Living in Winter Park 2017-2018 Edition

Living in

HISTORY  HOMES  HEALTH  ARTS  PARKS  DIRECTORIES

2017-2018 EDITION

THE CITY OF

CULTURE AND HERITAGE

CHARLES CLAYTON CONSTRUCTION

CHARLES CLAYTON CONSTRUCTION

Point ofView C O A S T A L

L I V I N G

C O L L E C T I O N

H O M E S B Y C H A R L E S C L AY T O N C O N S T R U C T I O N

AURORA AWARD WINNER FOR NEW CONSTRUCTION & REMODEL

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A PREMIER COASTAL VOLUSIA CUSTOM HOME BUILDER

CharlesClayton.com CGC#061392

407.628.3334 ©Cucciaioni Photography 2017

A LEGACY PROJECT ON

PARK AVENUE Park Hill Raises the Bar on Luxury at a One-of-a-Kind Location.

Hill Gray Seven LLC is offering perhaps the last opportunity to live in a new townhome in the heart of Winter Park’s world-famous shopping and dining district on Park Avenue.

Sales are now underway for Park Hill, which will encompass 10 extraordinary, three-story townhomes at the southwest corner of North Park Avenue and Whipple Avenue, across the street from the Winter Park Country Club and Casa Feliz.

Features will include:        

3,300 to 4,300 square feet of living area Private elevators First-floor courtyards Covered rooftop terraces with summer kitchens Classically stylish architecture Magnificent detailing, unsurpassed craftsmanship Interiors may be custom designed Lush, maintenance-free landscaping

Enjoy life in the undisputed retail, dining, cultural and intellectual hub of Central Florida, in an exclusive project that can never be duplicated. Of the five homes that remain, prices start at $2.65 million for the 3,300-square-foot units and $3.35 million for the 4,300-square-foot units, so act now on this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

For more information, please call Mick Night, Realtor, at Coldwell Banker Residential Real Estate

407-629-4446 or 407-718-1527

Hill Gray Seven is a family owned company that develops high-end residential, retail, office, medical and industrial projects in more than 17 states. The company is a preferred developer to many national firms such as DaVita Dialysis, a Fortune 500 company.

Living in

CONTENTS FEATURES 16 | LIVABLE AND LOVABLE In a region known for theme parks and sprawl, Winter Park is a friendly, carefully planned oasis of cultured cool. By Bob Morris, photography by Jessica deArcos and Nancy Vasquez, Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com) 32 | HOMES, SWEET HOMES Winter Park’s beauty is enhanced by its eclectic architecture. Photography by Jessica deArcos and Nancy Vasquez, Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com) 46 | CULTURE AND HERITAGE Art and history are on display at an eclectic array of amazing museums. By Michael McLeod with Randy Noles, Dana S. Eagles and Jay Boyar 58 | BACH TO THE FUTURE Winter Parkers go for baroque when it comes to the German master. By Randy Noles

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

64 | AN INSTITUTE OF IDEAS The Winter Park Institute at Rollins College Speaker Series carries on a tradition of intellectual leadership. By Randy Noles 68 | WINTER PARK HALL OF FAME Meet the people who ensured that Winter Park would be a special place from the start. By the Editors, digital art by Chip Weston 76 | COURSE CORRECTION As golf struggles to remain relevant, the city’s venerable layout starts its second century with a new, more challenging design. By Dana S. Eagles 82 | NATURAL PHENOMENON Clyde Butcher is world renowned for his photographs of the Everglades. Last year, he turned his attention to Mead Botanical Garden.

By Randy Noles

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The Morse Museum of American Art, one of Winter Park’s most treasured cultural assets, contains the world’s most comprehensive collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany glass.

92 | A WELLNESS REVOLUTION The Center for Health & Wellbeing will offer an integrative approach in a state-of-the-art new facility. By Dana S. Eagles

DEPARTMENTS 6 | MAYOR’S WELCOME 8 | PROUD AS A PEACOCK 10 | FAST FACTS 12 | DIRECTORY 14 | PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS AND GARDENS 100 | EVENTS

2017-2018 EDITION

Randy Noles EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Theresa Swanson GROUP PUBLISHER/NEW-HOME PUBLICATIONS Lorna Osborn SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Kathy Byrd ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Paula Chase ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Carolyn Edmunds GRAPHIC DESIGNER Jay Boyar, Dana S. Eagles, Michael McLeod CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Rafael Tongol, Chip Weston, Jessica deArcos and Nancy Vasquez, Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com) CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Marianne Popkins, Ned Popkins, Harry Wessel CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Special thanks to the Winter Park History Museum and the Department of Archives and Special Collections at Rollins College for additional images.

104 | EDUCATION GUIDE

SPECIAL SECTION VISION WINTER PARK Last year, the city embarked on a project called Vision Winter Park.

A visioning committee, facilitated by outside consultants and with input from thousands of residents, produced a document that identified the city’s values and provided overarching guidance for its longterm growth. This special section is a summary of the process, and the resulting vision for Winter Park’s future.

ON THE COVER: The peacock is the official symbol of Winter Park, emblazoned on its logo and wandering around at least one upscale neighborhood. This peacock, along with dozens of others, lives at the Genius Preserve adjacent to Windsong. Find out more about the colorful relationship between the city and the preening peafowl on page 8. Photograph by Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com)

Rick Walsh, Jim DeSimone FOUNDING PARTNERS, WINTER PARK MAGAZINE

FLORIDA CITIES MEDIA LLC Daniel Denton PRESIDENT Randy Noles CONSULTING PUBLISHER Pam Flanagan GENERAL MANAGER

Copyright 2017 by Florida Home Media LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Florida Cities Media LLC. All rights reserved.

Reproduction in whole or in part is prohibited without written permission of the copyright holder. Winter Park Magazine is published four times yearly by Florida Home Media LLC, 2700 Westhall Lane, Suite 220, Maitland, FL 32751

FOR GENERAL INFORMATION, CALL: 407-647-0225 For advertising information, call: Kathy Byrd, 407-399-7111; Lorna Osborn, 407-310-1002; Theresa Swanson, 407-448-8414; or Paula Chase, 407-484-1180

“The Seal of Homebuilding Excellence”

Pledged to maintaining the highest professional standards in the homebuilding industry, the Master Custom Builder Council represents the area’s leading custom and luxury home builders who have dedicated themselves to using their craft and workmanship to make Central Florida an even finer place to live.

Cahill Homes Charles Clayton Construction Dave Brewer DeLorenzo Homes Derrick Builders Farina & Sons

Goehring & Morgan Construction Hannigan Homes Hardwick General Contracting Issa Homes, Inc. J. Richard Watson Construction Kelsey Custom Homes

Legacy Custom Built McNally Construction Group Phil Kean Design Group Posada Custom Homes Regal Classic Homes Silliman Cityside Homes

Speer Homes Stonebridge Homes The Einheit Company Woodruff Construction and Development

P.O. Box 536732 • Orlando, Florida 32853 • 407.875.2121• www.custombuilt.com • www.facebook.com/MasterCustomBuilderCouncil

WELCOME! W PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

hether you’re new to the area or just relocating within the city, I’d like to welcome you to your new home in Winter Park!

The City of Winter Park is well known for many things, including its first-class shopping and dining experiences along Park Avenue, Hannibal Square, Orange Avenue and other areas. We’re also known for our beautiful chain of lakes, vast parks system, extensive tree canopy, popular spring and fall art festivals and other exciting annual events.

We’re proud to be the home of Rollins College, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, the Cornell Fine Arts Museum and the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens as well as many other venues to keep you and your guests busy most any day of the year.

As a resident, you’ll be pleased to know that we’ve not raised your millage rate since fiscal year 2009, and the city enjoys the third-lowest millage rate of any major jurisdiction in Orange County.

As well, at the beginning of 2017 we held 17 percent of our annual general fund operating budget in reserve, so we have cash on hand in case of need.

We’re very proud of our city and the high-quality services that we offer to residents, businesses and guests. I hope we exceed your expectations as you live, work and play in the best city in Florida — Winter Park.

For more information about Winter Park, please visit cityofwinterpark.org or connect with us on Facebook,, Twitter, Instagram, Vimeo, YouTube and Nextdoor. If I can be of service to you in any way, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at sleary@cityofwinterpark.org.

Best,

STEVE LEARY, Mayor

City of Winter Park

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Do something Do something deliciously fun. deliciously fun Do something deliciously fun.

Sign up for a Publix Aprons Cooking School class.

L O C A Tpublix.com/cookingschools IONS: W I N T E R PA R K V I L L A G E

a Publix 4 4 0 N . Sign O R Lup A Nfor DO A V E . Aprons Cooking School class.

W I N T E R PA R K , F L 32789 publix.com/cookingschools

407.644.2015

T H E M A R K E T P L A C E AT D R. P H I L L I P S 75 2 4 up D Rfor . PaHPublix I L L I PAprons S B O UCooking L E V A RSchool D Sign class.

ORLAND O, F L 32819 publix.com/cookingschools

407.226.9796

For the class schedule and to reserve your spot, visit publix.com/cookingschools

Why does a peacock adorn the City of Winter Park’s logo? It all goes back to Hugh F. McKean (1908-1995) and Jeannette Genius McKean (1909-1989). Hugh — artist, educator, collector and writer — was the 10th president of Rollins College, serving from 1951 through 1969. He then became the college’s chancellor and chairman of its board of trustees. In 1945, while still an art professor at the college, he married Jeannette (above), granddaughter of Charles Hosmer Morse, the Chicago industrialist and philanthropist who helped to shape modern Winter Park. Both McKeans were lovers of nature and cultivated a preserve filled with peacocks around Wind Song, the lakefront estate that Jeannette inherited from her father, Richard Genius. Genius Drive, the dirt road leading through the preserve and to the estate, was open to the public until the 1990s. The property, now owned by the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation and dubbed the Genius Preserve, encompasses the city’s largest remaining orange grove and several structures, including the unoccupied but carefully maintained family home. And it’s still bustling with preening (and noisy) peafowl descended from those the McKeans unleashed in 1950. In 2004, Winter Park officially adopted the peacock as its symbol, along with the tagline “The City of Culture and Heritage.”

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PEACOCK

PHOTO OF JEANNETTE MCKEAN COURTESY OF THE ROLLINS COLLEGE ARCHIVES DIGITAL ART OF PEACOCK BY EDWARD FELDMAN

PROUD AS A

OLDE Winter Park • Maitland • Orlando #1 Agents in Luxury Home Sales since 1988

2000 • Lake Maitland • $7.495.000

8,766 SF, 4BR Main house, One of a kind estate on double lot w/ 2 boathouses, 2BR guest house, exquisite attention to detail throughout & elegant architectural design

1928 • Lake Virginia • $3.495.000

4,908 SF, 4 BR, Mediterranean lakefront available for first time in almost 50 years, located blocks from Park Ave, spacious backyard w/ multiple entertaining areas, pool & boathouse

2010 • WP - Windsong • $2.595.000

6,831 SF, 4BR, European French estate on premier 1/2 acre lot, exquisite details throughout, 1st flr master retreat, 2 offices, home theater & covered lanai w/ summer kitchen

2008 • Downtown WP • $1.395.000

3,112 SF, 3BR, Luxurious bright & open townhome facing Park Avenue, located in the Douglas Grand, one of Central Florida’s most distinctive in-town living experiences

MICK NIGHT REALTOR

micknight1@gmail.com

2005 • Lake Virginia & Mizell • $6.795.000

10,314 SF, 6BR, Unique lakefront estate located on private gated street, custom one-owner home on 2+ acre lot w/ water on both sides, resort style lanai & pool

2017 • Downtown WP • $2.65 - $3.35M

3,300 - 4,300 SF, 3BR, Park Hill, an ultra-luxury townhome project w/ unmatched quality craftsmanship located along the famed stretch of Park Avenue that encompasses downtown

1936 • Downtown WP • $1.995.000

1925 • Lake Virginia • $4.995.000

7,800 SF, 5BR, Traditional estate on 1.5 acres w/ 200’ of lake frontage, walking distance to Park Ave, completely renovated & expanded, detached guest suite & separate guest house

1930 • Lake Osceola • $2.975.000

5,409 SF, 5BR, Timeless Mizner Mediterranean estate w/ long lakefront views, updated to today’s standards w/ authentic character, large patio, resort style pool & boat dock w/ lift

2017 • Downtown WP • $1.395.000

3,992 SF, 4BR, Santa Barbara style Mediterranean in the heart of downtown Winter Park near Alfond Inn, overlooking Lake Osceola… artfully renovated and expanded

3,763 SF, 4BR, Brand new elegant modern Mediterranean w/ bright & open flr plan, high ceilings and transitional interiors, gourmet kitchen, fold away French doors to expansive lanai

2017 • Winter Park • $1.295.000

2017 • Winter Park • $1.109.500 - $1.164.900

3,937 SF, 4BR, Alys/Rosemary Beach style home built w/ all the latest modern design & amenities… bright open flr plan, multiple flex spaces, terrific entertaining areas inside & out

407.629.4446

www.night-pinel.com

3,229 - 3,350 SF, 3 - 4BR, Brand new luxury townhomes near Park Ave w/ top quality finishes, bright-open transitional style interiors & smart home technology

JOHN PINEL REALTOR

johnbpinel@gmail.com

OBJ - 2017 REALTOR/Broker of the Year / Over $1.1 Billion in Career Sales

WINTER PARK FAST FACTS with the purchase of 600 acres for $13,000, as a winter getaway for Northern tycoons.

INCORPORATED: 1887 with a city council-mayor form of government and a population of about 600.

LOGO: PEACOCK DEMOGRAPHICS (2010): Persons under 18 years old, 18.3 %; persons 65 years and older, 19.9 %; white, 86.9 %; black, 7.6 %; Hispanic or Latino (regardless of race), 7 %; Asian, 2.3 %; two or more races, 1.8 %.

TOTAL RETAIL SALES (2012):

$816,008,000

ADOPTED BY THE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IN 1923.

CURRENT NICKNAME: “THE CITY OF CULTURE AND HERITAGE”

ADOPTED BY THE CITY COMMISSION IN 2004.

SIZE (2010): 8.68 5,555 SQUARE MILES

TOTAL ACREAGE

POPULATION (2015):

29,943 $59,405 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME (2015):

Up 7.5 percent from 2010.

MEDIAN VALUE OF OWNER-

OCCUPIED HOMES (2015):

$320,300 CITY COMMISSION MEETINGS: Second and fourth Mondays of each month, 3:30 p.m.

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ELECTION DATES: Primary elections (if more than two persons qualify for one seat), second Tuesday in February; general elections, second Tuesday in March.

PERSONS (AGE 25-PLUS) WITH BACHELOR’S DEGREE OR HIGHER (2015):

HOUSEHOLDS (2015):

11,793 PERSONS SPEAKING A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH AT HOME:

13.9 % PROPERTYTAX MILLAGE RATE (2016):

4.2638 ($4.26 in tax for every $1,000 in assessed property value).

TOTAL BUSINESS FIRMS

(BOTH EMPLOYERS AND SOLE PROPRIETORSHIPS, 2012):

6,035

56.7% 22.3 MINUTES MEAN TRAVEL TIME TO WORK (2015):

PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

FOUNDED: 1881 FIRST NICKNAME: “CITY OF TREES”

The Best Mexican in Town Voted be st Tex Mex / Mex ican 6 ye ars in a row.

Authentic & savory food made from scratch

407.790.7997 cocina214.com

151 E Welbourne Ave Winter Park, FL 32789

DIRECTORY Bright House Networks (cable-TV services): 3767 All American Blvd., Orlando; 407-291-2500.

CenturyLink (landline-phone utility): 151 S. New York Ave., 407-830-3115.

City Commission: City Hall, 401 S. Park Ave.; 407-599-3399; Mayor Steve Leary, 407-5993234; Commissioner Greg Seidel, 407-599-3234; Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel, 407-599-3234; Commissioner Carolyn Cooper, 407-599-3234; Commissioner Pete Weldon, 407-599-3234.

City Manager: Randy B. Knight, 407-599-3235.

City Clerk: Cindy Bonham, 407-599-3277.

Building & Permitting Services Department: Director George Wiggins, 407-599-3237; automated inspection line, 407-599-3350; business certificates, permits and licenses, 407-599-3237; Keep Winter Park Beautiful, 407-599-3364; solid waste and recycling (Waste Pro), 407-774-0800.

Fire-Rescue Department: Chief Jim White; 407599-3297; emergency, 911; non-emergency, 407-644-1212.

Parks & Recreation Department: Director John Holland, 407-599-3334; Farmers’ Market, 200 W. New England Ave., 407-599-3358; Winter Park Tennis Center (privately managed),1075 Azalea Lane, 407-599-3445; Winter Park Country Club & Golf Course, 407-623-3339; Rachel D. Murrah Civic Center, 1050 W. Morse Blvd., 407-5993341; Winter Park Community Center, 721 W. New England Ave., 407-599-3275; Azalea Lane Recreation Center, 1045 Azalea Lane, 407-5993323; Lake Island Hall, 450 Harper St., 407-5993341; Cemeteries Division, 407-599-3252.

Planning & Community Development Department: Director Dori Stone, 407-599-3665.

Police Department: Chief Brett Railey; 407-599-3380; emergency, 911; non-emergency, 407-644-1313.

Public Works & Electric Utility Departments: Director Troy Attaway, 407-599-3233; power outages, 1-877-811-8700; utilities customer service, 407-599-3220, (Monday-Friday 8 a.m.-5 p.m.); Lakes Division, 407-599-3599; Engineering inspection line, 407-599-3329.

TIFFANY at the MORSE The Morse Museum houses the world’s most comprehensive collection of works

by Louis Comfort Tiffany, including his chapel interior from the 1893 Chicago world’s fair and art objects from his Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall.

LI V I NG I N WI N TE R PARK

Water & Wastewater Utilities: Director David Zusi, 407-599-3233.

Winter Park Chamber of Commerce: 151 N. Lyman Ave., 407-644-8281.

Winter Park Memorial Hospital: 200 N. Lakemont Ave.; administration, 407-646-7495; emergency department, 407-646-7320; patient information, 407-646-7001.

follow us on

445 north park avenue winter park, florida 32789 (407) 645-5311 www.morsemuseum.org

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U.S. Post Office: 300 N. New York Ave., 1-800275-8777.

Winter Park Public Library: 460 E. New England Ave., 407-623-3300.

Winter Park YMCA: 1201 N. Lakemont Ave., 407-644-1509; Peggy & Phillip B. Crosby Wellness Center, 407-644-3606 (closed for construction at press time).

PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS AND

GARDENS Winter Park boasts 11 major parks and 14 miniparks, ranging from large, amenity-packed sites to cozy places tucked away in neighborhoods; from manicured showplaces to a vast botanical garden encompassing wetlands and other untamed natural areas. Here they are:

MAJOR PARKS Central Park. Known as the crown jewel of the city, this 11-acre park in the heart of the vibrant downtown shopping and dining district is the site of many popular annual events, including the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival and Christmas in the Park. But the beauty of its fountains, rose garden and oak tree canopy make any visit a special occasion. Wheelchair accessible, Wi-Fi enabled. 251 S. Park Ave. 407-599-3334.

