Tag Archives: Kia LaFontaine

Martin Maloney, a Winter Resident We Must Know

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THE NEXT SEVERAL BLOGS WILL BE RELATED TO HIS IMPACT ON MARTIN COUNTY

The Lyric Theatre, in the center of Historic Downtown Stuart, is our community’s pride and joy. Next year will mark its centennial. Kia LaFontaine, the Lyric’s CEO, asked me to serve on a committee to flesh out more of its history.

Stuart’s third Lyric Theatre, built with funds supplied by multi-millionaire Martin Maloney, opened its doors on
March 15, 1926.

Since, in my mind, the Hancock family was always responsible for building what is actually Stuart’s third Lyric Theatre, imagine my surprise to find newspaper articles referring to the 1926 theater as Maloney’s.

Martin Maloney. 1848-1929

I have discovered that Martin Maloney, who built the lovely Cashel in in Port Sewall, financed a good deal of Stuart’s boom time construction. Money from his deep pockets not only paid for the “new” Lyric, it financed the 55-acre EDG-RIVA subdivision that stretched from what is now East Ocean Boulevard to the St. Lucie River from the vicinity of the Stuart School almost to Palm Beach Road. This area would later include St. Mary’s Church, the Martin County Library, the Woman’s Club and Martin Memorial Hospital.

Maloney’s story is really one of rags to riches. He became one of our country’s early multi-millionaires when there were only a few.

Born in Ireland in 1848, Martin came to America in 1854, as a six-year- old when his family fled the Irish potato famine and settled in Scranton, PA. As a hardscrabble youth, Martin worked in coal mines and then learned to smith tin and copper, becoming a plumber and gas fitter. By 1974 his owned the Hyde Park Gas Plant and the Maloney Oil, Gas and Manufacturing Co. His fortune ballooned from his patented naphtha gas lighting system for street lamps. Practically every city that installed street lights paid a fee for his patent. Soon he invested in American Light, Standard Oil and the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Even though Warner Tilton, George Browning and John Taylor are listed, the money behind the development was Martin Maloney’s.
Martin Maloney’s grand mansion Ballingarry in Spring Lake NJ was designed by renowned architect, Horace Trumbauer, who also designed Cashel. Ballingarry was demolished but Cashel still stands.

Martin Maloney and his wife Margaret had seven children but only three daughters survived infancy. Catherine, the middle daughter, died of tuberculosis in in 1900, shortly after the Maloney mansion “Ballingarry” was constructed in Spring Lake, NJ. Martin Maloney built a magnificent church in her memory.

After their young daughter, Catherine, died of tuberculosis in 1901, the Maloneys, built this beautiful Romanesque style Catholic Church. Daughter, Catherine, as well Martin and his wife Margaret Maloney are interred in the family crypt within St. Catherine’s Church.

The mansion Cashel Martin Maloney built in Port Sewall was designed by famed architect Horace Trumbauer, who also designed Ballingamy, was completed in 1917.

This ca. 1925 photograph shows Cashel with its garage apartment The original Sunrise Inn is in the center with the boathouses of Sewall’s Point in view across the St. Lucie River.
Everyone who heads to U. S. one via SE St. Lucie Boulevard has to stop when it intersects with SE Old St. Lucie Boulevard. The entrance gate to Cashel, built by Martin Maloney in 1917, is in view to the right.

We see the entrance to the mansion every time we stop where SE St. Lucie Boulevard intersects with SE Old St. Lucie Boulevard. Maloney, his daughter and son-in-law, Margaret and L. C. Ritchie and the mansion Cashel will require several future blogs.