Dan's Papers -January 9, 2009 - News Travels Wrong in Brazil

The unexpected death of Christian Wolffer on Wednesday, an icon of the Hamptons community, came as a shock not only to his family, but to the entire area. People were hungry for the news of how it happened. But for a long time, there was very little clarity about it. And that was because it happened in Brazil. News travels fast down there. But it is very unreliable.

Early reports were that Wolffer had been swimming off a yacht 100 miles out at sea when he died. Later reports said he was swimming at the beach at Ipanema in Rio de Janeiro. Although all reports said he had been killed by a passing speedboat that had run him over, there was one report that said he had been physically hit by it and killed instantly.

Personally, having known and loved this wonderful man, I of course hoped that all this was just rumor and that in the end he would turn up alive. But I also hoped that if this was his time and he had gone, then his end might have happened suddenly and unexpectedly. It would have been painless that way.

More reports came in. One said he had been hit in the chest by the speedboat, while another said that he had been cut badly in the chest by the speedboat's propeller. In the end, it turned out he was swimming peacefully at a deserted beach 100 miles up the coast from Rio at a small resort town called Paraty. The speedboat raced across his back and its propeller left two large cuts there. He called for help, help came. But he had lost too much blood, and so did not survive. By the time an ambulance arrived to take him to a nearby hospital, he was gone.

I feel very badly about all this. Christian Wolffer was a man who made the dirt fly and got things done. He built amusement parks, sports rinks, climbing and hiking areas in undeveloped parts of the world, skating rinks, horse grounds and in Sagaponack here, which was his home base, Wolffer Vineyards, which included horse boarding, training, exercise stables and show jumping rings. He also created a magnificent vineyard and winery here, making the property bloom. And he had hundreds of admirers and friends, employees that had been with him for as many as 20 years, and an adoring family which intends to continue on with his vineyard here.

My daughter called me two days after his death to leave me a message about his passing, which, of course, I already knew. She read about it in the San Francisco Chronicle.

"They think this might have been foul play," she said. "Somebody got arrested. They think he was intentionally run down. That's what the article said."

I thought - who would want to kill Christian Wolffer? And then later that day, I read a different account. A man had been arrested who police said they thought had been at the wheel of that speedboat. He said it was not he, that he'd been somewhere else, and he had witnesses to that fact. But the police said they were going to continue to hold him anyway. He was still a suspect.

The article said that the man who went out in the water to rescue Wolffer when he called for help was a famous Brazilian TV star who had a leading role on a soap opera. They named him.

He had been at the same party where Wolffer was. What a hero.

There will be a memorial for Christian Wolffer at 2 p.m. on Sunday January 11 at the Bridgehampton Presbyterian Church.