Dinky Dock. This 1.6-acre park on the shore of Lake Virginia features two docks, boat ramps and a fishing pier. Swimming is also allowed. With grills and picnic tables, it’s an ideal spot for a whole day on the water. Wheelchair accessible.

Ollie Avenue. 407-599-3397.

PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

Howell Branch Preserve. Surrounded by wetlands, this 10.4-acre park offers a boardwalk and observation deck perfect for nature lovers, as well as a fitness trail with exercise stations and a playground.

There are also picnic tables and a rental pavilion.

Wheelchair accessible. 1205 Howell Branch Road.

407-599-3334.

Kraft Azalea Garden. If Central Park is the city’s crown jewel, then this is its hidden gem. Sometimes referred to as the “secret garden,” this secluded and shady 5.2-acre park on the shore of Lake Maitland features a grand exedra and even grander cypress trees as well as, of course, azaleas galore. Wheelchair accessible. 1365 Alabama Drive. 407-599-3334.

Lake Baldwin Park. The whole family can romp and play along the sandy beach of Lake Baldwin — including Fido. This 23-acre park, known locally as “the dog park,” is the only one in the city where man’s best friend may be off-leash. A playground, picnic tables, dock and boat ramp complete the fun. 2000 S. Lakemont Ave. 407-599-3334.

Martin Luther King, Jr. Park. With a magnificent castle-like playground, this park is certainly fit for a king (or a little prince or princess). The northeast corner, where the Rachel D. Murrah Civic Center is now, is slated to be home for the city’s new public library and events center. Its 23 acres also include a variety of sports facilities. Lake Mendsen, which features a fountain and a community-built bridge,

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also provides a tranquil walking path and spots for fishing. A smaller lake — more of a pond, really — known as Lake Rose was formed when a massive sinkhole opened in 1981 and swallowed a home and parts of several businesses along Fairbanks Avenue. Wheelchair accessible. 1050 W. Morse Blvd. 407-599-3334.

Mead Botanical Garden. A wild, wonderful oasis, this 47.6-acre park is known for abundant bird life, natural wetlands and lush foliage. The greenhouse and butterfly garden have recently been revitalized, while the Discovery Barn and community garden encourage all ages to become involved.

Boardwalks have been expanded and repaired, and two amphitheaters are available for concerts and special events. Wheelchair accessible. 1300 S. Denning Drive. 407-599-3334.

Phelps Park. This 5.9-acre park offers a variety of facilities for all ages, including two large playgrounds, and basketball and tennis courts. With two rental pavilions, it’s especially suited to family get-togethers. Wheelchair accessible. Phelps Avenue. 407-599-3334.

Shady Park. Located in historic Hannibal Square, next to the Winter Park Community Center, the park features a “spray play” water feature as well as benches and a walking path. Wheelchair accessible. 721 W. New England Ave. 407-599-3275.

Ward Park and Cady Way. Bisected by the popular Cady Way Trail, this park offers a tranquil respite for trailblazers — as well as an abundance of athletic facilities across its 66-plus acres, including baseball/softball fields, soccer fields, tennis courts, a football/track stadium and an Olympicsized pool. There are also two playgrounds, one of which is disabled-accessible. Wheelchair accessible. Cady Way at Perth Lane, 407-599-3334 or 2525; Cady Way, 407-599-3397.

MINI-PARKS Alberta Drive Mini Park, Alberta Drive; Alberta/ Cortland Mini Park, Alberta Drive and Cortland Avenue; Alfred J. Hanna Mini Park, Holt and French avenues; Bonnie Burn Mini Park, Bonnie Burn Circle; Fawcett Road Lakefront Mini Park, Fawcett Road; Hooper Park, Orange and Orlando avenues; Jay Blanchard Park, Aloma Avenue and Sylvan Drive; Lake Knowles, Lake Knowles Circle; Lake Wilbar, Wilbar Circle; Lasbury/Maiden Mini Park, Lasbury Avenue and Maiden Lane; Orwin Manor Park, Orange Avenue; Smiley Park Mini Park, Phelps Avenue; Sunset/Chestnut Mini Park, Sunset Drive and Chestnut Avenue; Tyree Lane Mini Park, Tyree Lane. Via Bella Mini Park, Via Bella. 

Winter Park boasts an abundance of beautiful places for relaxation and recreation. Shown is the iconic exedra at Kraft Azalea Garden.

LIVING IN WINTE R PARK 

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We wanted to find an excuse to re-use this painting of the azaleas in the Genius Preserve adjacent to the Windsong neighborhood. A cropped version was used as the cover for the spring 2017 issue of Winter Park Magazine, and it generated so much response that we wanted to show you what it looked like when shown full width. The artist is Elizabeth "Cissy" Barr, who at 90 years young is as formidable a painter as ever.

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Livable Lovable and

In a region known for theme parks and sprawl, Winter Park is a friendly, carefully planned oasis of cultured cool.

BY BOB MORRIS PHOTOGRAPHY BY JESSICA DEARCOS AND NANCY VASQUEZ WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK 

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Park Avenue is the dining and retail hub of Winter Park, and one of the most eclectic commercial districts in all of Florida. It’s anchored by Central Park, a carefully manicured, 11-acre green space dotted with monuments to the city’s history. The shops and restaurants are intriguing, and draw shoppers and strollers from throughout the region as well as out-of-state tourists and even international visitors.

N

ot long ago, while planning a cross-country drive, I picked up a copy of the 2016 Rand McNally Road Atlas. Old school, yes, in this era of Google Maps, but good to have in the car when the wireless signal turns fickle.

I flipped to Florida, scanned to where my hometown should be and … no Winter Park. Plenty of much smaller places made the map, places that hardly possess downtowns, such as Geneva, for gosh sakes, and even Oak Hill. But Winter Park? Snubbed.

My first reaction was outrage. But that was almost instantly replaced by: How much can we pay Rand McNally to keep leaving Winter Park off their maps?

Maybe there ought to be other tactics as well. Not that I’d endorse one of those “walls” that certain folks talk about, but a broad campaign of “benign misdirection?” That’s something I could get behind.

I can’t count the times, when asked by out-of-towners where I’m from, I’ve told them Winter Park only to hear: “Oh, where the Red Sox used to have spring training?” Nope, that’s Winter Haven. Or, “That old citrus town west of Orlando?” No, that’s Winter Garden. Or, “That place just south of Sanford?” Unh-uh, that’s Winter Springs.

Admittedly, for the uninitiated, it can be tough sorting out all the Winter whatevers in this neck of the woods. And let the record show that I’ve always tried to be helpful and set their geography straight. But no more. Let those

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who can’t quite figure out where Winter Park is stay confused. Let ’em wander off toward Lakeland or up 17-92. Let ’em consult their Rand McNallys.

Before I came to live in Winter Park, I embraced the same view of Winter Parkers that all who don’t live here hold to be true: That Winter Parkers are a smug, self-satisfied lot who believe their town is more special than all the rest.

After all, we have long had street signs that say: “Entering Winter Park.

Please drive with extraordinary care.” And pranksters still come along with spray paint and change them to: “Please drive extraordinary car.”

Vandalism, yes, but forgivable, mainly because it’s spot-on social commentary. It reinforces the notion that Winter Parkers hold themselves in way-too-high esteem. That they are just so … insufferable.

Now that I am a Winter Parker of many years standing I can say with authority: Guilty as charged. But, I would plead, there are extenuating circumstances. Can we help it if the place we call home is the most livable city in Florida?

I’m not saying ours is Florida’s coolest, hippest city. Miami, Fort Lauderdale — they win on that front. Nor, despite our art festivals, galleries and museums is it the most cultured. That’s Sarasota, easy, with Palm Beach a distant, seasonal contender.

And Winter Park is far too prim and proper — we won’t even allow dogs in Central Park, for God’s sake — to rank high on the funky front. Key

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Pre-K4 - 6th Grade • 1450 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland, FL 32751 • (407) 647-3038 • parkmaitland.org Untitled-1 1

5/11/17 10:32 PM

The busiest station operated by SunRail, the region's commuter-rail service, is in the heart of Winter Park. The charming Craftsman-style building (above), located near the intersection of Morse Boulevard and Park Avenue, is where thousands of visitors arrive from across Central Florida every year. Amtrak passengers also embark and disembark here. Many of those visitors find themselves exploring downtown's various nooks and crannies, such as the eclectic shops of Greeneda Court (left) and the Hidden Gardens.

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West, downtown O’do — they all outfunk us. By a long shot.

But when it comes to sheer livability, hands down, it’s Winter Park. Winter Park is an island in a sea of sameness. Of all the other “Parks” hereabouts — College, Thornton, Baldwin, Theme, etc. — it’s the only one that’s incorporated, and thereby officially delineated (physically and psychically) from Central Florida’s sprawl.

Now marking 130 years since its incorporation as a city, Winter Park has cemented its standing not only as a place more special, but as a center of influence and affluence of far greater regional impact than its population (about 29,000 residents) might suggest.

It has been that way throughout the city’s history, which is so entwined with that of Rollins College that it’s often difficult to remember which came first, the college or the city.

While the first permanent residents settled here in the 1850s, it wasn’t until 1880 that the area began to flourish, thanks largely to the expansion of the South Florida Railroad and the arrival of Chicagoan Loring Chase and his business partner, Oliver Chapman, from Massachusetts.

They bought 600 acres along the chain of lakes with the purpose of creating, as one newspaper of the time reported, “a first-class resort of Northern and Southern men of wealth, where amidst orange groves and beautiful lakes and luxuries that every enterprise and wealth can devise and command, a L I V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

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L I V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

PHOTOS BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Winter Park has two very different hotels. The intimate Park Plaza Hotel (above) was founded in 1922 as the Hamilton Hotel on Park Avenue, and is a beloved local institution. The newer Alfond Inn (facing page, top), owned

by Rollins College and located near Park Avenue on New England Avenue, offers luxurious accommodations as well as state-of-the-art meeting and event space. Just two blocks west of Park Avenue between Virginia and Pennsylvania avenues is another delightful shopping and dining district, bustling Hannibal Square (facing page, bottom), which was redeveloped in the ‘90s and continues to evolve. Downtown Winter Park is also the scene of numerous events and festivals, among the most notable of which is the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival (right), which attracts several hundred artists and several hundred thousand spectators. Shown here, artists are preparing to open their booths for business before the throngs arrive.

community of grand winter homes, a resort second to none in the South.”

A few years later, when municipalities throughout the state submitted bids to be the site of Florida’s first four-year institution of higher learning, most considered Jacksonville the odds-on frontrunner. With 8,000 residents, it was the most populous city in Florida and offered an enticement of $13,000 along with several acres of land.

Winter Park had only a few hundred residents, but among them were numerous well-heeled Northern businessmen who had built winter homes here. They knew what a college, along with its cultural amenities, could mean to a small outpost of gentility on the Florida frontier.

When Winter Park representatives trumped the Jacksonville bid nearly nine-fold, with an offer of $114,000 and prime acreage along lakes Virginia and Osceola, the rest of Florida took notice. Rollins College was born, welcoming its first students in the fall of 1885.

And Winter Park, incorporated two years later, won its now longstanding reputation as a place where residents are willing to invest in their community for the greater good.

For all the contemporary talk about communities that embrace “New LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK

23

The Winter Park Communty Center (above) features a mosaic mural entitled "Winter Park Community Pride," which celebrates the history of the city’s historically African-American west side. The Palmer Avenue Bridge (facing page), which spans the Flamingo Canal, is one of the most picturesque places in Winter Park. The city’s canals were originally dredged to transport building materials, but today provide stunning scenery for boaters.

Urbanism” — witness Celebration, Seaside and myriad other wannabes — Winter Park was all about New Urbanism before New Urbanism was cool.

The city’s livability stems in large part from the original plans fostered by developers Chase and Chapman in the late 19th century. They brought in a civil engineer, Samuel Robinson, who although not a town planner by profession, adhered to the best practices of the time.

He included curved streets that radiated out from a distinct town center, the same sort of common-sense plan you see in cities like Sarasota and Coral Gables. It explains why Winter Park works on a human scale — and it explains the strength and resiliency of Park Avenue.

Newspaper and magazine stories about Winter Park often refer to “tony Park Avenue.” Which makes it sound much more highfalutin than it really is.

Stretching nearly a mile — from the main entrance of Rollins to the cityowned Winter Park Golf Course, with its nine-hole layout that dates back more than a century — the commercial portion of the avenue runs through the heart of downtown Winter Park.

While a select group of national retailers have a presence here — Eileen Fisher, Pottery Barn, Restoration Hardware, Williams-Sonoma — locally owned businesses are still a mainstay.

Yes, there’s a Home Depot and Lowe’s just a short drive away, but why bother when there’s Miller’s Hardware? Founded in 1944, it’s Winter Park’s

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LI V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

oldest continuous family-owned business. Miller’s sells everything from power tools and gas grills to cookware and garden supplies.

There are always plenty of handy staff on hand who can explain to the unhandy, such as me, how stuff works. And forget all the pre-packaged goods. Miller’s is the kind of throwback place where, if you need one nut and one bolt, they’ll sell it to you. Plus, they’ll put it in a paper packet and mark the price by hand.

Or, to twist what Gertrude Stein so famously said, disparagingly, of her hometown, there is a here here.

The four activities I love best in this world are: Walking. Eating. Drinking. And serendipitously bumping into friends, catching up, and letting time slip away in good company. Usually while eating and drinking. There are a couple of other activities I love, too, but we needn’t go into them here, since I seldom do them in public.

What I like about living in Winter Park is that I can do all those things on a daily basis, and do them with ease. Meaning, I don’t have to get into a car and deal with what’s worst about living in Central Florida, other than the humidity.

I own a dorky Vespa, which I dearly love, for scooting around —Winter Park is ideal for scooting around — but mostly I’m on foot.

My perfect Winter Park day starts by getting up early to knock off an

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK 

25

Central Park’s Rose Garden has special significance apart from its sheer beauty. It’s where John Michael Thomas, a local Eagle Scout, spearheaded construction of a peacockthemed memorial statue to honor a childhood friend, Elizabeth Buckley, who died of brain cancer.

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L I V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

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LI V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

Beautiful Rollins College is one of the region’s most precious cultural treasures as well as an intellectual and cultural hub. One of its most important buildings is Knowles Memorial Chapel (facing page), designed by acclaimed architect Ralph Adams Cram and dedicated in 1932. The Alfond Boathouse (above), as seen from Lake Virginia, provides a home for the college’s various water activities, while on dry land the campus is filled with architecturally striking landmarks.

They include the majestic McKean Archway (right), which serves as the campus’s formal entry and anchors the southern terminus of Park Avenue.

obligatory amount of work so I can bring in a little money and assuage my inescapable guilt. Then I’m out walking around Winter Park, typically in the presence of my wife, who is the Energizer Bunny of walking. The woman will not stroll. We cover a lot of turf.

We live near Mead Botanical Garden, one of Winter Park’s real treasures, a 55-acre oasis owned by the city. Founded in 1940 to memorialize Theodore Mead — a renowned horticulturist who grew orchids and developed new varieties of rare ferns, bromeliads and caladiums — the garden occupies a precious habitat between Lake Sue and Lake Virginia, with Howell Creek running through it and connecting the two.

Mead Botanical Garden also contains more than 150 edible plants and shrubs. If you’re not into foraging, then no worries. Winter Park boasts a critical mass of standout restaurants, along with a goodly number of decent watering holes, all of which I can reach on foot.

Almost every day, we walk through the campus at Rollins, which is its own island within the island that is Winter Park. It’s surely one of the most gorgeous campuses in the country, with several of its buildings designed by James Gamble Rogers II, whose work became emblematic of Winter Park architecture.

A bit of local wisdom: If you’re seeking a place to grab a bite to eat and look out on one of the lakes — hard to come by if you don’t own a lakefront home or belong to a private club — drop by the cafeteria at the Rollins student center.

It’s fairly cheap, the food fairly good, and the view of Lake Virginia is easily worth whatever your meal costs. And on the ground floor there’s the newish Dave’s Boathouse, with local beers on tap.

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK

29

The Winter Park Farmers’ Market is held at the old train depot, a restored historic landmark at 200 West New England Avenue. The market takes place every Saturday from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m., and is a popular community gathering place offering produce, plants, baked goods and much more.

One more piece of local wisdom: If you want a stellar view of the city, climb the four flights of stairs up to the roof of the SunTrust parking garage, between Comstock and Lyman avenues. Do this at sunrise or sunset. It’s all trees and church steeples, and if you look south, toward Rollins, you can almost imagine yourself in Florence.

Not that you need to be, since Winter Park has its fair share of museums — the Cornell Fine Arts Museum (with an encyclopedic collection ranging from ancient objects to modern masterworks), the Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Gardens (a showcase for sculpture on Lake Osceola) and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art (a world-class collection of the works of Louis Comfort Tiffany).

You can read more about all of these cultural jewels — and many more — elsewhere in Living in Winter Park.

Yes, there’s plenty to see afoot in a town that sets itself apart.

Not long ago, we were part of a group of pedestrians crossing Park Avenue — the stoplight was in our favor — when a car bearing out-of-state license plates tried to turn right on red. The driver blared his horn. The woman walking in front of us, a Winter Parker whom I see out often, stopped dead in her tracks.

She pointed at the driver.

“This is Winter Park, honey,” she said, wagging a finger. “We don’t honk.”

Nope, not here. It’s a more special place. Maybe even extraordinary.

If you can find it. 

30

Bob Morris is a longtime newspaper columnist, novelist and raconteur. He is founder of Story Farm, a Winter Park-based company that publishes books for corporate and civic clients.

L I V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

HOMES, SWEET

HOMES PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

The McAllaster House.

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Winter Park is known for its beautiful, gracious homes. But what makes the city even more special is that its prettiest homes aren’t necessarily its most elaborate or expensive.

Some were originally second homes built by wealthy snowbirds who already had family estates in Boston, Chicago or New York. Consequently, their Winter Park digs, while lovely and comfortable, were often relatively modest in scale. Mansions began appearing as this erstwhile seasonal resort began attracting more permanent residents. Today, despite its upscale reputation, many homes in Winter Park remain comparatively affordable. Of course, there are plenty of seven-figure mansions as well, and some older homes are being razed to make way for new construction. So, whether it’s old or new, elaborate or economical, you’ll find what you’re looking for in Winter Park.

The Greer-Vanderberg House.

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PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM) PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

The Alabama Hotel, now condominiums.

Entrance to the exclusive Isle of Sicily neighborhood.

LIV I NG IN WINTE R PARK 

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Temple House.

2012 New American Home.

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Boathouse on Lake Maitland.

PHOTOS (TOP AND LEFT) BY RAFAEL TONGOL AND (BOTTOM RIGHT) WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

The Palms.

