Influential developer in Long Island and Sarasota dies at age 89
OSPREY – By the time 21-year-old Frank Cassata arrived at Ellis Island in 1954, he had already developed the intense work ethic and drive that led him to become a successful businessman and developer, both in New York and later in Sarasota.
Cassata was especially beloved in his adopted hometown of Babylon, New York, on Long Island – specifically the Deer Park community.
Cassata, who died at home on July 12 at age 89, is survived by his wife Christina, one brother and one sister, four children and several grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
He was remembered by friends and family as an intensely loyal friend, tough but fair parent and doting grandparent.
He also had a sharp mind for business and a soft spot for anyone who needed help, said his granddaughter Daniella Salvatore, who helped run the Sarasota offices of the Cassata Organization.
A longtime snowbird, Cassata retired to Sarasota and eventually launched a second career here.
Cassata met local developer Pat Neal when both men were looking at the land that would ultimately be developed as The Harborage on Braden River.
He went on to collaborate with John and Pat Neal on 6,000 homesites in land acquisition deals.
In 2015 Cassata got back into what developers refer to as “vertical construction” after he met Venice developer Mike MIller, a partnership that revived the latter's career.
A soft spot for those in need
Cassata’s willingness to help Miller and others he took a shine to dated back to his own tribulations growing up.
“Ultimately his family immigrated to the United States from Italy because they were so poor and I think it tugged at his heartstrings when he would see people in need and he would make sure he could help them any way he could,” Salvatore said. “He really had a soft spot for anybody who needed help, especially children.
“He did a lot of children’s hospital donations, Smile Train for cleft lip surgeries and the like,” she added.
Frank Cassata established the Cassata Family Foundation as a means for charitable giving in New York.
His eldest son, Rosario “Russ” Cassata, now oversees that, as his father established the Frank Cassata Family Foundation with his second wife Christina for Florida charitable purposes.
Citrus, olive oil and a donkey named Cheech
As a teenager in the small town of Villiabate, near Palermo in post-World War II Sicily, Cassata would sell olive oil and citrus from a cart pulled by a donkey named Cheech.
A picture of Cassata and Cheech is displayed prominently on the wall of the offices of the Cassata Organization at 7507 S. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota.
While his entrepreneurial efforts in New York started by selling paper bags to local merchants, he also made zeppoles – little pastries – with his mother that they would sell at a stand in an open market in Brentwood, Long Island.
He started saving his money, Russ Cassata recalled, and eventually, “he was able to buy a building and make a deli and that’s what started him.
“These old-timers, they had a work ethic," Cassata said, adding, “There’s something to be said for that – that's what makes the legacy of the family.”
Frank Cassata and his wife Antoinette, who died in 2008, had three sons and a daughter. He instilled that ethic in Russ as well his brothers Ross and Vincent and sister Josephine.
“He taught me right,” Cassata said. “He had me on the ground with the guys digging the trenches, up on the roof welding the decks. I was hands-on.”
In 1992, the Centro Culturale Italiano on Long Island named him Man of the Year for being "a man of noble spirit, humanitarian principles, devotion to the common good and to the welfare of our community.”
Babylon Town Supervisor Rich Schaffer – who was a teenager when he first met Cassata – said: “He goes down as one of the most animated characters who has been – I guess you would call him this generation’s founder of Babylon Town.
“When Frank came into a room, everyone knew that Frank was there and it was because of his joking ways, just animated talking with his hands,” he added. “He’s definitely one for the books.”
When the two first met, Schaffer, a Democrat, was working for one candidate and Cassata, a Republican, supported another.
Still, Cassata supported Schaffer for Town Supervisor because he was seeking someone with common sense.
A section of Deer Park Avenue in front of that first deli will be renamed to Frank Cassata Way, Schaffer said in a phone interview.
"So we can talk about Frank Cassata’s way and to get others to be like him,” Schaffer said.
Frank Cassata’s way
Cassata was a pioneer in the development of senior rental housing in Long Island.
Beginning in 1963, he built more than 70,000 homes on 10,000 acres in New York and Florida.
