BOCA RATON, Fla. - As a top commodities broker and part owner of the Chicago White Sox, Lee Stern has left his mark on the business and sports worlds. He owns a home in the city's oldest country-club development with a breathtaking view of the waterway and golf course.

But as sure as the sun rises over the fairways each day, he says he knows one thing: He won't be joining his neighbors on the first tee.

After all, he says, he's Jewish.

Though he has lived in the Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club subdivision for two decades, he's unable to join the club.

The 74-year-old member of the Chicago Board of Trade is among numerous Jewish residents in this community who say they've been ostracized by the private institution for generations.

"My friends in Chicago don't believe me when I tell them," says Mr. Stern, who helped bring World Cup soccer to America. "This is supposed to be the 21st century."

Leaders of the overwhelmingly gentile country club - which has several Toledo members - say they don't turn away people based on race or creed.

"We don't ask people about their religion," says Toledo lawyer Richard LaValley, the past commodore, or president of the club, who owns a winter home on one of the club's fairways.

But in the past few years, the prestigious club in the heart of this popular South Florida destination city has been the focus of one of the most visible and persistent debates in the nation over club membership policies.

The issue has drawn the attention of Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who wrote a letter last year to "humbly request" that the club begin "aggressively recruiting Jewish and minority applicants to your country club."

It has led to an inquiry by the state attorney general's office into the club's membership practices.

And it pits the country's fastest growing Jewish population against one of the area's oldest gentile enclaves and private clubs in a culture clash reminiscent of a bygone era.

"It's amazing. This is like Alabama of the 1960s," says Mr. Stern, former owner of the Chicago Sting professional soccer team.

The dispute has captured the attention of two national civil-rights organizations and recently spawned a front-page article in the Wall Street Journal.

Caught in the center of the storm is Mr. LaValley, a Sylvania resident and philanthropist who has donated generously to Catholic charities and the University of Toledo. The school's law library bears his name.

Though the 72-year-old counts Jews as friends and a relative, he served as the club leader over the past year when the debate made national news. His one-year term ended last month.

While he was in office, he was called twice by the governor, but a spokesman for Mr. Bush said the governor's calls were never returned.

Mr. LaValley says the calls were made to the club while he was in Toledo, and the messages were never forwarded to him.

He and other club leaders say they are being unfairly singled out in a vendetta that has reached exaggerated proportions. They say they have allowed people of various faiths to join the club, including a 42-year-old Jewish businessman four years ago.

Though they can't name any other Jew who has been admitted to the 456-member club since it was founded in 1959, they say the club is open to anyone who can be sponsored by at least two members and is approved by an executive committee.

"This is a private club, and it's not even a public issue," says Mr. LaValley. "A private development is not a place of public accommodation."

Despite their strong denials, the controversy appears to be gaining momentum. A committee was formed of two rabbis, a Catholic priest, an adviser to Governor Bush, and Florida Rep. Alcee Hastings, an African-American, to remove the club's alleged barriers to minorities.

The committee says Mr. LaValley, a club member since 1984, should not belong to Royal Palm. "This is a man who supposedly cares about Catholic causes, and it's just amazing to me that he would sit there and say this club doesn't have a problem," says Rabbi Bruce Warshal, 64, publisher of the weekly Jewish Journal.

In a community that has attracted numerous Ohio residents over the years, three other prominent Toledoans are members of the club: developer Robert Cavalear, 76, outdoor advertising executive Robert Root, 77, and travel agency owner Charles Miller, 87.

Mr. LaValley and others say the club may have as many as 10 people who have Jewish roots, "but we don't really know because we don't ask them," he says. "They are entitled to their privacy." He says he has invited Jewish guests to the club.

There are no black members, but there are others who are "dark-skinned," possibly of Asian origin, he says.

Mr. Cavalear and other members veer from the official leadership position, saying the club has a history of prejudice, but that it's slowly evolving. "Of course there's an element of truth in this," he says. "But forcing this issue down peoples' throats isn't going to help matters. It's going to take time."

In Boca Raton and three surrounding towns - home to more than 130,000 Jews - the issue has sparked a debate that raises questions about the practices of private clubs while opening old and deep wounds.

The dispute exploded six years ago when former Boca Raton Mayor Bill Smith was defeated for re-election after he was harshly criticized for belonging to the club. The 50-year-old politician says the criticism cost him his job.

Blacks, who make up less than 5 percent of Boca Raton's population, have never belonged to the club - a point made by the Palm Beach County chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

"[The club leaders] are still living in the good ol' boy world, and being in South Florida, they feel they're insulated from the rest of the country," says Stanley Cleare, a minister and civic activist.

Club members say to the best of their knowledge, a black has never tried to be sponsored into the club.

To be sure, battling the policies of private clubs is nothing new in America. In fact, over the past decade, so many strides have been made in creating diversity in clubs that it's not considered a burning civil-rights issue.

In an age of Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew who was nearly elected U.S. vice president, the debate seems out of step with the times, say experts who track such trends.