VISION

WINTER PARK LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK 

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OUR VISION WINTER PARK IS THE CITY OF ARTS AND CULTURE, CHERISHING ITS TRADITIONAL SCALE AND CHARM WHILE BUILDING A HEALTHY AND SUSTAINABLE FUTURE FOR ALL GENERATIONS.

FOUR VISION THEMES The city’s new vision did not alter or change Winter Park’s existing seal, and the tagline “City of Culture & Heritage” remains intact. The new vision supports and enhances the existing brand represented on the city’s official seal.

1 2

Cherish and sustain Winter Park’s extraordinary quality of life.

3

Enhance the Winter Park brand through a flourishing community of arts and culture.

4

Build and embrace our local institutions for lifelong learning and future generations.

Plan our growth through a collaborative process that protects our city’s timeless scale and character.

1

Cherish and Sustain Winter Park’s Extraordinary Quality of Life Preserve the legacy of Winter Park as a safe, beautiful, healthy and family-friendly environment.

Honor our historic and cultural features throughout Winter Park.

Steward and enhance our tree canopy and lakes as the crown jewels of Winter Park’s natural system.

Invest in a sustainable future that encourages and supports lifelong learning, healthy living and a daily connectivity to the natural world.

2

Plan Our Growth through a Collaborative Process that Protects Our City’s Timeless Scale and Character Recognize unique areas of the city and provide a collaborative planning process that ensures quality development while reflecting the context and heritage of the area.

Support our diverse population with a mix of housing types while respecting our traditional neighborhood character and scale.

Enhance walking, biking and recreational activities through a connected and integrated network of open space.

Foster sustainable public and private parks and open spaces using state-of-the-art practices and techniques.

Increase the connection to nature by incentivizing public and private green space through the design and development process.

Protect and build on the local and unique brand and reputation of Park Avenue.

Retain and attract businesses that enhance the quality and character of the city.

Invest in innovative infrastructure to ensure that our means to get around is safe and efficient, through prioritization of pedestrians, bicyclists and transit users.

3

Enhance the Winter Park Brand Through a Flourishing Community of Arts and Culture Support our cultural institutions and the arts through the development of complementary improvements, innovative partnerships, marketing, events and programs.

Recognize the value of our unique arts and cultural venues and their connection to Winter Park’s character as a destination.

Integrate arts into all environments — our businesses, parks, neighborhoods and institutions.

4

Build and Embrace Our Local Institutions for Lifelong Learning and Future Generations Promote lifelong learning by connecting and integrating our institutions through new and continued collaboration.

Create an environment that supports our colleges, library and educational institutions by crafting a healthy environment and creatively built community.

A COMMUNITYDEVELOPED VISION

I

n response to city leadership’s desire to fully engage our residents and businesses in the visioning process, the process focused intensely on public involvement. Building this Vision has been directed by our community: communitywide direct mailings to every household; online outreach; three questionnaires; newspaper, magazine and journal ads; more than 60 events, community sponsored activities, family events, educational forums, neighborhood park meetings, interviews and focus group meetings. Our 21-person Steering Committee and more than 100 CoCreators served as our sounding board for the future. In recognition of their vital role in the process, our CoCreators were invited to personalized workshops. Our Steering Committee assisted in getting word out to the community — outlining a program that continually engaged our citizens, identifying additional opportunities to reach out and listen to neighbors, business owners, visitors, family and friends. Our Steering Committee spent time with these groups, created a common understanding and educated each other throughout the process.

WINTER PARK DINNER ON THE AVENUE Apr il 2016

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EVENTS “WEEKENDS IN THE PARK”

FOCUS GROUP MEETINGS

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OUR VALUES diversity parks/ recreation

cultural assets aesthetics

safety/ security walkability/ bikeability

tranquility/ calmness

uniqueness

landscape setting/ wildlife

family-oriented

excellence/ high-quality/ world-class technology

community/ people progressive

collaboration/ involvement

village ambiance/small town feel friendly/ welcoming

pride

stewardship/ sustainability quality of life

history/heritage character thriving commercial areas

transportation/ transit

locational convenience

creativity

appeal/ destination

proactive growth/ future active/healthy lifestyles inclusiveness equality

vibrancy

generational appeal education

WINTER PARK OLDE FASHIONED 4TH OF JULY WINTER PARK SIP N’ STROLL

“WINTER PARK COFFEE TALKS”

June 2015

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APPROXIM ATELY 4 00 AT T E ND E E S

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6

REPRESENTING OUR POPULATION MAKEUP: CITY OF WINTER PARK POPULATION STATISTICS:

VISION WINTER PARK RESPONDENT STATISTICS: Prefer Not to State 2%

Other 0%

Male, 48%

Male, 48%

Female, 52% Female, 52%

can,

Male 39%

SEX

Female 59%

Prefer Not to State 3%

Under 19, 23%

70+ 10%

Under 23%16% 20 -19,29, 20 - 29, 16%

30 - 39, 11%

% cific aska

30 - 39, 11%

40 11% 40- 49,- 49,

11%

50 - 59, 15%

50 - 59, 15%

20 – 29 8%

60 – 69 21%

AG E

10%

30 – 39 15% 40 – 49 17%

50 – 59 25%

60 - 69, 10%

70 60+, 13% - 69,

Under 19 1%

70 +, 13%

White, 86% White,

Asian 2%

86%

Native Hawaiian or American Indian or Other Pacific Islander Alaska Native 3% Prefer Not to State 1% 0% 4%

Hispanic or Latino 3% Black or African American 4%

Black or African-American, 8%

Black or African-American, 8%

Asian, 3% 8% , 52%

Hispanic Latino, 10% Asian,or 3% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 0%

R ACE

White 83%

Hispanic or Latino, 10%

American Indian or Alaska Native, 1% Other, 3% Native

Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 0% American Indian or Alaska Native, 1% Other, 3%

NonResident, 26% Resident, 74%

MOVING FORWARD The next step in advancing Vision Winter Park revolves around how we act and collaborate. The Vision embodies the hopes and dreams of our community and expresses how we want to interact with each other. It also directs how we plan and design our future built and natural environments. This document provides an overarching direction for the future of Winter Park and establishes the foundation upon which other regulatory documents can build. It is timeless, valuable and far-reaching. It will be achieved through a thoughtful and deliberate combination of projects big and small, fresh programs and new partnerships.

It will be important for our community to honor and regularly check in on our Vision. Together we are, and will continue to be, a city that is beyond extraordinary.

S

incerest thanks to the Winter Park Community for your ongoing support to help move our city beyond extraordinary.

VISION STEERING COMMITTEE John Gill, Chairman Jeffrey Blydenburgh, Vice Chairman Meg Baldwin Scott Bodie John Caron Steve Castino Michael Dick Jeffrey Eisenbarth Dykes Everett Shawn Garvey Steve Goldman Marketa Hollingsworth Sharon Line Clary Patty Maddox Debra Ousley Garrett Preisser Peter Schreyer David Strong William Sullivan Pitt Warner Rebecca Wilson

CITY OF WINTER PARK CITY COMMISSION Steve Leary, Mayor Gregory Seidel, Commissioner Sarah Sprinkel, Commissioner Carolyn Cooper, Commissioner Pete Weldon, Commissioner

CITY OF WINTER PARK Randy Knight, City Manager Dori Stone, AICP, Director, Planning & Community Development Clarissa Howard, Director, Communications Lindsey Hayes, AICP, Program Manager, Economic Development/ CRA Kyle Dudgeon, Manager, Economic Development/ CRA Allison McGillis, Planner I Laura Neudorffer, Redevelopment Coordinator Lisa Smith, Senior Staff Assistant

Special Thanks

t

his Vision was built through conversations about values, hopes, dreams and desires for our shared future.

CONSULTANT TEAM Bruce Meighen, AICP, Logan Simpson Megan Moore, ASLA, Assoc. AIA, Logan Simpson Brooke Seaman, Logan Simpson Tom Keith, Logan Simpson Ryan McClain, Logan Simpson Miriam McGilvray, AICP, Logan Simpson Maria Michieli-Best, Logan Simpson Peter Kageyama, Author, For the Love of Cities & Love Where You Live Michelle Royal, RIDG Clif Tate, PE, Kimley-Horn Heather Roberts, PE, Kimley-Horn Chris Haller, Urban Interactive Studio Fritz Clauson, Urban Interactive Studio Edson Pachecco, Videographer

Mark Brewer, President and CEO, Community Foundation of Central Florida Grant Cornwell, President, Rollins College Mark Freid, Founder, Happiness Counts, Owner/ Creative Director, Think Creative, Inc.

TOP

RANKED

IN THE SOUTH For 20 years, U.S. News & World Report has ranked Rollins among the top two regional universities in the South and first in Florida.

NO. 1 REGIONAL UNIVERSITY IN THE SOUTH

NO. 1 PRIVATE BUSINESS SCHOOL MBA IN FLORIDA

NO. 1 IN FLORIDA AND NO. 16 IN THE NATION FOR PART-TIME MBA

NO. 1 IN LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS

U.S. News & World Report (2006-2014, 2016)

Bloomberg Businessweek (2015)

NO. 1 MOST BEAUTIFUL COLLEGE CAMPUS The Princeton Review (2015-16)

Forbes (1999-2015)

HR.com (2016)

NO. 1 MOST PHILANTHROPIC COLLEGE CAMPUS BestCollegesOnline.com (2012)

Winter Park • Orlando, Florida | rollins.edu

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The restored (and breathtaking) Tiffany Chapel, at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, was exhibited at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893 before being installed at Louis Comfort Tiffany’s Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall. It now encompasses its own wing at the one-of-a-kind Winter Park institution.

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LI V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

It really is the city of

Culture Heritage and

BY MICHAEL MCLEOD WITH RANDY NOLES, DANA S. EAGLES AND JAY BOYAR

A

ny walk that starts on Park Avenue is a good walk. No need for a guidebook to figure that out: All it takes is a firm grasp of the obvious. Bookended by a tidy golf course and a picturesque college campus, with an engaging array of coffeehouses, upscale shops, wine bars, al fresco eateries and a well-curried park in between, the heart of Winter Park is a what’s-not-to-like delight.

Something less apparent is that from any point along Park Avenue’s European-meets-Mediterranean shopping and dining district, you’re within walking distance of no fewer than six eclectic (and in some cases worldclass) museums.

And you’re just a short drive away from three other important cultural attractions, one in Winter Park and two in neighboring Maitland.

Here’s an insider’s tour of the six museums within bipedal range. You’ll have a sense of the community, as well as its arts attractions, by the time we’re through. You’ll also understand why Winter Park bills itself — not inaccurately — as “The City of Culture and Heritage.”

We’ll follow that up with a bonus round of three other museums that are just a short drive away.

THE CORNELL FINE ARTS MUSEUM AND THE ALFOND INN They’re a pair, these two, a pioneering partnership that has drawn national attention from art lovers and art experts alike.

The Cornell overlooks Lake Virginia from the back side of the Rollins College campus at the southern end of Park Avenue. The Alfond Inn, which is owned by Rollins College, was built three years ago on the footprint of

the old Langford Hotel, just across Fairbanks Avenue from the campus and a short walk east of Park Avenue.

The 112-room boutique hotel provides upscale lodging and meeting space in a market where both had been lacking. Plus, for all practical purposes, it’s a high-profile satellite location for the eclectic Cornell Fine Arts Museum.

Plenty of high-end hotels have collections of beautiful artwork on the walls. But the Alfond’s is a cutting-edge, contemporary selection that may include, at any given time, the work of such widely recognized artists as revered abstract minimalist Carmen Herrera (she’s 100 and still painting) and conceptual artists Joseph Kosuth and Lawrence Weiner.

The pieces on display are part of the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, named for Ted and Barbara Lawrence Alfond, both 1968 Rollins graduates. The Alfonds, through the charitable foundation established by Ted’s late father, Harold, provided a $12.5 million gift to jump-start construction of the hotel.

In addition, with the assistance of private curator Abigail Ross Goodman, the Alfonds assembled a world-class collection of contemporary art and donated it to the college. More than 260 pieces from the Alfonds have become part of the Cornell’s permanent collection. Roughly 140 of those pieces, on a rotating basis, adorn the hotel’s walls.

“Adorn,” though, is almost certainly not the right word. Unquestionably, much of the collection is visually pleasing, even to the untrained eye. None of it, however, was meant to be merely decorative. Some of the pieces are decidedly puzzling, while others are downright provocative.

“These works were intentionally acquired to have a teaching purpose,” says Ena Heller, the Cornell’s director. “It’s a collection with a point of view.

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Like many museums, the Cornell is able to display only a tiny fraction of its 5,000-plus objects. Its holdings encompass more than 500 paintings, some dating from the 14th century; 1,600 prints, drawings and photographs; and thousands of artifacts and archaeological fragments from around the world.

The museum’s on-campus facility is small relative to the size of its collection, and parking can be vexing (although the SunTrust parking garage on Lyman Avenue is only a five-minute walk away).

Still, Heller notes that the museum has enjoyed a 50 percent increase in visitors, in part because admission is free, subsidized by Dale Montgomery, a 1960 Rollins graduate who majored in studio art.

Museum attendance has also been bolstered by guests of the hotel. Each room has a rack card featuring directions to the museum, as well as instructions on how to take an audio tour of the hotel’s art using a mobile device.

In addition, guided group tours of the Alfond collection are offered every Friday at 1 p.m., and “Happy Hour” tours are offered the first Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. The tours — which are usually conducted by the Cornell’s in-house curator, Amy Galpin — are free of charge and no reservations are required.

Many Happy Hour-tour attendees choose to remain at the hotel for a glass of wine or dinner at Hamilton’s Kitchen, its award-winning restaurant.

Many others, their curiosity piqued, eventually make their way to the Cornell to see what’s on display there.

It’s all very symbiotic and, to Heller, very heartening. “We’re always looking for ways to become a more integral part of Rollins and expand its boundaries in the community,” she says. “This partnership has allowed us to do both.”

The Cornell’s Rollins location is open Tuesdays through Fridays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and weekends from 1 to 5 p.m. Tours are led every Saturday at 1 p.m. Call 407-646-2526 or visit rollins.edu/cfam for more information.

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The Cornell Fine Arts Museum, located on the campus of Rollins College, boasts the region’s only “encyclopedic” collection. For example, it’s the only museum in Central Florida to own works by Europe’s Old Masters.

It’s about issues our students will be confronted with.”

The “visual syllabus,” as Goodman has dubbed it, revolves around such topics as war, censorship, critical thinking, and relationships between different cultures and religious traditions. There are prints, paintings and photographs, as well as many pieces where words rather than images convey the message.

“With this collection, artists expect viewers to participate,” Heller adds. “A number of the pieces are conceptual. So the more you know about them, the more you appreciate them.”

Heller, who says her involvement with the Alfond Collection has enhanced her own appreciation for contemporary art, enjoys discussing the pieces on display. Her scholarly yet accessible explanations evoke many “oh, now I get it” moments from viewers more comfortable with representational art.

The hotel was designed with art displays in mind. “To create a focus on the artwork, we used a very neutral field of finishes, and special lighting was selected,” says Monte Olinger, who at the time was an interior designer and principal at Baker Barrios Architects.

From her home in Massachusetts, Barbara Alfond says the collection was conceived “to further the understanding of the hotel being a part of an educational institution.” She’s proud of the fact that classes in subjects other than art — including women’s studies — have used the collection to supplement the curriculum.

Even prior to the Alfond infusion, the Cornell boasted the region’s only “encyclopedic” collection. For example, it’s the only museum in Central Florida to own works by Europe’s Old Masters.

“But now,” Heller says, with more than a hint of satisfaction, “we also have the best contemporary art collection in town.”

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THE ALBIN POLASEK MUSEUM & SCULPTURE GARDENS On the eastern shore of Lake Osceola and just a short walk from the Alfond Inn, the lushly landscaped grounds and breathtaking statuary of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens combine to offer one of the most beautiful sights Winter Park has to offer.

But what’s most remarkable about the Polasek isn’t its beauty. It’s the spirit of indomitability that hovers over the place. Once you hear the story of the muscleman of Winter Park museums, you’ll understand why.

Born in Moravia (now the Czech Republic), Polasek worked as a woodcarver in Vienna before immigrating to the U.S. at the age of 22. He continued his career in altar-carving factories in the Midwest, and studied sculpture at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts.

For 30 years, Polasek was head of the sculpture department at the Art Institute of Chicago. By the time he retired in the late 1940s, he had established himself as a master.

He crafted monumental works: warriors and mythological figures; a 28-foot statue of Woodrow Wilson; a breathtaking rendering of Christ on the cross, who appears, even in the midst of his suffering, to be rising up and away, every feature in his face and every sinew in his body reverberating in triumph.

Shortly after moving to Winter Park from Chicago, Polasek suffered a stroke.

It paralyzed one side of his body — but it didn’t defeat him. He devised a system that enabled him to continue sculpting despite its physical demands.

He would poise a chisel over a work in progress with his one good hand.

An assistant would stand by his side with a hammer and strike the chisel at Polasek’s command.

Using this painstaking method, hour after laborious hour, the artist continued his life’s work unabated, creating an additional 18 major works by the time he died in 1965.

Polasek’s Mediterranean-style studio/home — and a collection of 200 works, many of them displayed on the expansive grounds — is now owned and

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At dedication ceremonies in 2014, former Rollins President Thaddeus Seymour, who had led the fundraising charge, stood on a plaza behind the restored home and raised a glass in the direction of the lake and the sculpture garden.

His brief but poignant toast: “To perseverance!” A small, celebratory crowd was there to hear it. It’s nice to think that Albin Polasek was, too.

The Polasek is open Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. and Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $3 for children age 12 through college. Younger children are admitted free.

Call 407-647-6294 or visit polasek.org for more information.

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Located on the eastern shore of Lake Osceola, the lushly landscaped grounds and breathtaking statuary of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens (top) combine to offer one of the most beautiful sights Winter Park has to offer.

Also on the grounds is the Capen-Showalter House (above), a once-endangered historic home floated across the lake via barge and restored for use as offices and an events space.

operated by the Albin Polasek Foundation. Its major annual event is the Winter Park Paint Out in April, when artists are invited to paint in the open air, creating landscapes that are then offered for sale as a fundraiser.

But the home, while beautiful, was unpretentious and compact. The museum needed more room for administrative offices and a space to host events, such as weddings. When a solution arose, it came in a form that the iron-willed artist would have appreciated: It was dramatic — and it looked utterly impossible.

The Capen-Showalter House, a historic home across Lake Osceola from the museum, was scheduled for demolition. Alarmed, a group of Winter Park preservationists came up with an idea: Why not cut the house in half, load it on makeshift barges, float it across the water and reassemble it on the Polasek property?

It was as crazy as the notion of a paralyzed, 70-year-old sculptor blithely continuing to ply his life’s work using an assistant’s hands. And it happened, thanks to a campaign that raised $650,000 to fund the 500-meter voyage.

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THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM AND THE HANNIBAL SQUARE HERITAGE CENTER Winter Park’s two history museums are separated by just a few blocks, but they reflect two distinct communities, past and present.

