He met his wife on an escalator in downtown Miami. Then he rose to the top
Miami native Philip “Phil” de Montmollin Jr. rose to the top of a major newspaper chain after decades in the publishing industry. But his family’s sweetest memory may be the time he met his wife while they were riding in opposite directions on an escalator in the landmark Miami Herald building on Biscayne Bay.
De Montmollin died Dec. 8 in St. Petersburg. He was 85.
His son Phil de Montmollin III shared the story of how his parents met.
Riding the escalator
During de Montmollin’s run in advertising at the Miami Herald in the spring of 1965, about two years after the newspaper moved into its One Herald Plaza base, de Montmollin was riding up the grand escalator that stretched from the center of the ground-floor main lobby to the vast second floor advertising department that backed up to the bay.
Dee Bennett, who worked in the classified advertising department between 1963 and 1965, was heading down toward the lobby. Both on their own way, they swept by each other on opposite sides of the escalator.
The co-workers may have been headed in opposite directions, but their life story went straight ahead. That meeting led to a 57-year marriage and the birth of a daughter and two sons, and many grandchildren.
The couple reenacted the moment of their first meeting on that same escalator at a Miami Herald reunion in 2013 shortly before the building, which had been sold, was demolished, their son said.
A newspaper family
Phil De Montmollin started working at the Miami Herald in 1957, part-time in the mail room. He was promoted to full time in advertising sales from 1959 to 1971. He became the Herald’s president and general manager in 1985.
As a civic leader, the journalism executive served as chairperson for Miami-Dade’s Beacon Council in 1989 and 1990, formative years for the county’s official economic development organization, his family said.
“My dad’s success story is a classic one that shows how hard work, integrity and treating people the right way can pay off,” de Montmollin III told the Miami Herald. “He chased his dream of working in newspapers and worked his way up the ladder one step at a time, all the while giving back selflessly to his community and those he would meet along the way.”
Both sides of the Montmollin-Bennett family worked for the Herald as far back as the mid-1950s. Dee’s mom, Ina Bennett, was a front desk clerk from 1957 to 1975 in the circulation department. De Montmollin’s dad, Philip de Montmollin Sr., was a supervisor for Ryder Trucks and oversaw the deliveries of the bundles of newsprint that flowed into the Herald building from 1955 to 1966.
After marrying in 1968, and beginning a family, de Montmollin Jr. worked in sales and marketing at Georgia’s Macon Telegraph & News starting in 1971. That was followed by promotions to president and general manager of Kentucky’s Lexington Herald-Leader and president and CEO of Indiana’s Fort Wayne Newspapers Inc. to oversee the News-Sentinel in 1980.
Early life
De Montmollin was born in Jacksonville on May 11, 1940, and raised in Miami where he fished, sold homegrown avocados for 10 cents each and key limes for a penny apiece outside a grocery store. He graduated from Miami Edison Senior High School in 1958 and enrolled at the University of Miami before the newspaper business quickly lured him away from the classroom.
He returned to his hometown in 1985 to serve as the Miami Herald’s president and general manager before retiring in 1990.
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“I worked for Phil at the Miami Herald and later succeeded him as the Herald’s president. I remember listening to him in business meetings and saying to myself — ‘I wish I had thought of that.’ He was super-smart and a very decent person,” Joe Natoli, now Baptist Health South Florida’s executive vice president and chief administrative officer, wrote in the family’s Legacy obituary.
After retirement
After the Miami Herald, de Montmollin worked in newspaper consulting and on boards including the national Girl Scouts of the USA, and 20 years for FP Newspapers, the parent company of the Winnipeg Free Press and other Canadian holdings.
De Montmollin was part-owner of the Lime Tree Bay Resort in Long Key, Florida, for 12 years. He turned his chef skills into authoring two cookbooks: “The Lime Tree Bay Cookbook, Recipes from the Florida Keys” and “How to Gain 30 Pounds in Six Years: A Restaurant Guide and Cookbook from the Mountains of North Carolina.”
He also wrote the travel guidebook “Anna Maria Island and More: The Best of Both Worlds,” and in 2023 published his memoir, “Some of the Best of Phil’s Stories and More,” where he championed his wife’s new career.
In 1998, the sports-loving de Montmollin, who ran numerous marathons and cheered the UM Hurricanes football team for the rest of his life, moved to New Haven, Connecticut, to support his wife in her pursuit of a master of divinity at Yale University, and her ordination as an Episcopal priest. One of her ministries was at St. Thomas Episcopal Church in Coral Gables.
“What Dee has accomplished and everything she has done is extraordinary,” de Montmollin wrote in his memoir. “I am blessed to have been by her side and to have been a very small part of it. Dee could have done it without me, but hopefully I have made it a little easier for her,” he wrote.
“What will forever touch me the most about my dad are the enormous acts of humility he displayed throughout his life,” their son Phil said in an email to the Herald. “He left a fast rising newspaper career to retire early so he could be present for his family. Then a few years later, he moved into the role of clergy spouse and did everything he could to support my mom in her journey as an Episcopal priest. My dad also had a deeply spiritual life of his own, something I came to fully realize in his final days.”
The first newspaper byline
Every story has a beginning and de Montmollin’s started in the fourth grade when he delivered newspapers for the Miami News, the city’s other major daily at the time. Less than two years later, he scored perhaps his only career newspaper byline. It appeared in the Miami News.
“It was while he was a sixth-grader at Shadowlawn Elementary, a co-byline with another student named Cynthia Smith about the retirement of a school crossing guard,” his son said. “It was part of a weekly youth page where schools could submit stories from their students.”
In his memoir, de Montmollin reflected on that short piece he co-wrote for the Miami News around 1946 about the guard who, for 20 years, helped students of Shadowlawn Elementary School safely cross Northwest Second Avenue at 49th Street.
“There was not a traffic light at that street but the crossing guard stopped traffic every morning and every afternoon for students who lived west of Second Avenue to cross to and from school,” de Montmollin wrote in his memoir.
Survivors and services
Phil de Montmollin’s survivors include his wife, the Rev. Dee Ann de Montmollin; daughter Pam Miller; sons Philip III and David de Montmollin; grandchildren Sean and Kassi Miller, Clara, Cali and Colby de Montmollin; great-grandson Landon Miller; and brothers Steve and Lane de Montmollin.
A Celebration of Life was held in North Carolina. A Committal Service to place his ashes in a columbarium will be held at 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 10, at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral, 464 NE 16th St., Miami.
The family requests that donations be made in Phil de Montmollin’s name to the St. Francis Episcopal Church Restoration Fund at 39 N. Main St., Rutherfordton, NC, 28139. Or the Brevard College Scholarship Fund at One Brevard College Dr., Brevard, NC, 28712.
