you’re always going to have. That’s the uniqueness of it.

SUZANNE: May I ask why you are digging so deep by the driving range? It’s such a deep hole. Is it for drainage?

MR. DYE: No, We’re burying the Bermuda grass. See, if you don’t strip the grass and bury it, which we’re trying to eliminate, it has a tendency to want to come back. So you have to strip it off, and the easiest thing to do is dig a hole and put it in the ground. So you’re just digging dirt and putting dirt mixed with grass in a hole and covering it up, and it’s a lot easier to confine it to one place that’s not in the middle of the golf course but off to the side. Basically, It’s a bury pit. See, this whole island is a bury pit. Not many people understand that. But when this place was started back at the turn of the century and they dredged Government Cut, this piece of land was connected to Miami Beach. This was just a swamp, they just buried everything here. So when we built the golf course and we dug a few holes out here, we had a tendency to dig up a few things that were buried back in 1905. When Mikey and I first came down here, we were doing all the projects on sand. Here, it’s just all the stuff from Government Cut, which was mediocre material, different types of mangrove, mud, clay. If you go out through there, you can see six or seven different types of material that was dredged and put on this island, one holds more moisture than the others, so it’s wetter here, dryer here, so what we are doing is stripping the grass, putting in a new irrigation system, putting six to eight inches of sand, the best material you can give for the superintendent to grow grass, and then sod the place. So you’ll have an absolute, or you’ve done a flawless playing surface because the grass has something really good to grow in. And we have totally restored all the lost pin placements on the greens and have expanded some of the greens so that where the last couple of years it’s been difficult, we’ve brought it back to where it was to begin with.

SUZANNE: I understand

MR. DYE: Mike Davis was the superintendent here up until 1995. Back then this place was a garden. It was an absolute garden, and through the years, because of lack of attention and maintenance, it sloughed off.

MR. DYE: This is like restoring a ’66 Mustang convertible. You know, what it looked like when it came out of the showroom floor. If you could make it look like that, that’s what you’re doing.

MR. DYE: And in the last twenty years, we’ve learned a few new tricks. We have the new Seashore Paspalum grass ** now on the tees, greens, and fairways and it’s going to make maintenance a lot simpler and because of the concern for fresh water, this new Paspalum requires less fresh water, less fertilizer, and has a better playing surface. I think everybody out here, when they see how the ball sets up and how much easier it is to strike, they’re really going to enjoy playing it.

SUZANNE: Yes. I am certain they will

P.B. DYE: The goal here is to raise the bar of the maintenance and the beauty of Fisher Island, cost effectively for everyone. That is what we are doing.

SUZANNE: Are you making the course harder to play?

P.B. DYE: You know, I’m a golfer’s worst enemy. I’m a bulldozer operator with a scratch handicap and an Irish sense of humor. So you mix all three of those together with this crazy game and lordly lord! When we built this golf course initially, what people don’t understand is you have the opportunity to put your talents of eighteen holes into nine. So it’s like twice as much fun in a smaller package. This has always been a fun golf course to play. It was never meant to be a TPC (Tournament Players Course) or this and that or to challenge the pros. MR. DYE: We had the pros down here the first three years, and they didn’t tear this place up. But, you know, when Mike was down here and maintenance was, as you would say, double AA+, they had a hard time negotiating this golf course. I remember that. Those were nine of the best players on the regular tour and the Senior Tour. I’ll never forget they had these balls rolling thirteen or fourteen one day, and these poor pros out here thought they were putting on glass. But right now what we’re doing, I think it’s going to be a real facelift.

SUZANNE: Of all the nine holes, which is your favorite?

P.B. DYE: That’s like asking someone who has five children which is their favorite child, and you can’t do that……But we call it Blind Man’s Bluff, No. 8. When we put that together, that was one of my fun holes I like to do. Make a short Par 4 that’s reachable but there’s lots of trouble.

And there isn’t any place like the sixth and seventh holes. There’s nothing like that any place in the world. Here we are, playing golf, and there looking at a barge loading cargo and this and that. I don’t think there’s any golf course like that anyplace in the world, do you? Underneath one of the largest container ports and loading docks in the world, and sitting there watching the cruise ships go by. You know, there’s nothing like Fisher Island. It’s just a very unique place.

SUZANNE: How did your father inspire you with the art of building courses?

MR. DYE: By breaking all the child labor laws. As we say, he stuck me on a tractor when I was seven or eight years old.

SUZANNE: That’s a good start, just throw you in there.

MR. DYE: Growing up in northern Indiana, this and that. The farmer’s kids get on the trailer. They bail hay and they do different things. I was kind of a farm kid, but then all of a sudden it went into this construction mode. “Did you have a sandbox when you were a kid?” Well, you know, my sandbox just got bigger, and it’s just not much difference. You’ve got Mikey and the gang. You’ve got all these nice little toys to play with, and it’s a delight to have a sandbox there.

SUZANNE: And you continue to be delighted by it.

MR. DYE: Well, it’s fun. I mean, my mother says of my father that he’s never worked a day in his life. But, you know, I think I followed my father’s footsteps pretty doggone good. When I work on a golf course, I am really concerned about the game of golf, where it’s been, where it is today, and where it’s going, and I need to incorporate that into design and build these golf courses.

SUZANNE: When are you going to be finished? MR. DAVIS: November 15, 2007.

 MR. DYE: Right now — there’s 47 disasters out there. But it is 47 disasters that become 20 disasters, and down to 10, then all of a sudden it’s green. And it will be gorgeous!!

For more on P.B. Dye visit this address: http://www.pbdyegolf.com/architect/index.php