The Winter Park History Museum occupies a corner of the old railroad station, along New England Avenue and one block west of Park Avenue, in a space that was once the freight ticketing office of the old Atlantic Coast Line.

The museum, which opened in 1993, has explored various aspects of Winter Park’s history, including exhibits on turpentine, peacocks, railroading, businesses in the 1960s and Winter Park High School.

Its current exhibit, Winter Park: The War Years, 1941-1945 – Homefront Life in an American Small Town, uses photos, oral histories, films, letters and war artifacts to examine how World War II impacted locals.

“One thing that stands out is how the war unified the town,” says Susan Skolfield, the museum’s executive director. “Even the children would get involved, going around neighborhoods collecting string, rubber and aluminum for the war effort.”

Hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free to the museum, which stages a children’s show, Princess of the Peacocks, on Mondays at 10 a.m. Call 407-644-2330 or visit wphistory.org for more information.

Just a straight shot down New England Avenue from the museum, the Hannibal Square Heritage Center is in the heart of Winter Park’s bustling west side, which from its founding in the late 1800s to well into the 1960s was a segregated African-American community.

Created in 2007 as an outreach effort of the Crealdé School of Art, the center is actually two museums in one, pairing revolving art exhibits with vintage photographs and oral histories from west side residents, some of

whom can remember working for wealthy Winter Park families by day and knowing they had to be “back across the tracks” by nightfall.

A modern-day echo of that east-west duality presides over the museum, which occupies a two-story building fronted by three graceful live oaks. It sits squarely in the middle of gentrified Hannibal Square, which was redeveloped as an upscale retail and dining district in the early 1990s.

Inside the museum, you’ll encounter the work of African-American folk artists such as “Missionary Mary” Proctor. In one of her pieces on permanent display, an angel is carried aloft on wings Proctor made by crumpling up the pages of the hymnal she carried as a child.

“I asked her how she could do that — destroy a precious keepsake from her childhood,” says Cyria Underwood, the museum’s manager. “She just smiled and told me, “‘I pay my respect to it better this way.’”

Among the many stories you’ll encounter here via videotapes and photo displays is that of a local hero by the name of Richard Hall. A full-sized “lifecast” of Hall, in a red sports jacket and red cap, stands just next to the front door of the museum.

During World War II, Hall served in the Army Air Force as a Tuskegee Airman, from the so-called “red tail” squadron: a legendary group of AfricanAmerican military pilots who formed the segregated 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Force.

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The Hannibal Square Heritage Center (right), located in the heart of the city’s gentrified west side, was created in 2007 as an outreach effort of the Crealdé School of Art. Many of the center’s programs and exhibits pay homage to the historically African-American neighborhood surrounding it. The Winter Park History Museum (below) occupies a corner of the old railroad station, along New England Avenue, in a space that was once the freight ticketing office of the Atlantic Coast Line.

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Now 93, Hall lives in a home that’s a museum in its own right, filled with memorabilia and decorations from a military career that included service in both Korea and Vietnam.

Standing in a hallway lined with pictures of his family and from his military career, Hall leaned on his walker and pointed to a photo of the surviving Tuskegee Airmen at a 2007 ceremony honoring them at the White House.

“See where I am? Right there,” he says, leaning forward and tapping the glass with the tip of his finger. “Front row seat, next to the aisle. President Bush shook my hand twice. Once when he walked in, and again when he walked out.”

Our visit to Richard Hall’s personal “museum” was free. So is admission to the Hannibal Square Heritage Center. It’s open Tuesdays through Thursdays from noon to 4 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Call 407-5392680 or visit hannibalsquareheritagecenter.org for more information.

THE CHARLES HOSMER MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART It’s time to double back to Park Avenue, this time to its north end, to visit a stately, shimmering kaleidoscope of a museum that’s not only Winter Park’s cultural crown jewel but one of the most remarkable privately owned museums in the world.

Charles Hosmer Morse, a Chicago industrialist, made Winter Park his vacation home in the late 1800s, then retired here. In 1904, Morse bought

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The Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, now a popular special-events venue, is governed by the Friends of Casa Feliz, which also promotes such programs as the James Gamble Rogers II Colloquium on Historic Preservation, held each May. Rogers was the home’s original architect.

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nearly half of Winter Park’s acreage and began developing his holdings with the goal of creating a sophisticated and vibrant community of well-to-do kindred spirits.

The museum, which is celebrating its 75th birthday in 2017, was founded in 1942 by Morse’s granddaughter, Jeannette Morse Genius, as a small, out-of-the-way gallery on the Rollins campus.

Twenty-five years later, she and her husband, Rollins President Hugh McKean, took on a daunting challenge. They would salvage and preserve the fabulous stained-glass windows and other architectural artifacts from Laurelton Hall, the Long Island mansion of Louis Comfort Tiffany, best known for his luminous stained-glass lamps and windows.

When the 65-room home fell into disrepair after Tiffany’s death and was damaged by a fire in 1957, Jeannette and Hugh bought everything they could pack into moving vans and hauled it all to Winter Park They kept most of these treasures in storage, displaying what they could in their small museum. Jeannette died in 1989 and Hugh carried on, making plans for a substantial facility to properly display the now-priceless collection.

Friends counted themselves lucky when the dapper old gentleman volunteered to take them on a tour of the warehouse, filled with soot-smudged columns decorated with blown-glass daffodils. Hugh died in 1995, just months before the grand opening of the present facility at Park and Canton avenues.

These days, visitors from all over the world come to Winter Park to see those fabulous Belle Epoch treasures as they have been faithfully reassembled to evoke Tiffany’s long-lost Xanadu.

On display are Tiffany lamps and windows as well as galleries that evoke the lavishly appointed living room, chapel and outdoor terrace of the fabulous country estate.

When Laurence Ruggiero, previously director of Sarasota’s Ringling Museum

of Art, first began discussions with McKean about taking the director’s post at the Morse, he was hardly an expert on Louis Comfort Tiffany.

“I didn’t know who the hell Tiffany was,” Ruggiero flatly admits. “Nobody knew about Tiffany. He wasn’t taken seriously.” So when he finally saw the Morse’s Tiffany collection, he was overwhelmed.

“Oh, my God!” he remembers thinking. “I can’t believe it! This stuff is gorgeous! I had no idea!”

Ruggiero, who signed on with the Morse in 1992, has taken Tiffany very seriously ever since. He was instrumental in the museum’s 1995 move to its current location, and has overseen such major projects as the addition of the Tiffany Chapel in 1999 and completion of a new wing re-creating portions of Laurelton Hall in 2011.

The Morse is closed on Monday but open Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. Closing time is extended to 8 p.m. every Friday from November through April. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $1 for students. Children under 12 are admitted free. Call 407-645-5311 or visit morsemuseum.org for more information.

THE CASA FELIZ HISTORIC HOME MUSEUM Winter Park must have a thing about moving old houses. The Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum, like the Capen-Showalter House, was transplanted from its original site on the shores of Lake Osceola.

Architect James Gamble Rogers II designed the Andalusian-style masonry farmhouse in 1932 for Massachusetts industrialist Robert Bruce Barbour.

Most of Rogers’ work at the time was inspired by traditional styles he thought best suited Winter Park and its Old World ambiance. But the Barbour House, as it was then known, was arguably the iconic architect’s masterpiece.

Suffice it to say, there was quite the civic hoo-ha in 2000, when a new owner bought the property with plans to tear down the now-neglected structure and replace it with a brand-spanking new mansion on the valuable waterfront lot.

Preservationists raised more than $1 million to move the home, not by lake but by land, 300 yards across Interlachen Avenue to a city-owned site

adjacent to the Winter Park Golf Course. Rather than barges, an array of 20 pneumatically leveled dollies were employed.

The museum, now a popular special-events venue, is governed by the Friends of Casa Feliz, which also promotes such programs as the James Gamble Rogers II Colloquium on Historic Preservation, held each May. “What appeals to me about my grandfather’s architecture is his artistry and attention to detail,” says Betsy Rogers Owens, who served as executive director from the time the home was moved and restored until 2016. “Nowadays people build to impress. He didn’t. His homes were built to nestle into the surrounding neighborhood rather than jut out from it.”

Casa Feliz, which sits just south of the Morse, hosts “Music at the Casa,” a series of free acoustic concerts, Sundays from noon to 3 p.m. The museum is also open Tuesdays from 10 a.m. to noon, although private tours of 10 or more guests at other times can also be arranged. Admission is also free. Call 407-628-8200 or visit casafeliz.us for more information.

At the eastern reaches of Winter Park is the Crealdé School of Art, founded in 1975 by local homebuilder William Sterling Jenkins. It’s a lakeside haven tucked behind a strip mall on Aloma Avenue, where you can take classes in just about every art form imaginable. Behind Crealdé’s stuccoed walls, instruction is offered in photography, painting, ceramics, sculpture, papermaking, jewelry design, fabric arts and even bookmaking (meaning the literal making of books, not gambling).

The school also holds periodic art exhibitions and celebrates an annual “Night of Fire,” which features demonstrations by artists, a bronze pour at the school’s foundry and storytelling around a fire pit on the grounds of the Spanish-style campus.

It’s said that Jenkins devised the name “Crealdé” by combining the Spanish word crear (“to create”) and the Old English word alde (“village”). And that’s what he meant the school to be: a creative village.

Jenkins wasn’t an artist of exceptional complexity. He was, however, certainly devoted to art — and committed to sharing and teaching it. In 1981, he reorganized Crealdé Arts Inc. as a nonprofit with a volunteer board. Ten LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK

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At the Crealdé School of Art, more than 100 visual-arts classes are taught by a faculty of 40 working artists. There’s also a summer “Artcamp” for children and teens, and a Visiting Artists Workshop series. The school stages art exhibits in galleries at its home campus and the Hannibal Square Heritage Center.

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The Maitland Art Center, a National Historic Landmark, is one of the few surviving examples of Mayan Revival architecture in the Southeast. Its imagery is drawn from European, Chinese, Christian, African, Persian and, of course, Mayan signs and symbols, which mix and mingle in an otherworldly way.

years later he donated the entire facility to the organization, allowing it to establish complete autonomy and secure new funding sources.

At Crealdé today, more than 100 visual-arts classes are taught by a faculty of 40 working artists. There’s also a summer “Artcamp” for children and teens, and a Visiting Artists Workshop series. The school stages art exhibits in three galleries at its home campus, at the Hannibal Square Heritage Center and at an extension campus in Winter Garden.

Admission to Crealdé’s galleries is free, although there are fees for art classes. Call 407-671-1886 or visit crealde.org for more information.

Now let’s take a spin to neighboring Maitland, where there are several other regionally and nationally important cultural attractions.

ENZIAN Central Florida’s only art-movie house is included in this list because it’s a museum, of sorts — one that just happens to curate films rather than paintings.

Indeed, this is no strip-mall multiplex. It’s one of Central Florida’s most cherished cultural landmarks — one that resembles an understated country club more than a movie theater, with an outdoor restaurant situated between towering live oaks and an intimate, cabaret-style movie theater just inside. (Two more small theaters are on the way, thanks to a proposed $6 million expansion.)

Enzian is a nonprofit establishment with a Winter Park connection: It was developed by the family of John Tiedtke, a philanthropist who for decades ran (and mostly funded) the storied Bach Festival Society of Winter Park.

The big event of the year at Enzian is the Florida Film Festival, which every April brings dozens of the world’s best independently produced new features, documentaries, animated films and shorts to Central Florida.

On a more modest level, Enzian partners with the City of Winter Park to present its “Popcorn Flicks in the Park” series on the second Thursday of each month in downtown’s Central Park. The family-friendly classic flicks typically

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start at 7 or 8 p.m., depending upon when the sun sets. Admission is free.

Showtimes and ticket costs for other events vary. Call 407-629-0054 or visit enzian.org for more information.

ART & HISTORY MUSEUMS — MAITLAND Just down U.S. 17-92 from the Enzian, this charming complex of five museums includes the Maitland Art Center, the Maitland Historical Museum, the Maitland Telephone Museum, the William H. Waterhouse Museum and the adjacent Carpentry Shop Museum. All are worth visiting, but the Maitland Art Center is a must.

In 1937, artist and architect Jules André Smith built the center, then called the Research Studio, to foster artistic experimentation and to provide artists with an inspirational environment in which to work.

Over the next two decades, until his death in 1959, Smith lived and worked at the center, as did many other artists. He hand-carved most of the center’s signature sculptural reliefs using a special pivot table that could turn upward. A replica of the table, which Smith invented, is on display in one of the studios.

While the center is billed as one of the few surviving examples of Mayan Revival architecture in the Southeast, its imagery is drawn from many sources. European, Chinese, Christian, African, Persian and, of course, Mayan signs and symbols mix and mingle in an otherworldly way.

The center has been named a National Historic Landmark, joining such iconic places as the Empire State Building, the Gateway Arch, the White House, Hoover Dam and Walden Pond.

Maitland Art Center hours are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday. The other museums are open Thursday through Sunday from noon to 4 p.m. Admission is $3 for adults and $2 for seniors and children ages 4 to 18. Children age 3 and under are admitted free. Call 407-539-2181 or visit artandhistory.org for more information. 

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The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park consists of a 160-member choir and a permanent orchestra, which has made four European tours and performed with the Bach Choir of London in Royal Albert Hall and in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. Dr. John Sinclair is in his 26th season as artist director and conductor.

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Bach to the Future Winter Parkers go for baroque when it comes to the German master.

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By RANDY NOLES

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK 

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J

ohann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) never started inviting me to come along, and those lunches actually visited Winter Park, of course. But were hugely interesting.” it’s a safe bet that the German master would Sinclair, who says he sometimes felt “a little feel right at home in a city that hosts the nation’s like a third wheel,” would listen in awe as the old third-oldest continuously operated Bach Festival. friends discussed art, philosophy and the events of And he would certainly find a kindred spirit in Johann Sebastian Bach would certainly feel the day. They would even spar over who should Dr. John V. Sinclair, 62, chair of the department of welcome in modern-day Winter Park. pay the tab. After 40 years of lunches, McKean music at Rollins College and artistic director of the joked, he remembered only a handful of times Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, where he’s celebrating his 25th year when Tiedtke picked up the bill. wielding the baton.

But when the subject of the society came up, it was clear that Tiedtke, the That auspicious anniversary was commemorated in April 2016 with primary funder as well as the hands-on boss, called the shots. A Rollins professor the world premiere of an original work commissioned in Sinclair’s honor, had always done double duty as the society’s artistic director, and Sinclair was “Music, Awake!” The composer was Paul Moravec, winner of the 2004 Pueager to take the helm. litzer Prize in music for “Tempest Fantasy,” and the libretto was by Terry “That’s what enticed me to the school,” Sinclair says. “There were other Teachout, drama critic for the Wall Street Journal and biographer of Duke offers on the table, but Rollins had the Bach Festival.”

Ellington and Louis Armstrong.

However, the artistic director at the time was Murray Somerville, who The thrilling nine-minute masterpiece, which celebrated the power of concurrently served as choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in music to heal and inspire, was performed to two packed houses at the colOrlando. Somerville seemed in no hurry to leave, and it was clear that there lege’s Knowles Memorial Chapel by the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra would be a change only when Tiedtke decided that there ought to be. under the direction of — you guessed it — John V. Sinclair.

Nearly five years passed before Somerville left for a position as organist It was a fitting tribute to Sinclair and a worthy addition to the repertoire of and choirmaster at Harvard University’s Memorial Church and the baton the festival itself, which was first held in 1935 as a single Sunday performance — literally and figuratively — was passed. commemorating Bach’s 250th birthday. Now there are concerts virtually year “Mr. Tiedtke knew I had strong opinions,” recalls Sinclair, whose wife, round — many of which feature internationally renowned guest soloists — Gail, is an American literature expert and executive director of the Rollins leading up to the main event in February.

Winter Park Institute. “But he could be persuaded in some instances. BasiThere’s a 160-member choir and a permanent orchestra, which has made cally, he said, ‘You pick what you want to do and I get veto power.’” four European tours and performed with the Bach Choir of London in The society, which is technically a separate organization from Rollins deRoyal Albert Hall and in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican. And the music, spite its historic ties, is funded by grants, donations, ticket sales and an endespite the organization’s name, isn’t limited to Bach. Or, on occasion, even dowment, which was initially bolstered by gifts from the Elizabeth Morse to classical music.

Genius Foundation and from Tiedtke himself, who continued to serve as By the time Sinclair was hired by the college in 1985, the society and president until 2003. He died the following year at 97. its annual festival had for decades been the personal domain of John M. Just before his death, Rollins established the John M. Tiedtke Endowed Tiedtke, a shrewd businessman who had made his fortune growing sugar, Chair of Music. For once, the man for whom the chair was named wasn’t citrus and corn in South Florida. asked to write a check.

Rollins President Hugh McKean had asked his boyhood friend to take Others contributed generously, including an anonymous $250,000 donacharge in 1950, when founding society president Isabelle Sprague-Smith died tion that was later revealed to have come from one Fred McFeely Rogers, and the organization’s future seemed in doubt.

Class of ’51. A music composition major who became TV’s Mister Rogers, The no-nonsense Tiedtke proved a fortuitous choice. He loved music — he befriended the Sinclairs during his frequent Winter Park visits. he played a little piano, but mostly enjoyed listening — and was a consistent Sinclair was appointed as the Tiedtke chair’s first recipient.“It was an honand generous donor to community-based arts organizations. At Rollins, he or to know these two brilliant and good men,” Sinclair says of Tiedtke and had been treasurer and chairman of the board of trustees.

McKean, who died in 1995. “They were great role models for me.”

McKean, an iconic Winter Park figure, had been an art professor at RolLiving up to the examples set by Tiedtke and McKean has been a continuing lins before his elevation to the presidency. He had also married Jeannette priority for Sinclair. Tiedtke believed that well-run, well-supported arts orgaMorse Genius, granddaughter of Charles Hosmer Morse, a benevolent innizations were integral to any enlightened community, and McKean believed dustrialist who had helped shape modern Winter Park. that any academician worth his salt was first and foremost a classroom teacher.

“Mr. Tiedtke and Dr. McKean understood that with great wealth comes reSusan Tucker, who sings in the Bach Festival Choir, has admired Sinclair’s sponsibility,” says Sinclair, who still refers to both men using formal titles, even synthesis of organizational prowess, intellectual heft and personal empathy in casual conversation. “They would have lunch together every Saturday. They for more than 25 years.

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Against the soaring backdrop of Knowles Memorial Chapel (facing page), Dr. John Sinclair directs performances of the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra.

The Bach Festival was first held in 1935 as a single Sunday performance commemorating the namesake composer’s 250th birthday. Now there are concerts virtually year round — many of which feature internationally renowned guest soloists — leading up to the main event in February.

“John is one of the most intellectual conductors I’ve ever known, as well as being a consummate teacher,” says Tucker. “One of the things I enjoy most is that he informs us about the composers and the works we’re presenting. That allows us to better perform each one. Plus, he’s compassionate and easy to talk to.”