But in this fashionable community of pink stucco boutiques and ritzy hotels, it's like a storm brewing off the coast. "It's not going away," says Rabbi Warshal.

'Restricted city'

Even before the city became one of the "nouveau" areas of South Florida, Boca Raton was known as a "restricted city."

Until the late 1960s, people of the Jewish faith were discouraged from buying homes here, and were not allowed as guests at the five-star Boca Raton Resort and Club, according to several historical accounts. "It was a tough place to be a Jew," says Ken Swart, of the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County.

In 1966, there were few - if any - who lived in the area, says Charles Miller, a Toledo businessman who joined Royal Palm that year. "There may have been some living here, but I'm not sure they felt comfortable."

But with fair housing laws, the floodgates opened: More than 100,000 people of the Jewish faith moved into the area after 1970, according to a University of Miami study. Eighteen synagogues now dot the landscape of an area that used to have only one.

In this city where restaurants serve lox and bagels and a kosher hotel is being built in the heart of town, Royal Palm - the city's oldest club - has become a target.

To some Jewish leaders the club represents the past: one of power, wealth, and bigotry.

Former Toledo trucking magnate Jesse Sentle, Sr., 82, who resigned from Royal Palm last year because of health reasons, recalls when he joined the club in 1977. "It was considered even more prestigious because it was restrictive," he says, "and it was. There's no question."

Former rear commodore Robert Root of Toledo declined to comment.

Club members say the institution has been changing, and the debate is more over its past than its present.

For years, few people - if any - publicly questioned the membership policies of Royal Palm. But in 1992, that changed.

That's when financier Shepard Osherow, 63, was in the process of buying two home sites in the Royal Palm development.

Covering up to 140 acres, the subdivision is touted as one of the premier places to live along Florida's east coast. In the heart of the development is the Royal Palm Yacht and Country Club - which operates separately from the subdivision.

Built by the late Alcoa chairman Arthur Vining Davis in 1959, the walled development, with its spectacular houses and waterways, set the tone for the city's development, according to local historians.

Anchored by a modest, 1960s contemporary clubhouse, the club is spread out among the tennis facilities, the golf course, and the yacht club. Initiation costs: $45,000, with an annual fee of $7,000.

Of the 670 homeowners in the development, about 20 percent are Jewish, according to estimates of the local Jewish Federation.

Mr. Osherow says he was free to move into the neighborhood, but found out - like his other Jewish neighbors - he couldn't join the club.

He says he asked two Royal Palm members with whom he did business to sponsor him for membership, but they declined. "They basically said, 'You're Jewish. Why would you want to belong here if you're not going to feel welcome?'''

"My daughter was about 7 at the time, and I began to think that if she makes friends in the subdivision, and her friends go to the club, she's not going to be able to go.''

After expressing his concerns to a lawyer he hired to close the deal, he later learned the lawyer was a member. "I was shocked," says Mr. Osherow, former president of Atalanta/Sosnoff Capital Corp. "We sat and talked about all this, and he never said a word. All he kept saying was, 'It's going to change. Younger people are joining.'''

Mr. Osherow says he fired his lawyer, canceled the deal, and decided to move elsewhere in Boca Raton.

"Imagine living in a subdivision where you see the clubhouse every|day, the golfers, the yachts from your living room, and you can't get in," says Mr. Osherow.

Many of the established Jews in the area say they were aware of the club, "but pretty much stayed away," says Judy Romanoff, a Toledo native and member of a prominent Jewish family who moved to Boca Raton in 1976. "If you've lived here long enough, you just know that. It's like, why go there if you're not wanted? It was never a public issue.''

But it was about to be.

By 1993, two complaints were made to the regional chapter of the Anti-Defamation League from Jewish residents who also live in the Royal Palm subdivision, according to then director Louise Shure.

One 26-year resident of the subdivision, Morris Robinson, says he tried for years to get neighbors and club members to sponsor him. "No Jews are allowed," he says. "They ran the other way when I asked them."

By 1997, the issue peaked.

That's when Jeff Baker, 42, a Jew and vice president of his family's furniture business, was sponsored for membership. During the application process, four notes were sent to the Jewish Journal supposedly from an insider who claimed the club leaders were in a tizzy over the specter of Mr. Baker getting into the club. The anonymous notes said a group of older "anti-Semites" at the club were holding up the application.

About the same time, Edmund Terry, the applicant's Christian father-in-law and a longtime member of the club, fired off a letter to the club's directors and membership committee.

"The sole issue of contention here seems to be religion," wrote Mr. Terry, a club member since 1979. He stated in his February, 1997, letter that the club may be putting itself in an embarrassing position.

"We are leaving ourselves open to new legislation and broader interpretations of such things" as Florida's 1992 anti-discrimination law which calls for the revocation of liquor licenses and water access rights to force clubs to comply.

"I might add that in the state of Florida and Boca Raton in particular, our club's 100 percent bias against the Jewish faith by discrimination is not popular," he stated in his letter.