He became known as “Mr. Deer Park,” partly because of his many successful ventures there.
“He owned everything in Deer Park: he owned the shopping center, he owned the deli, he owned the barber shop. They called him Mr. Deer Park for a long time,” Cassata said. “He has an amazing legacy here in New York; everybody that you speak to has a kind word to say about him.”
John Neal, Pat Neal's son, added that Cassata had a knack for sizing up property.
“Frank understood land in the way that only a man who’s older than you – who’s seen more land than you – can understand,” Neal said. “He was always right. By the time we’d buy the land and entitled the land, he was always right.”
In 2004, Cassata and Pat Neal purchased 372 acres north of State Road 70 and east of Lakewood Ranch Boulevard owned by Schroeder-Manatee Ranch Inc. in the master-planned community of Lakewood Ranch for $16.7 million. At the time that was the single largest land sale conducted by SMR.
Cassata worked with Neal and John Neal in subsequent years on developments in both Sarasota and Manatee counties.
In 2013, Salvatore started working in the Sarasota offices of the Cassata Organization.
At her grandfather’s urging Salvatore went to law school at the University of Miami – where she met her husband Gary, a fellow attorney.
When she passed the bar in 2019, she surprised her grandfather during a luncheon with his friends.
The joy he expressed on that day is one of her cherished memories.
Rolls-Royce on a construction site
Two iconic visions of Cassata are tied to a Rolls-Royce he drove to job sites in Long Island, as well as around Sarasota.
On Long Island, Cassata’s Rolls was easily identifiable – it was the one with the wheelbarrow visible in the trunk.
“The famous story was that when he started getting into building and he started building mostly senior citizen complexes .. he would have a really nice car − Rolls-Royce − and he’d have a wheelbarrow hanging out the back of the trunk,” Schaffer said. “He had wealth but at the same time he never forgot where he came from.
"He would be in the trenches with the workers, laying the concrete or moving wood for the building,” he added. “It was almost like his mark.”
In Sarasota, Cassata helped the owner of Palermo Pizza open that restaurant in 2015 in his shopping center, a couple of doors down from the Cassata Organization.
Neal said Cassata would frequently pull up to their office in the Rolls with a Palermo Pizza magnetic sign on the side and drop off pizza.
Russ Cassata said that once Rolls-Royce caught wind of that, they sent his father a cease and desist letter, telling him to take the sign off the car.
“Somehow he finagled them and they paid him $5,000 to take the sign off his car,” he added.
When Russ Cassata purchased his own Rolls-Royce, the company connected the names and only agreed to sell him the car if he promised to not put signage on the vehicle.
A fresh start and second chance
One day in 2015, Cassata's frequent golf foursome partner, Charlies Palmeri, introduced Cassata to Venice-based developer Mike Miller, who was building the San Lino condominium development.
Miller had taken a major beating from the Great Recession but he said Cassata liked what he saw and they would work together on Che Vista, a luxury condo development on The Esplanade, across from Venice Beach.
That led to the formation of Cassata-Miller Development.
“Oh yeah, no doubt,” Miller responded, when asked about whether the partnership resurrected his career. “I dealt with all the banks prior to that and after that I never dealt with a bank again; Frank was the financial side.
“I’m very fortunate, a lot to be thankful for,” he added.
Cassata-Miller finished Porto Vista and a portion of Cassata Square – home to Prime Serious Steak – and has several other projects in Venice and surrounding areas that will continue to completion.
“He’s very trusting and trustworthy,” Miller said in describing Cassata. “His handshake was worth all the documents together.
“His legacy is continuing on and I owe him a lot, obviously!”
That partnership resulted in a more public profile for Cassata in Sarasota.
Russ Cassata said he was reminded how much influence his father had in Sarasota during a memorial service last month.
“So many people came up to me and said, 'If it wasn’t for your dad, I wouldn't be where I am today,'” Cassata said. “And it was the same thing in Long Island.”
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: The late Frank Cassata was 'Mr. Deer Park' and influential in Sarasota