Tucker and others say that Sinclair’s expressive, sometimes theatrical conducting style brings out the best in choirs and orchestras — professional and amateur — energizing both familiar masterworks and seldom-heard compositions that Sinclair has chosen to pluck from obscurity.

Eric Ravndal, society president since 2004, is a retired Episcopal priest and a Tiedtke cousin. Under his leadership, the organization has been revamped as a more traditionally structured not-for-profit, with a diverse board and a paid staff.

“John is a natural educator,” says Ravndal. “I attend nearly every rehearsal. And I can tell you that the musicians never leave a rehearsal without having learned more about the music they’re performing. It’s an incredible gift.”

In addition to his duties at the college and with the society, Sinclair is one of the conductors for the wildly popular Candlelight Processionals at Epcot, which have become a holiday tradition. He conducts about 150 performances a year, of one kind or another.

Sinclair also serves as music director of the First Congregational Church of Winter Park; director of the local Messiah Choral Society; and conductor of the International Moravian Music Festivals. His seemingly boundless energy both delights and confounds his admirers, who wonder how long he can maintain such a crushing schedule of classes, concerts and clinics.

“Whenever I see a handful of people singing or playing instruments, and it doesn’t matter where, I’m surprised when I don’t also see John there with his baton,” says one longtime member of the Bach Festival Choir with a chuckle.

“Any one of the things he does would be a full-time job for most people.”

However, the man the Orlando Sentinel once dubbed “Central Florida’s resident conductor” shrugs off the suggestion that what he does is in any way exceptional. Although his music might be described as highbrow, Sinclair is an unpretentious Midwesterner with working-class roots. His students and colleagues address him simply as “Doc.” “I just do my job,” says Sinclair, a native of Kansas City and a graduate of William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri. He also attended the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Conservatory of Music and Dance, where he earned master’s and doctoral degrees in music education, with an emphasis on conducting.

“I show up and try really hard. I take my work very seriously, but I try to not take myself very seriously. I also consider myself hugely fortunate to make music for a living. I guess you could say I lead a remarkable, unremarkable life.”

Sometimes it appears as though Sinclair, like the music he conducts, simply defies time. Although far more of his career is behind him than ahead of him, he seems to be hitting his stride now, at an age when most people are at least considering what they might do during retirement.

“No, no,” says Sinclair when asked if he might consider shedding some professional commitments in the foreseeable future. “I always said I wanted to have a 50-year career, so I’ve got at least 12 more years. Anyway, I’ll recognize when I start to slip. I’ll know when it’s time to stop.”

For now, Sinclair is actually adding to his workload by compiling a book on how to stage major choral works. “I’m using only works that I’ve done at least three times myself,” he says. “I want this book to be my gift to the profession.”

For more information, visit bachfestivalflorida.org. 

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of John Sinclair’s tenure as artistic director and conductor of the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, the organization’s board of trustees commissioned an original work from two extraordinary artists. The composer was Paul Moravec, recipient of the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Music, and the librettist was Terry Teachout, author and drama critic for the Wall Street Journal. The product of their collaboration, Music, Awake!, was performed for the first time last April by the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra during a concert at Knowles Memorial Chapel. Teachout said that the text was “about what music does to us when we hear it and are, like Shakespeare’s Hermione, transformed by its magical power.” Moravec’s soaring music can’t be reproduced in a magazine, of course. But Teachout’s words stand alone as a masterful ode to the power of music.

MUSIC, AWAKE! Music, awake!

Reveal, Inspire, Console.

Make us anew — show us what is right and true.

From the frozen stream of time: Awaken us.

To the pulse of every hour: Awaken us.

From the sleep of black despair: Awaken us.

To the glory of the day: Awaken us.

From the blindness of our sight To the brilliance of the light.

Reveal to our ears the beauty in all sounds: In the rhythm of a heartbeat, In the quiet of the dawn, In the whisper of the wind Through the leaves upon a tree, On the surface of a tree.

Magnify the world we hear and see With the perfect truth of harmony.

Console us, blessed music, For what we cannot know, For that which makes us tremble in the night,

For death which steals from us All that we treasure, All whom we love.

Out of mystery, faith; Out of chaos, form; Out of anger, love; Out of terror, hope; Out of silence, tone.

Console us, blessed music, And grant us peace.

Teach us songs whose melodies Inspire us to be brave, Require us to be bold, Command our souls.

Let every note ascend, Let every note ring out With certitude and power In the darkest hour.

Music, awake!

Uplift, Transform, Excite, Exalt.

Make us anew — Show us what is right or true.

Sound without end, Amen.

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Entertaining.

Engaging.

Educational.

Life-Changing.

The Winter Park Institute at Rollins College Speaker Series carries on a tradition of intellectual leadership.

BY RANDY NOLES

In 2016, Garrison Keillor visited Rollins College and packed the Warden Arena at the Harold & Ted Alfond Sports Center. In addition to his sold-out public presentation, the author and recently retired host of A Prairie Home Companion spent the day on campus interacting with students and faculty members. More than 50,000 people have attended WPI Speaker Series events since the program began a decade ago.

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George Takei, known to baby boomers as Mr. Sulu from the original Star Trek TV series (and to twentysomethings as an incisive social-media commentator), told a compelling tale of his childhood and the discrimination that he and other Japanese-Americans suffered during World War II. Past Speaker Series guests have won Academy Awards, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, National Medals of the Arts, Presidential Medals of Freedom and even French Legions of Honor.

S

ince the 1920s, Rollins College has brought preeminent scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, entertainers, writers, activists and thought leaders to campus — not only for lectures and performances, but to engage in direct and meaningful ways with students, faculty and the community.

For the past decade, the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College has continued that role as a nucleus of creativity, critical thinking and intellectual engagement.

The WPI Speaker Series is a Winter Park treasure — exposing students, faculty members and the broader community to ideas and experiences that are enjoyable, informative and, in many cases, life-changing.

IDEAS THAT MAKE A DIFFERENCE If you’re a Rollins student, imagine a screenwriting workshop with Garrison Keillor, a social justice discussion with George Takei, a poetry reading with Billy Collins, a master class in string instruments with Itzhak Perlman, a women’s studies seminar with Gloria Steinem, or a tour of Eatonville with Julian Bond. How about vocal coaching from Marilyn Horne, or film-making tips from Ken Burns?

Guests of the WPI Speaker Series have won Academy Awards, Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Pulitzer Prizes, National Medals of the Arts, Presidential Medals of Freedom and even French Legions of Honor. Three have been Kennedy Center Honorees. And Collins, WPI’s Senior Distinguished Fellow, is a two-time U.S. Poet Laureate.

The opportunity for visiting luminaries to work directly with students and faculty is at the heart of WPI’s mission. So its Speaker Series is far more

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multilayered than the public presentations that have cumulatively drawn more than 50,000 people to the Rollins campus.

WIDENING THE CONVERSATION After spending time on campus with students and faculty, WPI Speaker Series guests offer public presentations that have become cherished and eagerly anticipated events in Winter Park and throughout Central Florida.

Audiences have spent evenings with Billy Collins in conversation with Paul Simon and Sir Paul McCartney; heard Jean Michael Cousteau, Thane Maynard and John Cronin debate the future of the natural environment; listened to Mark Kelly and Gabrielle Giffords talk about perseverance and heroism; and chuckled along with Bill Bryson as he described the foibles of society in the U.S. and the U.K. These programs represent a small sampling of the enlightened conversations that the WPI Speaker Series engenders, both on campus and throughout the region.

“Members of the audience leave energized and better equipped to engage with others,” says WPI Executive Director Gail Sinclair. “Raising the level of awareness about important artistic and societal issues has a profound ripple effect.”

A HALLOWED TRADITION Rollins has a long tradition of leading important conversations. In 1927, several hundred spectators gathered in the Recreation Hall on the shores of Lake Virginia to witness the first “edition” of the Rollins College Animated Magazine.

It wasn’t a printed publication, but a live event that featured presentations from novelists Irving Bacheller and Rex Beach, poets Cale Young Rice and Jessie Rittenhouse, humorist Opie Read, and journalist Albert Shaw.

The Animated Magazine was the brainchild of Professor Edwin Osgood Grover and President Hamilton Holt, who designated themselves the “editor” and the “publisher,” respectively.

Over the years, speakers included journalist Edward R. Murrow, actors Mary Pickford, Greer Garson and James Cagney; FBI director J. Edgar Hoover; civil rights leader Mary McLeod Bethune; U.S. Army Generals Omar Bradley and Jonathan Wainwright; and authors Carl Sandburg, Willa Cather, and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

In 1931, Holt and legendary educator John Dewey convened “The Curriculum for the Liberal Arts College,” a conference that proposed a groundbreaking approach to liberal education — still based on the arts and sciences, but also calling for active citizenship and civic service.

The college honored the 75th anniversary of this seminal event with the 2007 Colloquy and Liberal Education and Social Responsibility in a Global Community. Maya Angelou, Francis Fukuyama, Sally Ride, Salman Rushdie, E.O. Wilson and others convened to explore the social, political and economic themes shaping education in the 21st century.

WPI was formed as a result of the successful colloquy, renewing Holt’s and Grover’s vision of bringing thought leaders to Winter Park — and facilitating energetic and exciting discourse on campus and beyond its borders.

Today, speakers with a high public profile, such as Garrison Keillor in 2016, pack the Warden Arena at the Harold & Ted Alfond Sports Center, while those who have earned acclaim in more specific areas of endeavor fill more intimate venues on campus.

The 2017-18 season, which is expected to include at least five speakers, had not been announced at presstime. Rollins students, faculty and staff are admitted free, while local residents may purchase tickets, with prices varying depending upon the speaker. Corporate support is welcome.

Visit rollins.edu/rollins-winter-park-institute for more information on upcoming speakers, tickets and sponsorship information. 

SO, WHAT’S HAPPENING? CITY OFFERS A SINGLESOURCE SOLUTION. In a city bursting at the seams with arts and culture, who can keep up with it all? Making matters more difficult, there hasn’t been a single source of information about who’s doing what.

Enter the Arts & Culture Subcommittee, which was formed as part of the City of Winter Park’s Public Art Advisory Board in an effort to enhance and improve awareness and visibility of the city’s numerous non-profit arts and cultural organizations.

The initial result of the subcommittee’s work is a hyper-local website: cityofwinterpark.org/arts-culture, where you’ll find: n A comprehensive directory of all nonprofit arts and cultural organizations located within Winter Park’s city limits, including contact information and links to individual websites. n An extensive and easy-to-navigate month-by-month events calendar featuring all scheduled arts and cultural experiences being offered by those organizations. n Information about upcoming communitywide arts and cultural events, such as the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, among others.

WPI Senior Distinguished Fellow Billy Collins, a two-time U.S. poet laureate, welcomed a familiar friend to Rollins in 2015. Yes, that’s Paul McCartney, who joined Collins for a conversation about creativity as several hundred lucky listeners at Knowles Memorial Chapel hung on every word.

Organizations participating in Winter Park’s first-ever combined arts and cultural calendar include: The Albin Polasek Museum and Sculpture Garden (and the adjacent Capen Showalter House); the Annie Russell Theater at Rollins College; Art in Chambers at City Hall; Art on the Green in Central Park; the Autumn Art Festival in Central Park; the Bach Festival Society of Winter; Blue Bamboo Centre for the Arts; the Casa Feliz Historic Home; the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College; the Crealdé School of Art; the Fred Stone Theater at Rollins College; the Galloway Room at the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce Welcome Center; GladdeningLight; the Hannibal Square Heritage Center; Mead Botanical Garden; the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art; the Winter Park History Museum; the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College; the Winter Park Playhouse; and the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival.

There are also links to the Winter Park Public Library’s Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival Collection — all the Best of Show winners from years past — and Paint Out, a plein air painting event sponsored by the Polasek.

You can also follow local arts and cultural events via Twitter, at #WPinspires.

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The Winter Park

HALL of

FAME

BY THE EDITORS

DIGITAL ART BY CHIP WESTON ORIGINAL IMAGES COURTESY OF THE ROLLINS COLLEGE ARCHIVES

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inter Park’s enduring appeal is no accident. For more than a century, the city’s residents have made certain that their one-of-a-kind hometown has remained a welcoming and well-planned oasis of beauty, culture and intellectual attainment.

With that in mind, in 2015 Winter Park Magazine put forth the idea of an official Winter Park Hall of Fame. The hall would salute people — some familiar, some less so — whose contributions to the city were particularly significant.

In consultation with local historians, the magazine’s editors selected an inaugural class of 15, ranging from the city’s earliest pioneers through some 20th-century icons. Only those who are no longer living were considered.

Otherwise, the field was wide open.

The resulting roster was an eclectic assortment of pioneers, philanthropists, educators and activists. Digital artist Chip Weston volunteered to transform old photographs of the selectees into stunning works of art, which were reproduced in the magazine and displayed in the J.K. and Sarah Galloway Foundation Community Gallery at the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce.

Our hope was that community organizations and the City of Winter Park would ultimately adopt the concept, and designate it as official. Fortunately for those who care about Winter Park history, that’s exactly what happened.

The City of Winter Park and the Winter Park History Museum, in cooperation with Winter Park Magazine, are now the stewards of the Winter Park Hall of Fame.

There’ll ultimately be a permanent exhibit at the Winter Park Public Library and Events Center, which is soon to be built in Martin Luther King Jr. Park, on

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the site of the current Rachel D. Murrah Civic Center.

In the meantime, the display will occupy the Chapman Room, on the second floor of Winter Park City Hall adjacent to the City Commission chambers.

Appropriately, the room is named for Oliver Chapman, an original founder of Winter Park and an inaugural inductee into the Winter Park Hall of Fame.

After 2015, the Hall of Fame selection process was more formalized. Now, a volunteer committee submits nominations and settles on a maximum of four inductees per year.

Committee members include Jack Lane, professor of history emeritus, Rollins College; Thaddeus Seymour, president emeritus, Rollins College; and Jack Rogers, retired architect who took over the practice of his father, James Gamble Rogers II, a 2015 Hall of Famer.

Also participating is attorney Harold Ward of Winderweedle, Haines, Ward & Woodman. Ward is a fourth-generation Winter Parker whose family has been prominent in the city’s history since the 1880s.

Rounding out the committee is Joyce Swain, retired city clerk; and the versatile Weston, a history aficionado as well as an artist and musician.

Clarissa Howard, director of communications, City of Winter Park; Randy Noles, editor and publisher, Winter Park Magazine; and Susan Skolfield, executive director, the Winter Park History Museum and the Winter Park Historical Association; served as ex-officio members.

On the following pages are the Winter Park Hall of Fame inductees for 2015 and 2016. The Class of 2017 had not yet been selected at presstime. 

DAVID MIZELL, JR. (1808-1884) Homesteader

Mizell and his family moved to the area in 1858 from Alachua County, making them the first non-Native American residents in what was to become Winter Park.

He built a cabin on a homestead between present-day lakes Osceola, Mizell, Berry and Virginia, and called the area Lake View (basically where the Genius Preserve and the Windsong subdivision are now). The Mizells grew cotton and raised horses, cattle, hogs, turkeys and goats. Mizell became politically influential, serving on the Orange County Commission and in the state Legislature. His eldest son, David W. Mizell, became the first sheriff of Orange County and was killed in the line of duty. Another son, John, became the first judge in Orange County and was elected to the first board of aldermen for the Town of Winter Park in 1887.

(Not Pictured) WILSON PHELPS (1821-1894) Grower, Promoter

Phelps, a Chicago businessman-turned-citrus-grower who toured the area in 1874, purchased most of the land where the Mizells had lived and much more east of Lake Osceola. In addition to his citrus ventures, Phelps sold lots to fellow Chicagoans and played a key role in encouraging Loring Chase and Oliver Chapman to move forward when they sought his advice regarding the wisdom of turning the largely unsettled area into a posh winter resort. Phelps, acting as a one-man chamber of commerce, provided a strong letter of endorsement and all the data he could compile in a four-page, handwritten letter that is arguably the “big bang” of Winter Park’s creation. Certainly, it provided the basis for Chapman and Chase’s subsequent promotional materials. There is no known photograph of Phelps.

LORING A. CHASE (1839-1906) OLIVER CHAPMAN (1851-1936) Developers

Chase, a real-estate broker from Chicago, moved to the area for his health in 1881. Enchanted by the lakes and woods, he believed he had found an ideal place to develop a winter resort catering to wealthy Northerners. He shared his idea with Chapman, a Massachusetts importer of luxury goods, and the two bought about 600 acres of what would become Winter Park. They commissioned a well-conceived town plan and soon began advertising heavily and selling lots to “Northern men of means.” In 1885 Chase bought out Chapman’s interest for $40,000 and the partnership was dissolved. Chapman, who feared his health was failing, returned to Massachusetts and enjoyed another 51 years of life, outlasting his former partner by decades. Although the Chase-Chapman team was short-lived, its significance is incalculable for Winter Park.

EDWARD P HOOKER (1834-1904) Clergyman; President, Rollins College

Hooker, a Congregationalist minister, came to Winter Park from Massachusetts in 1882 to oversee the establishment of a local church, now the First Congregational Church of Winter Park. Following Daytona Beach educator Lucy Cross’ 1884 challenge to the Florida Congregational Association proposing to build a college in the state, Hooker was asked to prepare a paper on the subject to be delivered at the association’s 1885 annual meeting. Hooker’s presentation was, according to contemporary accounts, stirring and effective. When the association decided that a college was indeed needed, Hooker, despite an obvious vested interest, was selected as one of five committee members receiving proposals from competing communities. When Winter Park was selected, Hooker was named Rollins College’s first president.

LUCY CROSS (1839-1927) Educator

Cross had already founded the Daytona Institute for Young Women when she proposed that a liberal arts college be built in Florida “for the education of the South, in the South” at the 1884 meeting of the Florida Congregational Association. Her proposal, presented on her behalf by a minister from Daytona, was a major factor in the association’s decision in 1885 to hold a competition, and to build such an institution in the city offering the most generous inducements.

Today Cross is known as “The Mother of Rollins College,” which is ironic since she pushed for a Daytona location. However, when the decision was made to choose Winter Park, Cross supported it strongly — and clearly deserves credit for bringing the issue of higher education in Florida to the forefront.

ALONZO W. ROLLINS (1832-1887) Industrialist, Benefactor

Rollins, a Chicago industrialist and seasonal resident of Winter Park, never attended college. But he was instrumental in founding one. He contributed $50,000 — a huge sum at the time — to the local effort to win a competition sponsored by the Florida Congregational Association, which had decided in 1885 that it would build a college somewhere in the state. That generous gift pushed Winter Park’s inducement to $114,180, far more than was offered

by Jacksonville, Daytona, Mount Dora or Orange City. The institution, Rollins College, was named in its primary benefactor’s honor, although he died after attending only two meetings of the board of trustees.

