Charles Goldstein's Obituary
Goldstein, Charles 1927-2016, one of Miami’s leading specialty retailers and entrepreneurs, died Saturday (Sept 3, 2016) at University of Miami Hospital. He was 89. For several generations of fashionistas both local and international, his signature business, The 24 Collection, represented the height of style in clothing, jewelry and accessories. Goldstein introduced European fashion to the Miami market at a time when the height of chic was brassy highlights and gold wedgie shoes.
In a 1985 profile, the Miami Herald described Goldstein as resembling Ernest Hemingway, “if Hemingway had ever gotten around to having manicures and wearing expensive, unlined, Italian linen sports jackets.”
The 24 Collection began in 1975 as an art gallery in a white stucco building in midtown Miami designed by Jorge Arango. It owed its name to its original address at 24th St and NE 2nd Ave, now a fashionable area, but then a crime-ridden location. Expanding into women’s clothing, Goldstein opened the flagship 24 Collection store at the Bal Harbour Shops in 1976, eventually operating five satellite locations across south Florida, including Coconut Grove, Palm Beach and Boca Raton. After two decades at Bal Harbour, Goldstein moved the main store to the Lincoln Road Mall, where it flourished until Goldstein retired in 2003.
Although the store was best known for its women’s fashion, it later branched out into men’s clothing. Goldstein was an early proponent of haute couture in Florida, introducing such labels as Prada and Claude Montana. The 24 Collection also featured a unique selection of African and Eurasian art and home furnishings and represented jewelry designers, notably offering the first retail outlet for David Yurman and Angela Cummings.
The store’s loyal clientele came from as far away as South America and Europe to see what 24 Collection buyers had discovered. Its celebrity customers included Michael Jackson, Barbra Streisand, Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft, Gloria Estefan, Whitney Houston, filmmaker Bret Ratner and novelist Thomas Harris. The store also provided clothing and accessories for the television series, “Miami Vice.”
Goldstein was a native Miamian, born in 1927 not long after his parents moved to the city during its first great real estate boom. He spent much of his youth in West Palm Beach and Atlanta. At 17, after a year at Cornell University, he served in the Merchant Marine. At the end of the World War II, he leased an old two-story barracks at a naval air base and raised 30,000 chickens. “People loved to have fresh eggs,” Goldstein once said. “I delivered them in my mother’s Cadillac.”
After his return to Miami, he became a partner in his family’s linen supply business. Over the next two decades, he started, revived, ran and sold a number of companies, operating everything from a Volkswagen dealership to one of Florida’s first cable television companies.
But he found his métier with the 24 Collection. “It’s a dream business that gives me the opportunity to combine just about everything I love to do. Some people gamble in the stock market or go to the horse races. I do this.” The store was his great love, along with Elaine Silverstein, his wife of 36 years. They met when he hired her advertising agency, Beber Silverstein, to help publicize 24.
He is survived by his wife, Elaine Silverstein; his sister, Blanche Ross; by his children; Patrick Goldstein and Amy Goldstein; by his stepchildren, Steven Silverstein, Joan Silverstein and Matthew Silverstein; and by seven grandchildren.
Services will be held Monday, September 5th at 11:00 a.m. at Temple Beth Sholom, 4144 Chase Avenue, Miami Beach 33140. Interment at Mt. Nebo-Kendall Memorial Gardens. Under the direction of Blasberg-Rubin-Zilbert (305) 865-2353
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