The following month, Mr. Baker was accepted into the club as a "provisional" member. But it didn't stop the debate.

Mr. Baker declined to be interviewed for this story. But local Jews say the episode proves the old rules of the club still apply. "He wasn't accepted into the club. He was blasted in," says Gil Bachman, head of the citizens' committee formed to bring down the alleged barriers in the club.

Mr. Bachman, 74, a retired printing company owner who's building a home in the Royal Palm subdivision, says the local Jewish community has identified three Jewish members: Mr. Baker and two spouses who belong to the club because they're married to gentiles.

"If there are other Jews in that club, they do not openly claim to be," he says. "No one in the community knows them."

To make its case, the group published the club roster in the Jewish Journal, a 140,000-circulation weekly that covers Miami to West Palm Beach - home to the second largest population of Jews in the country. "No one found anyone on the list who were known Jews," says Mr. Warshal.

One of the club's oldest members, Florence Fuller, a Jewish widow of a Christian who helped found the club, says she has never felt comfortable within the confines of Royal Palm.

"When I meet new people [at the club], they whisper, 'She's a Jew,' '' Mrs. Fuller, 87, told the Wall Street Journal.

"They think we're money grubbers, that we're just obsessed with money," she said. She tried unsuccessfully to prod her husband into leaving the club, but since he died, "I stayed in [the club] because I figured, "What the hell, I was here before you were.'' But she added, "I don't use it that much because of the Jewish thing."

She has never gotten used to belonging to the club. During a recent golf outing at Royal Palm, she joined Toledo resident Sophie Miller, wife of Charles Miller, in a golf cart. "The first thing she said to my wife was, 'You know, I'm Jewish,' when she got into the cart," says Mr. Miller.

Rabbi Warshal's battle

Rabbi Warshal holds up the front page of a recent edition of his publication. The headline reads: "Royal Palm: 455 members. 1 Jew." For the past eight years, he has been waging a battle against the club - a point made by Royal Palm leaders. "He has a vendetta against the club," says Mr. LaValley, a member 17 years.

Mr. Warshal, a Yale University Law School graduate who later attended rabbinical school, says the makeup of the Royal Palm development still sends the wrong message. "You have a subdivision where 20 percent of the population is Jewish in an area where half of the population is Jewish, and what - one member of the local club? Maybe a spouse?"

He says he has no desire to join the club. "I don't golf, and I don't own a yacht," he says, "but what they're doing is morally wrong."

In the wake of recent publicity, club members say they have been asked by club leaders not to respond to interviews by reporters. "They just told me to shut up. Not to say anything," says Mr. Miller, a member since 1966.

In a written response to questions from The Blade, Commodore Don Dulude said his club is "committed to providing an atmosphere consistent with the social and recreational goals of our members which is free from any discrimination." He also claims to have started a dialogue with Governor Bush.

Mr. Cavalear, who served as the club commodore in the 1980s, says the club is no different than the private clubs in Toledo that once discriminated against minorities.

"You had clubs in Toledo that were like that, but they've changed," he says, referring to the Toledo Club and Inverness. "The same will happen here in the days - the years - to come. You have members who are stringent in their thinking, but as they leave and move on, younger people will come in who are more open, and things will level out. Accommodations and changes will take place. We have to be patient with this."

Mr. Bachman and others say they cannot accept that line. "Why does it have to take years," he says. "To live in a community that has a country club where minorities who live there are excluded depreciates our quality of life.

"I'm building a home there. What do I tell my grandchildren when they want to go to the club with their friends?"

Mr. LaValley says the entire issue is being driven by Rabbi Warshal. But Mr. Bachman and others say they are the ones who are carrying the fight - not the rabbi.

"This isn't about Bruce Warshal," says Mr. Bachman, who serves with 11 other members of the Council for Diversity. "That's a big excuse. If the rabbi goes away, we're still going to be here."

Boca Raton Mayor Steve Abrams, elected last month as the city's first Jewish mayor, says he has been quietly meeting with younger members of the club who are trying to bring about changes. "I am in touch with them, and I have been assured by them that they are working on making changes," he says, refusing to name the members.

Mr. LaValley, Mr. Cavalear, and others argue there are several clubs in the area, "with a majority of Jewish members," says Mr. LaValley.

One of those clubs, the Boca Rio Golf Club, has 150 members, but has an open-door policy with about 15 gentiles, says club president Ira Gelb. Two other clubs in the area with a large number of Jewish members say they also have open-member policies.

Mr. Miller says Royal Palm has accepted members of other ethnic groups in his time. "We don't have [blacks], but we have Italians, and some of them are pretty dark skinned," he says.

He says the Jews "have their clubs. I have friends who are Jewish, but I wouldn't feel comfortable joining their clubs, and I have Jewish neighbors who have told me that they wouldn't feel comfortable in our club."

First Published January 10, 2013, 4:41 p.m.