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WILLIAM C. COMSTOCK (1847-1924) Civic Leader

Comstock, a grain merchant from Chicago, moved to the area in 1872 and 10 years later built a home, which he dubbed Eastbank, on the eastern shore of Lake Osceola, where Wilson Phelps’ home had stood. Today, Eastbank is the oldest home in Winter Park. A former president of the Chicago Board of Trade, Comstock encouraged other wealthy Chicagoans to join him in Central Florida. He was a director of the Winter Park Land Company and, in 1923, was elected first president of the newly organized Winter Park Chamber of Commerce. Comstock was involved in virtually every community cause, donating heavily to Rollins College and serving as a charter member of its board of trustees. Comstock’s enthusiasm and commitment, in fact, kept trustees from closing the college during hard times. Less laudably, in 1893 Comstock led a successful effort to de-annex Hannibal Square, populated exclusively by African-Americans. (The neighborhood was re-annexed in 1925, when the city changed its status from “town” (fewer than 300 registered voters) to “city” (more than 300 registered voters).

FREDERICK W. LYMAN (1849-1931) Businessman, Rollins College Founder

Lyman, the Connecticut-born son of a Congregationalist minister, was a successful wholesale druggist based in Minneapolis when he became a seasonal resident of Winter Park and began investing in the fledgling resort town. In 1885, he formed the Winter Park Company with original developers Oliver Chapman and Loring A. Chase. While Dr. Edward Hooker, the first president, and Alonzo Rollins, the primary benefactor, are most associated with the founding of Rollins College, it was Lyman who led the drive to raise funds and assemble the inducement package that persuaded the General Congregational Association of Florida to select upstart Winter Park in which to build its proposed institution of higher learning.

“No sum was too large to ask for and none too small to receive,” Lyman stated.

The college was incorporated in 1885 at Sanford’s Lyman Bank (owned by a first cousin), and the persistent promoter was promptly elected first president of the college’s board of trustees.

WILLIAM F. BLACKMAN (1855-1932) President, Rollins College

Blackman, who in 1902 was named Rollins College’s fourth president, kept the struggling school solvent while improving academics and enhancing facilities.

But constant financial pressure ultimately exhausted the distinguished educator, who held a bachelor’s degree from Yale Divinity School and a doctorate in sociology from Cornell University. Almost immediately upon his arrival, the scholarly Blackman was given one year to raise $150,000 — the equivalent of more than $4 million today — in order to secure an additional gift of $50,000 from an eccentric philanthropist. Somehow he succeeded, thereby establishing the college’s first permanent endowment. During the first decade of the Blackman presidency,

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annual enrollment averaged around 170 students — triple the number prior to his arrival — and three buildings that incorporated fireproofing techniques were added to the campus: Chase Hall, Carnegie Hall (then the library) and Knowles Hall. Still, discouraged by his inability to stem operating deficits — perhaps an impossibility at the time — Blackman resigned in 1915. He subsequently thrived, becoming a banker, a rancher, a historian, a conservationist and president of the Florida Audubon Society.

IRVING BACHELLER (1859-1950) Author

Bacheller, one of the best-selling authors of his day, moved to Winter Park in 1918 after being wooed by industrialist Charles Hosmer Morse, who had purchased the assets of the Winter Park Company and believed that the presence of a literary celebrity would increase the town’s visibility and enhance its intellectual panache. Bacheller’s most popular novel, Eben Holden, had sold more than 1 million copies after its release in 1900. By the time he arrived in Winter Park, Bacheller had written 16 books and had formed arguably the country’s first major newspaper feature syndicate, through which he helped to popularize the work of Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen Crane. Bacheller immersed himself in civic life, sponsoring essay contests, teaching creative-writing classes and leading what would become informally known as the Literary Colony of Winter Park. As a member of the Rollins College board of trustees, Bacheller personally recruited the now-legendary Hamilton Holt when the presidency became vacant in 1925.

GUS C. HENDERSON (1865-1917) Editor, Activist

Henderson, a charismatic African-American traveling salesman, moved from Lake City to Hannibal Square in 1886. He founded a printing company and, two years later, a weekly newspaper, the Winter Park Advocate. The Advocate, one of only two black-owned papers in the state, was read by both black and white residents.

Henderson was also a politically active Republican, writing that “all we ever received came from the Republicans, and if that party never does any more special good for me, I shall die a Republican.” He quickly became involved in local issues and was a strong supporter of incorporation. In 1887, when an incorporation vote was scheduled at Ergood’s Hall, he rallied west side registered voters to violate curfew and attend. Without Henderson’s efforts, it’s no sure bet that incorporation would have passed, at least not then. And it’s a virtual certainty that if it had passed, Hannibal Square would not have been included in the town limits.

HAMILTON HOLT (1872-1951) President, Rollins College

Holt, previously a progressive journalist and social activist, arguably did more than any previous Rollins College president to shape the institution’s image and hone its mission. His innovative ideas on classroom learning were embodied in his “conference plan,” which eschewed traditional lectures in favor of one-on-

one interaction between instructors and students. Holt’s innovative approach and personal charisma attracted a faculty of (sometimes quirky) academic superstars who, above all else, loved teaching. “I had no special qualification for the position,” recalled Holt, who came to the college after losing a U.S. Senate race in Connecticut. “But from observation in many colleges and from my own experiences, I had acquired definite ideas about teaching which I longed to put into practice.” In 1926 he created the Animated Magazine, a live program that hosted speakers ranging from actors to scientists to politicians. Three presidents of the United States — Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman — also spoke at Rollins at Holt’s behest. During Holt’s tenure, which lasted from 1925 to 1949, Rollins became a cultural center for musical and theatrical performances.

In 1932, for example, he hired stage actress Annie Russell, for whom a new oncampus theater was built, to direct the drama department. The Rollins evening program, the Hamilton Holt School, is named in the legendary president’s honor.

MARY LEE DEPUGH (1878-1949) Founder, Ideal Women’s Club

DePugh, a domestic worker, and her husband, Baker, moved to Winter Park from Evanston, Illinois, in 1937 to join her newly widowed former employer, Maud Kraft (for whom Kraft Azalea Gardens would be named). The DePughs settled in a home the Kraft family bought for them on Fairbanks Avenue. Mary Lee, an active clubwoman in Illinois, quickly recognized the need for a local organization of “ambitious community women” of color. With encouragement and support from Kraft, she established the Ideal Women’s Club and was elected its first president.

The club became a vehicle through which African-American women could socialize and initiate west side civic improvement projects. An offshoot, the Benevolent Club held fundraisers to assist the elderly at a time when medical facilities were segregated, and professional healthcare was unavailable or unaffordable for many African-Americans. After DePugh’s death, the club and other community organizations rallied to raise funds for the DePugh Nursing Home, which opened in 1956 and is today The Gardens at DePugh Nursing Center.

JAMES GAMBLE ROGERS II (1900-1990) Architect

In a career spanning nearly 70 years, Rogers’ commercial, educational and residential designs enriched Winter Park’s distinctive aura of charm, culture and sophistication. Indeed, it could be argued that Rogers was as architecturally important to Winter Park as Addison Mizner was to Palm Beach and Frank Lloyd Wright was to Oak Park, Illinois. Stylistically, Rogers insisted that “architectural designs should be in harmony and should correlate with the general terrain and type of foliage that form the background for a town.” In Winter Park, he believed the subtropical environment lent itself to the kind of Spanish-style architecture that became his signature. But in addition to the large commissions for which he earned renown, Rogers also designed modest homes for businesspeople, artists and professors, demonstrating his ability to work within a restricted budget and still deliver a satisfying product. The highlight of Rogers’ final years of practice was the Mediterranean-style Olin Library at Rollins College, which he designed in 1985. Over the years, he was involved in the construction or the remodeling of more than 20 buildings on the Rollins campus. Today his remaining homes are prized by architecture aficionados. A prime example, Casa Feliz, was saved from the wrecking ball, moved and is now a community center and museum.

HUGH F. MCKEAN (1908-1995) Educator, Artist, Philanthropist JEANNETTE GENIUS MCKEAN (1909-1989) Businesswoman, Artist, Philanthropist Hugh and Jeannette McKean must surely be regarded as Winter Park’s first power couple. Hugh, artist, educator, collector and writer, was the 10th president of Rollins College, serving from 1951 through 1969. He then became the college’s chancellor and chairman of its board of trustees. In 1945, while still an art professor at the college, he married Jeannette Morse Genius, granddaughter of Charles Hosmer Morse, the Chicago industrialist and philanthropist who helped to shape modern Winter Park. In 1942, Jeannette built and donated the Morse Gallery of Art on the Rollins campus. Hugh became the gallery’s director, a position he held until his death, just months prior to the opening of the new Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, the facility’s spectacular showplace on Park Avenue North. The museum displays the world’s most important collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s works, many of which the McKeans salvaged from the artist’s ruined Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall. Hugh also served as trustee of the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota and of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in New York. Jeannette, an acclaimed artist in her own right, was also a successful businesswoman, working as an interior designer, owning and operating the Center Street Gallery on Park Avenue and managing her grandfather’s properties as president of the Winter Park Land Company. Both McKeans were lovers of nature, and cultivated a preserve filled with peacocks around Wind Song, the lakefront estate built by Jeannette’s father, Richard Genius. (Her mother, Elizabeth Morse Genius, died in 1928.) Genius Drive, the dirt road leading through the preserve and to the estate, was open to the public until the 1990s. The property, now known as the Genius Preserve and owned by the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation, is part of a restoration project by the Department of Environmental Studies at Rollins. It includes the largest remaining orange grove within Winter Park and several structures, including the estate. Jeannette was named Winter Park’s Citizen of the Year in 1987, while Hugh was posthumously named the Orlando Sentinel’s Floridian of the Year in 1996.

JOHN M. TIEDTKE (1907-2004) Businessman, Philanthropist

Tiedtke played a little piano, but mostly he enjoyed listening to classical music, performed live. Thanks to him, thousands of other Central Floridians can do the same. He was a founding member of the Florida Symphony Orchestra, which played its last note in 1993. But Tiedtke’s most lasting legacy is the world-renowned Bach Festival Society of Winter Park. The organization’s viability was in doubt before Tiedtke — at the behest of boyhood friend Hugh McKean — assumed control in 1950. It not only survived but thrived, thanks in large part to Tiedtke’s years of hands-on leadership and generous financial support. Tiedtke, who made his fortune cultivating sugar in the Florida Everglades, was a professor, treasurer, second vice president and dean of graduate programs at Rollins College before becoming a member of the institution’s board of trustees. In 2003, on his 96th birthday, Rollins established the John M. Tiedtke Endowed Chair of Music. Later, the John M. Tiedtke Concert Hall was named in his memory. Although Tiedtke’s legacy is strongly associated with the Bach Festival and Rollins, he also funded Maitland’s Enzian Theater “to inspire, educate, and connect the community through film.” Elizabeth Tiedtke Mukherjee, his granddaughter, still serves as Enzian’s executive vice president.

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UNSUNG HERO AWARD

A Dreamer and a Doer

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dwin Osgood Grover is barely remembered today. There is one small Theodore L. Mead and a follower of Mead’s work. Coincidentally, one of Grostreet named for him — Grover Avenue, appropriately near Mead Garden ver’s students at Rollins was John “Jack” Connery, who had been a Boy Scout in — and a commemorative stone along the Rollins College Walk of Fame. a troop led by Mead. While attending college, Connery had continued to assist But he’s ubiquitous in Winter Park history as a dreamer and a doer; a writer his aging former scoutmaster, who was best known for his pioneering work on and a poet who frequently descended from his ivory tower to make a practical the growing and crossbreeding of orchids. difference in the community. Surely his most enduring gift was his pivotal role Upon Mead’s death in 1936, Connery inherited his grateful mentor’s colin the founding of Mead Garden, an extraordinary 48-acre urban oasis unlike lection of amaryllis, hemerocallis, fancy-leaf caladiums and more than 1,000 anywhere else in Central Florida. orchids. Mead’s young protégé had been a student curator of the Rollins MuGrover was born in Minnesota in 1870, but was raised in Maine and New seum of Natural History, so he knew horticulture. And he had been faithfully Hampshire, where he wandered in the thick woods and developed a love for caring for the plants at Mead’s now-unoccupied estate. nature.

Connery knew, however, that a more permanent solution was needed if While attending Dartmouth College he the collection was to be saved. He and Groworked as a reporter for the Boston Globe and ver hoped to establish some sort of memorial edited the Dartmouth Literary Monthly. After garden that would pay homage to a man they graduating in 1894 with a degree in literature, both admired while providing students a place he enrolled in graduate school at Harvard. to study plants and nature.

However, instead of earning an advanced deBut where? Grover had considered pushing gree he chose to visit Europe and the Middle Rollins to buy Mead’s Oviedo property. Connery, East — an adventure he managed despite havhowever, thought he had a better idea. Would ing only $300 to his name.

Grover be willing to join him for an expedition?

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1900, Grover The duo explored the untamed site of what worked as a textbook salesman in the Midwest would become Mead Garden. Excited by the and shortly thereafter became chief editor of possibilities, they hurried to the office of realRand McNally in Chicago. He formed his own estate developer Walter Rose, who owned 20 publishing company in 1906, but sold his inacres buffering his subdivision, Beverly Shores. terest six years later and became president of After hearing out Grover and Connery, Rose the Prang Company, a manufacturer of crayagreed to donate his property to the city. ons and watercolors.

James A. Treat, a former Winter Park mayor, After “serving a sentence of [almost] 30 gave another six acres that included an egret years in the publishing business,” Grover rookery and a heretofore hidden lake that Growas ready to retire. Then, in 1926, a call from ver and Connery had discovered. The diploRollins President Hamilton Holt prompted a matic Grover promptly named it “Lake Lillian,” change of plans. Holt wanted Grover as the for one of Treat’s granddaughters. college’s “professor of books,” making him R.F. Leedy, a Park Avenue clothing merchant, the first academic in the U.S. to hold such a was persuaded to kick in a tract bordering title. Intrigued, he accepted.

Pennsylvania Avenue, and a Jacksonville womAt Rollins, Grover helped students publish an, Mary Bartell, turned over 20 acres of high the college’s first literary magazine, Flamingo, in ground where today’s entrance greets visitors.

1927, and for the next two decades was “ediOrange County owned a quarter-acre entor” of the Animated Magazine, which was not a compassing a clay pit. But the county agreed to published work but a series of lectures featuring give it up, and the clay was eventually used to national figures from politics, literature, the arts bolster the garden’s meandering nature trails. and even show business.

On May 11, 1937, Theodore L. Mead BoGrover was also a charter member of the Unitanical Garden Inc., a nonprofit organization versity Club of Winter Park and helped found that would operate the garden, was formed.

Winter Park’s first bookstore, The Bookery. He At its helm were Grover as president and Holt EDWIN OSGOOD GROVER encouraged his wife, Mertie, to spearhead the as honorary president. Connery was named di(1870-1965) opening of a day nursery for the children of rector and executive secretary.

Professor, Civic Activist African-American working mothers. The WelMead Garden officially opened on Jan. 15, bourne Day Nursery is still in operation today.

1940, in a formal ceremony that included local When Mertie was killed in an automobile accident, Grover asked that funds dignitaries and elected officials. Grover, who presided over the proceedings, in her name be donated for the establishment of a children’s library on the laid out a grand vision of a garden encompassing unspoiled natural areas, predominantly black west side. The Hannibal Square Library operated until greenhouses for exotic plants and even aquariums, which were never built.

1979. He also raised money for the DePugh Nursing Home, now the Gardens Today Mead Garden, owned by the city and maintained by the Friends of at DePugh.

Mead Botanical Garden Inc., remains an ecological jewel, and is undergoing a His biggest project, however, was Mead Garden. He didn’t donate the land, major renovation and restoration. but through sheer force of will and dogged determination, he got it donated.

Tucked away at the end of South Denning Drive, across the railroad tracks And through ingenuity and persuasiveness, he got the massive undertaking and bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue and Howell Creek, it has enchanted organized and funded. casual visitors and serious naturalists for decades. Few know that a professor A man of varied interests, Grover was a friend of Oviedo-based horticulturist of books is largely to thank.

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LIVING IN WINTE R PARK

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CITIZEN OF THE CENTURY

His Kind of Town

CHARLES H. MORSE (1833-1921) Industrialist, Philanthropist

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harles Hosmer Morse was a very wealthy man. Luckily for Winter Park, he was also a very enlightened and generous man. In 1904, the Chicago-based industrialist bought nearly half the city’s acreage. He then began developing his holdings with the goal of creating a sophisticated and vibrant community of well-to-do kindred spirits.

In so doing, Morse, more than any other individual, shaped modern Winter Park. Although he grew even wealthier in the process, Morse believed that enhancing the community in which he had wintered since the 1880s was more important than profiting from it.

Like many early Winter Parkers, Morse originally hailed from New England.

Born in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, he graduated from St. Johnsbury Academy in 1850 before joining his uncle, Zelotus Hosmer, as an apprentice in the Boston office of E. & T. Fairbanks Co., a manufacturer of weighing scales. His salary was $50 per year — approximately $1,500 today.

(Winter Park’s Fairbanks Avenue is named for Franklin Fairbanks, whose father, Erastus, and uncle, Thaddeus, founded E. & T. Fairbanks in 1824. Franklin also worked in the family business and, in 1888, became its president. He shared Morse’s enthusiasm for Winter Park, and joined his friend as both a seasonal resident and a property owner with a vested interest in seeing the city thrive.)

Morse worked his way up the ladder at E. & T. Fairbanks. In 1855 he was transferred to New York as a clerk and salesman. Two years later he was sent to help establish an affiliate company, Fairbanks & Greenleaf, in Chicago. In

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1866 he founded Fairbanks, Morse & Co., which manufactured windmills, pumps, locomotives and other industrial equipment. (Fairbanks, Morse & Co. bought controlling interest in E. & T. Fairbanks in 1916.)

A titan in the Windy City’s business community, Morse became a multimillionaire during the Industrial Revolution that followed the Civil War — a time when a cadre of magnates with names like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Morgan amassed great fortunes.

Although the white-bearded Morse certainly looked the part of a Gilded Age tycoon, he wasn’t in that rarified league financially. Still, he was among the richest men in the country at a time when all the millionaires combined totaled only several thousand. He felt comfortable in sleepy Winter Park, where many upper-crust Yankees sought refuge during the snowy months.

Ironically, cold weather — brutally cold weather — triggered a series of events that put the city’s fate in Morse’s hands. In a region that was supposed to be below the frost line, two back-to-back freezes — in December of 1894 and February of 1895 — brought temperatures that set historic lows.

Sap froze inside tree trunks, splitting many of them open with pops sounding like gunshots. The first freeze was damaging but the second was ruinous, wiping out citrus groves and devastating the local economy.

The Winter Park Company, the city’s primary land developer, felt the sting.

It defaulted on loan payments to the estate of Francis Bangs Knowles, who had been the company’s largest shareholder, and surrendered roughly 1,200 lots to satisfy the debt. Adding insult to injury, the posh Seminole Hotel, where Morse typically wintered, burned to the ground in 1902.

Morse, while certainly distressed over the misfortune that had befallen his local friends, also recognized a dual opportunity. He could make a savvy investment while ensuring that the city he had come to love — and to which he planned to retire — would remain a congenial and cultured place.

In 1904 Morse bought the Knowles estate’s vast holdings for roughly $10,000 — the equivalent of about $250,000 today. That fateful transaction was colorfully recalled by Harold A. “H. A.” Ward at a 1954 dinner commemorating his retirement from the Winter Park Land Company, which was formed

by Morse to purchase the Knowles properties.

Ward was working at the Pioneer Store, located at the corner of Park Avenue and The Boulevard (later Morse Boulevard), a general-merchandise emporium that also sold real estate. Here’s how Ward told the story of perhaps the most important business deal in Winter Park’s history: “Well, as I had said, Mr. Morse came into the store and asked if I had the sale of the Knowles estate property. I said. ‘That’s correct. Would you like to buy a lot?’ And we talked a little, and he said, ‘What’ll they take for the whole shebang?’ That’s the way he expressed it. It like to have knocked me down.”

Ward “blurted out the low price they’d given me” and Morse said he’d take it — with one condition: “Provided you can get released from your present work here, and take charge of the property for me.”

After all, Morse noted, his primary home was still in Chicago, and he’d need year-round local management. So Morse — along with his son, Charles H. Morse Jr. (who lived full time in Chicago) and Ward — became the original directors of the newly formed Winter Park Land Company. (Ward’s grandson, Harold Ward III, is today a prominent Winter Park attorney.)

In addition to property owned by the Knowles estate, Morse acquired about 200 acres of heavily wooded land bordered by lakes Virginia, Mizell and Berry. There he planted orange trees and later carved out an unpaved road, Genius Drive, which decades later would become one of Winter Park’s most cherished attractions, thanks to its profusion of peacocks.

Morse then remodeled a home at the corner of Interlachen and Lincoln avenues for use as his winter residence. Osceola Lodge was transformed into a textbook example of Craftsman-style architecture and filled with custom Mission-style oak furniture, walls of books and an array of rustic Indian artifacts.

From this cozy and comforting setting, Morse supervised development of

Morse, probably around 1910, at work at Osceola Lodge, his Craftsman-style home in Winter Park.

Morse’s permanent home was in Chicago until 1915.

his properties and quietly — sometimes anonymously — supported community causes.

(Osceola Lodge still stands, and is today headquarters for the Winter Park Institute, a Rollins College-affiliated organization that sponsors seminars, lectures, readings, classes and discussions with prominent scholars and thought leaders in an array of fields.)

In 1906 Morse deeded land that became Central Park to the city, but only so long as it was open to the public and not developed. He helped form the Winter Park Country Club, serving as its first president and providing the land on which the clubhouse and golf course were built. He asked the versatile Ward to design the course, along with a golf pro named Dow George. (The facilities, now owned and operated by the city, are still in use today.)

Morse, who retired and moved to Winter Park permanently in 1915, also donated the Interlachen Avenue site on which the Woman’s Club of Winter Park built its headquarters. He paid for construction of a city hall in 1916, and for years routinely covered operating deficits at Rollins as a member of the college’s board of trustees.

He paved roads, funded a citrus packing house, gave property to churches and even provided startup capital for construction of a second Seminole Hotel.

Morse also personally selected who could buy lots. He refused to sell to investors, for example, explaining in no uncertain terms that he’d do the speculating in Winter Park. Only people who planned to build homes could buy lots. And, of course, the homes to be built had to be of acceptable quality.

Morse recruited potential residents whom he admired, among them novelist Irving Bacheller. (Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country and D’ri and I had been among his best-sellers.) “Now, Mr. Ward, I’ve got to get Irving Bacheller to come down here,” he told his manager in 1918. “He’ll be a great asset to Winter Park. I want you to be sure to land him here, no matter what you have to do.”

Bacheller, though, drove a hard bargain. Morse ended up taking the au-

thor’s Connecticut farm in trade and loaning him the money to buy a large lakefront tract on the Isle of Sicily, where he built a handsome Asian-style home he dubbed Gate O’ the Isles. “I think Irving Bacheller missed his calling,” Morse grumbled to Ward. “He should have been a horse trader.”

But Bacheller did, indeed, prove to be a great asset — in ways that Morse couldn’t have predicted. In 1925, as chairman of the search committee for a new Rollins president, he pursued a progressive New York magazine editor who had published his poetry. At the author’s behest, Hamilton Holt took the job — and turned Rollins into a nationally acclaimed institution.

Morse died in 1921, at Osceola Lodge, secure in the knowledge that his investment had been a wise one in every way possible. His second wife, Helen Hart Piffard, remained in the home until her death in 1929. (His first wife, Martha Jeannette, had died in 1910.)

In 1937 Morse’s son-in-law, Richard Genius, built a vacation home on the Genius Drive property. It was first dubbed Casa Genius, but later renamed Wind Song. (Genius’ wife and Morse’s daughter, Elizabeth Morse Genius, died in 1928.) Jeannette Genius McKean, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth, moved there with her husband, Hugh, in 1951.

The McKeans brought with them the now-iconic peacocks, the descendants of which still noisily preen around the estate and the adjoining neighborhood.

Today the Morse name is on Morse Boulevard and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, which was founded by Jeannette and Hugh.

It wasn’t until 1986 that a memorial was erected in Central Park commemorating Morse’s contributions to the city he was instrumental in shaping.

The two-sided brick structure, designed by legendary architect James Gamble Rogers II, is impressive. But Morse, “the most modest man I ever knew,” according to Ward, would undoubtedly have considered the thriving, culturally rich city that Winter Park has become to be the only monument to his memory that really mattered.

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COURSE CORRECTION J

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

ohn Holland, overseer of Winter Park’s century-old municipal golf course, is steering a cart over new, undulating fairways and past bunkers that have grown deeper and a bit more menacing.

“There’s a little more frustration designed in,” the city’s folksy parks and recreation director says with unmistakable satisfaction. Since last March, Holland has monitored a makeover of the nine-hole course to ensure that it will be exciting enough to attract newcomers, yet familiar enough to keep old-timers.

Built in 1914 on property then owned by Winter Park pioneer Charles Hosmer Morse, the 40-acre course — which was founded as the Winter Park Country Club — had aged like a rambling historic home whose outward charm belied an increasingly urgent need for repairs and reinvention.

The irrigation system no longer worked reliably, the turf was old and tattered, and the relentlessly flat terrain was uninteresting and offered little in the way of a challenge, even to self-described hackers. Clearly, it was time.

So, the city began a $1.2 million renovation. The result is a course with more character, Holland says, even though it occupies the same footprint and still abuts Palm Cemetery, where errant balls sometimes land. (The protocol, according to Holland: Retrieve your ball, but please don’t play out of the cemetery.)

For a while, the process turned the venerable downtown layout — bisected

by North Park Avenue and just steps from the bustling Park Avenue shopping and dining district — into seemingly random piles of dirt and sand.

Gary Diehl, a resident who served on a city task force that recommended improvements, recalls some skeptics asking: “Why in the world are we renovating that golf course? It’s green.”

But Diehl, who spent 37 years in the golf equipment and apparel business, says the more he and his colleagues learned about the course’s condition, the more convinced they became of the need to take action.

The project began with killing the grass, most of which was original.

Thatch — 6 to 8 inches deep in some areas — was plowed up and the fairways and greens were reshaped.

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As golf struggles to remain relevant, the city’s venerable layout starts its second century with a new, more challenging design.

BY DANA S. EAGLES

John Holland, Winter Park’s director of parks and recreation, oversaw a major renovation of the city’s quirky, circa-1914 golf course, which re-opened late last year. The nine-hole layout is bisected by North Park Avenue and abuts Palm Cemetery, into which errant shots are still sometimes hit.

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PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

A central challenge was making the course more strategic while keeping it inviting for beginners and those who love the game but possess only modest skills. In addition, city officials are betting that busy people who can’t spend four or five hours on 18 holes may be willing to spend two hours on nine holes — especially if they can combine golf with lunch, dinner or shopping.

The square footage of the notoriously tiny greens, last overhauled in 1937, was more than doubled. Some trees were cleared away — including palms on the eighth hole that sometimes caught balls hit high — and new trees were planted.

The 30-year-old irrigation system was replaced with one that can deliver fertilizer along with water. The course was then replanted, and the public took part in two “sprigging” events.

The new turf, which grew in over the summer for an October 1, 2016 reopening, is far more consistent, says Gregg Pascale, the pro shop’s new manager. “It might play a little faster,” he adds.

It also will cost golfers a little more. Residents who played on Monday through Thursday mornings from November through April — the busiest time for the course — previously paid from $9 to $12. Now they’ll pay $14.

Annual memberships for residents have jumped from $600 to $900.

There’s a new, free putting course on Park Avenue, near the ninth-hole tee box. Also new: The exclusive-sounding “country club” label — a misnomer, since the course is public — has been banished.

Now it’s simply the Winter Park Golf Course, with a new logo to match.

That’s part of an effort to emphasize that the nine-hole, par-35 course is open to everyone, Holland says.

The two golf course architects who led the redesign, Keith Rhebb and Riley Johns, both say they recognized the rare opportunity they had been presented.

After all, the course, which Hall of Fame pro Nick Faldo once dubbed “Winter Park National,” is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

(It’s only the second-oldest course in the Orlando area, however. The Country Club of Orlando opened a year earlier.)

Golf legends such as Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Gene Sarazen and Walter Hagen have played there, sometimes in exhibition matches. It’s been the scene of countless charitable tournaments and has become a second home to many locals, some of whom play nearly every day.

But the two architects, who’ve worked around the world, came to the job with different perspectives.

Rhebb, who lives in Longwood, had often driven by the Winter Park course and was impressed by how it cut across the demographics of the game — at-

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tracting, as he puts it, “blue-collar, white-collar and no-collar players.” The course had character, he says, “but it could be something better.”

Johns, a Canadian who calls himself a “hands-on golf course architect,” had seen the course only on Google, and says he was unbiased in his initial assessment: “A typical, somewhat neglected Florida golf course.” But what struck Johns about the course was a quality that also attracts many players: its location.

“I was fascinated with people walking their dogs [nearby], with the boutique shops,” he says. “It didn’t feel like a golf course. It felt like a city park with some pins in it.”

Exactly, says Mayor Steve Leary, a renovation advocate. “One of the reasons we chose these architects was that during the [planning] process it came out that this is a park first — our most visible large park,” he says. “It’s not just a golf course.”

A central challenge was making the course more strategic while keeping it inviting for beginners and those who love the game but possess only modest skills. “It’s the easiest thing in the world to make a difficult golf course,” Rhebb notes.

It’s also easy to spend money, Johns adds. But the two recognized that on a community course committed to low fees, “we couldn’t go in there and build water features and make it more costly.”

Besides adding undulations to the fairways and moving tee boxes, they redesigned the bunkers. A well-placed bunker, they determined, would help “steer” golfers so the balls they hit would be less likely to dent a passing BMW. There was one thing the architects couldn’t change, though: the streets, sidewalks and other landmarks that define the course’s perimeter. “There’s no negotiation with concrete,” Johns says. “We had to work within those constraints.”

Rhebb and Johns were on site from March through June of last year, often on bulldozers — an approach that allowed for immediate troubleshooting and plenty of improvisation. “They’ve made it a much more strategic course,” Leary says. “Before, it was just ‘Keep it on the fairway.’”

Unchanged is the lovingly maintained but entirely unpretentious clubhouse, with its working fireplace and oak floors. The adjacent pro shop, which was renovated in 2011, features exposed wood on the interior walls salvaged from a 1914 starter shack and from a previous remodeling effort in 1967.

Casa Feliz, a restored Spanish-style farmhouse that was saved from the wrecking ball following an uprising of irate citizens, was moved to a patch of unused city property adjacent to the 9th hole in 2001 and repurposed as a community building. The historic home’s stately presence only adds to the course’s irresistible charm.

As far back as 1899, Winter Parkers had a place to play golf. The so-called “Rollins 9” was a nine-hole course commissioned by Morse that encompassed the west side of the Rollins College campus and part of what’s now downtown Winter Park.

But in 1914, Morse and others decided that a proper country club was needed. The Winter Park Country Club, a nonprofit corporation, was established and a nine-hole course was designed by Harley A. Ward and Dow George, who became the club pro.

The course, and the $3,500 clubhouse, was built on property owned by Morse, who was also elected first president of the nascent organization.

Another 18 holes were added the following year. Although the 27 holes were considered two separate courses, they shared the first fairway and green, and extended all the way to U.S. Highway 17-92, where Winter Park Village now sprawls.

Play was sometime interrupted by stray cows, prompting club officials to erect a fence. Some livestock, including sheep and goats, were welcomed, though. The unwitting animals kept the grass in check and were later slaughtered to help alleviate a meat shortage during World War I. A decade later, the club’s heyday had seemingly come to a close. The much more posh Aloma Country Club, which encompassed the presentday location of Ward Park and Winter Park Memorial Hospital, opened in 1926 and lured players away.

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Aloma’s 6,180-yard course and $45,000 clubhouse made the relatively modest Winter Park Country Club obsolete, forcing it to close shortly thereafter.

The block bounded by Interlachen, Webster and Park avenues was bought by the city and repurposed as Charles H. Morse Memorial Park. (The philanthropist had died in 1921.) The clubhouse remained, and was occupied for a time by the newly formed University Club of Winter Park. The rest of the land was, thankfully, never developed.

But Winter Park Golf Estates, the real-estate development surrounding the Aloma course, ultimately failed, and the course itself was abandoned in 1936, a casualty of the Great Depression.

Later that year, led by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, local movers and shakers decided to reactivate the dormant Winter Park Country Club and raise funds to rehabilitate the older course. Donations amounted to $6,250, which was more than enough to do the job.

When the club reopened in 1937, the annual membership fee was $44 and greens fees were $1. Jones, who had been snapped up by the illfated Aloma Country Club, was rehired as club pro, a position he would hold until his retirement in 1964.

The new incarnation of the club leased the property, partially from the city but primarily from the Winter Park Land Company, which

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PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

Essentially unchanged is the lovingly maintained but entirely unpretentious clubhouse, with its working fireplace and oak floors. The adjacent pro shop, which was renovated in 2011, features exposed wood on the interior walls salvaged from a 1914 starter shack and from a previous remodeling effort in 1967.

had been formed by Morse in 1915 when he acquired the vast land holdings of its defunct predecessor, the Winter Park Company.

Later, the Winter Park Land Company’s portion of the property, totaling about 25 acres, was transferred to the Charles Hosmer Morse and Elizabeth Morse Genius foundations, which continued to lease it to the city in 10-year increments.

As long as the land was owned by the foundation and leased to the club, there was no guarantee that this prime swath of real estate would forever remain green space. In fact, as an extension of the lease was being discussed in 1996, foundation officials expressed an interest in selling the land to developers.

City leaders and residents weren’t about to let that happen. In a lively referendum, voters overwhelmingly approved a proposal to raise taxes and buy the course. The $8 million purchase price was backed by a 20-year, $5.1 million bond issue. The bonds were paid off earlier this year.

Was it a good investment for the city? Although officials couldn’t provide an official estimate of the land’s current value, the developer of the new Park Hill townhomes near the course paid $5.2 million for about one acre — yes, one acre — at Park and Whipple avenues.

The Winter Park Golf Course may be a historic treasure, but that doesn’t mean it’s exempt from the laws of finance. The city has been paying about $200,000 a year to subsidize course operations, Holland says, but the goal is for it to become self-sustaining.

He hopes that by raising greens fees and memberships and attracting more players, the course can soon cover its operating expenses.

In 2014-15, the last time it was open for an entire fiscal year, the course hosted 34,000 rounds of golf. “We’re certainly hoping for a substantial jump in rounds,” says Holland, who is targeting visitors as well as locals.

“It’s surprisingly well known as a course for tourists.”

But loyal locals such as Danny Stanley, 60, who runs a successful trucking and logistics business from his nearby home, remain crucial to the course’s success.

“That golf course has been there a million years,” says Stanley, who played it as a youngster and resumed after he returned to Winter Park in 2000. His

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wife has made his membership an annual Christmas gift.

Stanley, who describes his skills as “middle-of-the-road,” loves to walk the course. Playing nine holes makes a round of golf “a two-hour goof-off rather than a five-hour goof-off,” he says.

Well, perhaps “goof-off” is too strong a term. Stanley often carries his smartphone when he plays, which allows him to conduct business. “I hit my tee shot, then answer an email on my way down the fairway,” he says.

Stanley plays five days a week. But he’s part of a shrinking number of truly avid golfers. According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of people who played golf in the U.S. dropped to 24.1 million in 2015. At the height of Tiger Woods’ popularity in 2003, the sport attracted 30.6 million.

Golf courses, many of which have closed, have had an especially hard time attracting millennials. Bloomberg News recently reported that consumer spending on golf has remained flat over the past eight years, and Nike has decided to get out of the golf equipment business. Cast-off clubs go unsold at garage sales and thrift stores.

Yet, the geographical limitations of the Winter Park Golf Course could actually give it an edge as the sport regroups. Busy Americans who can’t spend four or five hours on 18 holes may be willing to spend two hours on nine holes — especially if they can combine golf with lunch, dinner or shopping.

“Most golf courses don’t have the luxury of being attached to an asset like Park Avenue,” says Diehl.

The new emphasis on the compressed round of golf has given rise to hopeful slogans such as “Quick Nine,” “Nine Is the New 18,” “Time for Nine” and even “Wine and Nine.”

So, is it possible that the once-dowdy course could actually become trendy as it heads into its second century?

Leary is optimistic. “The golf industry has a huge push right now toward nine holes — before work, after work, even during lunch,” he says. And he pledges to do his part.

“I love the sport. I don’t play enough, but I’ll be playing more. If you see me out there, duck.” 

The Annie Russell Theatre 85th Season ****************

2017-2018 The Cradle Will Rock sept 29 – oct 7, 2017

book, music & lyrics by marc Blitzstein directed by tony simotes musical direction by jason m bailey

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Sense and Sensibility nov 17 – dec 2, 2017 by kate hamill based on the novel by

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jane austen

* directed by marianne diquattro

The Women of Lockerbie feb 16 – 24, 2018 by deborah brevoort directed by eric zivot

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9 to 5 : The Musical apr 20 – 28, 2018

music & lyrics by dolly parton book by patricia resnick directed by missy barnes musical direction by jason m bailey choreography by robin gerchman

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Subscribe rollins.edu/annie Now! 407.646.2145 *********

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NATURAL PHENOMENON Clyde Butcher is world renowned for his photographs of the Everglades.

Last year, he turned his attention to Mead Botanical Garden.

BY RANDY NOLES

Staghorn fern and a variegated cordyline.

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Because Clyde Butcher is accustomed to wading through alligator-infested swamps to get just the right shot, tranquil Howell Creek, which runs through Mead Botanical Garden, posed no particular obstacle.

IN BRIEF Mead Botanical Garden is open daily from 7:30 a.m. to dusk. It’s located just off U.S. 17-92 in Winter Park. Coming from Orlando, turn right (east) onto Garden Drive just past the Winter Park city limits. Coming from Winter Park, turn left (east) onto Garden Drive, just past Orange Avenue. Garden Drive leads directly to the main entrance. In addition to being a beautifully unspoiled nature area, the garden boasts a number of facilities available for public use. Among them:

n The Grove. This multipurpose, open-air venue hosts an array of musical and theatrical productions. It’s a great place to bring a blanket or a lawn chair and watch a performance in the glorious outdoors. For rental information, call 407-599-2800.

n The Amphitheater. Built in 1960, the amphitheater has for decades been one of the most popular settings in the region for weddings and other special functions. Outdoor bench seating can accommodate up to 300 people. For rental information, call 407-599-3397.

n Picnic Pavilion. Looking for a place to hold a picnic, family birth-

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

C

lyde Butcher’s haunting black-and-white landscapes of the Florida Everglades are considered artistic masterpieces. His images have been widely showcased in books, on calendars and through major museum exhibitions throughout the U.S. Butcher’s art has been ranked alongside that of Ansel Adams, whose dramatic photography of Yosemite National Park inspired him in the early 1960s.

Documentarian Ken Burns, who in 2009 produced and directed The National Parks: America’s Best Idea for PBS, said that the work of Adams and Butcher “reminds us of the abiding kinship we mortals share when we work together to preserve these magnificent places.”

So when the legendary photographer, whom Burns called “a national treasure,” agreed in 2016 to visit Winter Park and bring his camera to Mead Botanical Garden, it was an important milestone in the 77-year history of “Winter Park’s Natural Place.”

While the garden has been significantly restored, thanks largely to volunteer labor, it’s sometimes overshadowed by the city’s more glitzy dining, shopping and cultural attractions.

Mead Botanical Garden Inc., the nonprofit organization that operates the city-owned expanse of woods and wetlands, was able to snare Butcher in part because he and his family — including wife Niki and daughter Jackie Obendorf — were already going to be in Central Florida, where they own a timeshare.

But more importantly, Butcher is an outspoken conservationist who finds it difficult to resist using his celebrity to raise awareness of local parks and preserves.

“You need to protect what’s in your own backyard,” says Butcher, 75, a white-bearded happy warrior who’s known for wading waist-deep in alligator-infested muck to get just the right shot.

While he was in Winter Park, Butcher headlined a $100 per ticket fundraiser dubbed Lens Envy: An Evening with Clyde Butcher, at the Winter Park Civic Center on New England Avenue. The event, which quickly sold out, featured the amiable artist discussing his career and projecting images of his work.

He subsequently made three trips to Mead Botanical Garden to soak in

day party or class reunion? The pavilion, located near the main entrance, offers a shady setting and several tables. For reservation information, call 407-599-3397.

n The Winter Park Garden Club. This 3,000-square-foot building accommodates up to 175 people for weddings, receptions, meetings, retreats and other events. There’s a fully equipped kitchen and a lovely patio that overlooks lush wooded areas. For rental information, call 407-644-5770. The Florida Federation of Garden Clubs has a similar facility adjacent to Mead Botanical Garden. For rental information, call 407-647-7016.

Mead Botanical Garden also has a community vegetable garden and a popular summer camp as well as birdwatching expeditions, guided hikes, a fall plant sale and such events as the annual Great Duck Derby — the racing ducks are of the rubber variety — which supports the garden’s environmental education programs. For more information and a calendar of events, visit meadgarden.org.

the atmosphere and capture its ambiance with his camera. Winter Park Magazine was granted exclusive rights to reproduce the resulting images, which are shown on pages 84–91.

In a follow-up telephone interview from his home in Venice, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, Butcher says he enjoyed his time at Mead Botanical Garden because it combined untamed natural areas with “controlled spaces” that appeared well used.

“I hope people understand what you have there,” he says. “I would advise people who visit not to rush through it. Go slow. Watch what happens. You could easily spend a whole day there. And when you come back next, it’ll be an entirely new experience.”

For some of his photographs, in typical Butcher fashion, he positioned himself squarely in the middle of Howell Creek. “That’s the kind of thing you have to do,” he says. “You want to connect to a place; to really become a part of it.”  LIV I NG IN WINTE R PARK

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Bald cypress with a cabbage palm along Howell Creek.

Bald cypress knees in Howell Creek.

Bat flower.

King palm with begonias beneath.

Oakleaf hydrangea, dracaenas, cordylines, begonias and ferns in the Legacy Garden.

At the heart of the two-story Center for Health & Wellbeing (above) will be a light-flooded grand hall called The Commons (below), a welcoming space highlighted by warm shades of wood and an undulating ceiling. “The notion of discovery is a big one for me,” says architect Turan Duda. “The power of architecture, through experience, to change the way you think and feel is really wonderful.”

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A WELLNESS REVOLUTION The Center for Health & Wellbeing will offer an integrative approach in a state-of-the-art new facility.

BY DANA S. EAGLES

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n Winter Park, wellness is becoming much more than a worthy goal.

It’s taking physical form as construction starts on the Center for Health & Wellbeing, which will bring fitness, medicine and wellness education together in a building designed to stir both body and soul.

The $40 million center, created through a partnership of the Winter Park Health Foundation and Winter Park Memorial Hospital, is expected to open late next year just south of the hospital on the site of the old Peggy and Philip B. Crosby Wellness Center YMCA, which has been razed to make way for construction.

The Center for Health & Wellbeing will have clinical space, rooms for education and community activities, a café and demonstration kitchen, and an upgraded Crosby Y, whose members are using other facilities during construction.

The Crosby Y will be the only part of the new center requiring a membership.

Since its inception in 1994, the foundation has been known for quietly funding health programs through grants and partnerships in Winter Park, Maitland and Eatonville — from fighting diabetes to placing nurses in public schools.

In 2015, by its own calculation, the foundation had a community impact of almost $5.3 million. But as the center’s developer, it’s becoming much more visible in its support for wellness, which is a concept that means different things to different people.

“We embrace that variability,” says Patty Maddox, the foundation’s longtime president and CEO. Factors such as mobility and mental readiness can determine the meaning of wellness for individuals, she adds. “We want people to feel comfortable — what’s the best they can be?”

The two-story center, with its light-flooded grand hall called The Commons, abundant gardens and site bordering the city’s 66-acre Ward Park, will be a landmark that can serve as a constant reminder that “health is important and pervasive,” Maddox says.

At the heart of the center’s mission is integration. It will bring together in one place services that can help people improve and maintain their health — with free parking in a five-level garage.

The center will be open every day of the week, with evening hours, too.

Members of the Crosby Y will swim, work out on fitness machines or learn exercise routines in classes. Winter Park Memorial clinicians will offer consultation, therapy and rehabilitation. Experts will help home cooks learn how to prepare healthful meals. Walkers will use tracks inside the building and on the grounds.

For Winter Park Memorial, the center offers a chance to “bend the cost curve” by preventing disease and keeping people out of a sick bed, says hospital Administrator Jennifer Wandersleben. The hospital is planning to offer primary care, pharmacy, nutrition, physical therapy, mental health and

massage therapy services there, she says.

“We want to align with their mission — they have the experience and the reach that we don’t have,” Wandersleben says of the foundation, which grew out of the sale of Winter Park Memorial first to Columbia/HCA and then to current owner Florida Hospital. The foundation and the Winter Park hospital have maintained close ties over the years.

Financial incentives within the healthcare industry are shifting to value wellness and not just office visits, tests and procedures, Wandersleben says.

And there’s another reason supporting wellness makes sense, she says: It was a founding principle for what eventually became Adventist Health System, Florida Hospital’s parent organization.

Seventh-day Adventist medical pioneers were promoting the importance of fresh air, sunshine and healthful eating 150 years ago, she says. “We’re going back to our roots.”

Dr. Eddie Needham sees the center’s significance from two vantage points: He’s the program director of the Florida Hospital Family Medicine Residency Program and a trustee of the Winter Park Health Foundation. “Preventive medicine is the ace of spades for family medicine,” says Needham.

The $40 million center is being built just south of Winter Park Memorial Hospital on the site of the old Crosby Y. It borders 66-acre Ward Park.

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Patty Maddox, president and CEO of the Winter Park Health Foundation, reviews plans for the center with architect Turan Duda of Duda|Paine in Durham, North Carolina. The company also designed the Duke Integrative Medicine building at Duke University, a project that impressed foundation officials.

Twenty to 30 percent of Americans are hard-chargers when it comes to wellness, Needham observes. He figures that another third will ignore wellness advice no matter what and will stay on the couch watching reruns of The Walking Dead.

But he has a chance to make a difference with the middle group — those who are receptive to a wellness message and whose lives might change with even one positive choice. He sees obesity and tobacco use as two especially critical “behavioral determinants” of disease.

Bringing that educational message together with fitness and medicine is what will make the center distinctive, says Debbie Watson, the foundation’s vice president. “A lot of what we plan to offer is educationally oriented, to raise awareness.”

Watson envisions having medical professionals available to answer questions about blood sugar, for example; an ongoing showcase for programs and products related to health; classes and lectures presented in cooperation with community partners; and a network that uses the Internet to take the message beyond the center’s walls.

Maddox says she hopes people who visit one part of the center will discover new ways to stay well. “This is about building a place where people can get new information and insights into getting healthy,” she says. “I think there’ll be a lot of unintentional wellness going on.”

Some unexpected wellness may come from the building itself, whose materials, gardens and natural light are intended to promote well-being. The project’s architect, Turan Duda of Duda|Paine in Durham, North Carolina, has emphasized what he calls “the healing power of nature and gardens.”

Gardens around the building will have various purposes — one for contemplation, for example, and another for aroma, he says. A series of “garden walls” of varying heights — some of them part of the facade — will create what Duda calls a “layering effect” in the building’s design. “We want people to experience the outside of the building as much as the inside,” he says.

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Inside, the Commons will offer warm shades of wood and an undulating ceiling. Despite the Commons’ massive size, furniture will create “rooms within the room” and provide a sense of intimacy, Duda says. “My goal is that people who come to this space have a choice of where they are most comfortable.”

Duda|Paine’s earlier design of the Duke Integrative Medicine building at Duke University helped convince the foundation that the firm was right for the Winter Park project. Maddox says foundation representatives visited other wellness-oriented centers whose programs were interesting but whose buildings were not.

The Duke building, however, creates a warm, low-stress environment, partly through the use of wood, stone and plants. “We all had the same response — the building was speaking to us,” Maddox recalls. “We all felt this calming influence.”

Duda says he wants the Center for Health & Wellbeing to be transformative through architecture, just as its founders hope it can change lives through the facilities, expertise and fellowship it offers.

“The notion of discovery is a big one for me,” he says. “The power of architecture, through experience, to change the way you think and feel is really wonderful.”

The center is attracting the attention of many of the world’s leading experts in the fields of active aging and medical fitness, including Colin Milner, CEO of the International Council on Active Aging, whose organization is consulting with the foundation.

“I believe this project has the potential to change the way we age,” Milner says. “It changes the way we view aging — and the way we actually live — by providing services that perhaps hadn’t been available before in your community.”

Milner describes the center as “morphing from the old model of ‘senior center,’ where people used to go to congregate and socialize, to where it’s all about evolution, embracing new technologies and embracing possibilities.

A center like that is literally shaking the foundation of society.” 

HOW HEALTHY ARE WE, REALLY? Just how healthy are people who live in and around Winter Park? Healthy Central Florida, an initiative of the Winter Park Health Foundation and Florida Hospital, has been asking that question for a while.

Its most recent State of Our Health report, based on a 2014 survey, found that 60 percent of adults in Winter Park, Maitland and Eatonville rated their health as excellent or very good.

Fourteen percent, however, rated it only fair or poor — and that number didn’t change much from HCF’s 2011 survey.

Although HCF’s survey data is based on self-reporting, Executive Director Jill Hamilton Buss says studies show residents’ own assessments of their overall health status are actually a good indicator of a community’s health.

An encouraging trend, Buss says, is the decline in the number of people who say they smoke — from an average of 16 percent across the three cities in 2011 to 11 percent in 2014. That compares to 15 percent nationwide. In Maitland, only 7 percent identified themselves as smokers in 2014.

But the rate of prediabetes — elevated blood glucose levels that show a person is at risk of diabetes — was 10 percent in 2014, about twice the national rate. Buss says relatively high numbers of older residents, especially in Winter Park, may have something to do with the finding.

Twelve percent of those surveyed in the three cities said they had diabetes — about the same as in the U.S. as a whole. But the number of Eatonville residents with diabetes was almost double

that number, at 23 percent.

In response, HCF helped start Healthy Eatonville Place, a community center that aims to combat diabetes, obesity and other chronic health problems through education and lifestyle management. It’s operated by Florida Hospital and funded by the hospital, the foundation and pharmaceutical maker Sanofi.

About 56 percent of residents in the Winter Park area were classified as overweight — and that number didn’t budge significantly between surveys. But almost half said they were trying to lose weight.

Nearly one-third said they had been diagnosed with high blood pressure at some point.

“Awareness is improving and the intention to get healthy is improving,” says Buss, who frequently talks to civic groups and politicians about making the community wellness-friendly through policy changes and improvements in infrastructure: building the bike lanes, sidewalks and trails that connect neighborhoods and make it possible to integrate physical activity into everyday life, for example.

The survey indicated that existing amenities are being used: About 38 percent of those surveyed in 2014 said they were using a park or trail for walking, running or biking at least once a week — up from 27 percent in 2011.

“The built environment is really key,” Buss says.

“If you have a place to walk and bike safely, people love to do it. People like to be where other people are.”

Not every positive change requires government

spending, though. Encouraged by the decline in smoking — and the survey finding that most people regard secondhand smoke as “very harmful” — HCF started a campaign called Breathe Free Winter Park. Nearly 50 restaurants have signed on voluntarily to make their outdoor patios smoke-free.

Although Winter Park, Maitland and Eatonville residents cope with many of the same health challenges other communities face, they’re scoring high on an aspect of health often overlooked: happiness. Although 17 percent said they found daily life very stressful, 95 percent called themselves very or somewhat happy.

The survey report is available at healthycentralflorida.org by clicking on the “Resources” tab.

— Dana S. Eagles

SEVEN DIMENSIONS OF WELLNESS 1 2 3

Wellness means a lot more than just checking your blood pressure once in a while and skipping that second slice of pie. In creating the Center for Health & Wellbeing, the Winter Park Health Foundation was guided by the seven dimensions of wellness adopted by the International Council on Active Aging.

Here are the dimensions, along with brief descriptions from the association. For more information, visit icaa.cc.

EMOTIONAL: Feelings are the lens through which people view the world, and the ability to be aware of and direct one’s feelings helps to create balance in life.

INTELLECTUAL, COGNITIVE: Engaging in creative pursuits and intellectually stimulating activities is a proven approach to keeping minds alert and interested.

PHYSICAL: The goal of living independently is one shared by many people, and physical wellness is necessary to achieve this.

4 PROFESSIONAL, VOCATIONAL: Work that utilizes a person’s skills while providing personal satisfaction is valuable for society as well as the individual.

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SOCIAL: Interactions with family, friends, neighbors and chosen peer groups can be valuable for maintaining health.

SPIRITUAL: Living with a meaning and purpose in life, guided by personal values, is key to feelings of well-being and connection to the larger world.

ENVIRONMENTAL: Good stewardship means respecting resources by choosing “green” processes and urban designs that encourage active living.

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THE PARK AVENUE MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION • EXPERIENCEPARKAVENUE.COM

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Financial Services 5 21 28 4 5 8

Bank of America 407-646-3600 F4 Wealth Advisors 407-960-4769 Florida Community Bank 407-622-5000 Grafton Wealth Management at Merrill Lynch 407-646-6725 The Kozlowski CPA Firm LLC 407-381-4432 Moss, Krusick and Associates 407-644-5811

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Winter Park Memorial Hospital’s five-story, Mediterranean-inspired pavilion (above) will be named for local philanthropists Tony and Sonja Nicholson (inset).

Construction is set to begin this winter, with a completion date of 2018. It will add 80 all-private patient rooms to the hospital, which opened in 1955 as the result of a broad-based community effort.

HOSPITAL’S GROWTH WILL FURTHER ENHANCE QUALITY PATIENT CARE Winter Park Memorial Hospital, founded by the community in 1955, recently announced its new $85 million Nicholson Pavilion, which will add up to 80 allprivate rooms, as well as a new patient lobby.

“Winter Park Memorial Hospital was founded with the goal of creating a worldclass hospital to serve the community’s health needs right here at home,” says administrator Jennifer Wandersleben. “We’re thrilled to be a part of this latest chapter, which is the largest investment in the hospital’s history and one of the largest in Winter Park.”

The five-story, Mediterranean-inspired pavilion will be named for local philanthropists Tony and Sonja Nicholson. Construction is set to begin this winter, with a completion date of 2018.

“We feel blessed to be able to share with the Winter Park community in this way,” says Tony Nicholson, who, with his wife, is namesake of the Nicholson School of Communication at the University of Central Florida and Florida Hospital’s Nicholson Center at Celebration.

“We’re excited for the impact this patient pavilion will have,” he adds. “Remember, this is where life begins and where we come to get the best medical attention during our lifetimes.”

The Nicholson Pavilion expansion will allow the hospital to convert the majority of its existing rooms into private patient rooms. The new pavilion space will

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include private beds for orthopedic care as well as other surgical and medical services. At full build-out, it will offer 160 private rooms and bathrooms.

When Winter Park Memorial Hospital opened during President Eisenhower’s first term, about 12,000 people called Winter Park home. The first ambulance was a hearse run by a funeral home. Ninety doctors treated patients at the 58bed facility.

Today, nearly 30,000 people live in Winter Park, and thousands more in the surrounding area.

Winter Park Memorial Hospital, now owned by Florida Hospital, is the largest private employer in the city, with almost 1,400 employees. The hospital performs nearly 10,000 surgeries, more than 75,000 outpatient visits and more than 16,000 inpatient admissions per year.

As an almost 50-year resident of Winter Park and a patient at times of this hospital, I know this new pavilion will bring to Winter Park a facility that will meet the needs of our community for a long time to come,” says Tom Yochum, the Winter Park Memorial Hospital Foundation board president.

The state-of-the-art community hospital is home to destination services such as the Dr. P. Phillips Baby Place, Florida Hospital for Women at Winter Park Memorial Hospital, the Cancer Institute, Orthopaedic Institute, and the Minimally Invasive & Robotic Surgical Center. 

Young minds need room to grow.

THE GENEVA SCHOOL 2025 SR 436, WINTER PARK, FL 32792

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A GATOR’S EYE VIEW OF WINTER PARK The Scenic Boat Tour, in operation since 1961, embarks from Lake Osceola and offers hourlong, guided cruises through three of the seven lakes comprising the Winter Park Chain of Lakes, traversing two picturesque man-made canals along the way. You’ll see swaying palms, towering cypress trees, lush ferns and a variety of subtropical flowers as well as breathtaking views of opulent private homes lining the shore. You might even spot a gator or two. The sights are spectacular. But just listening to the jovial tour guides — a hearty band of local historians — spin their yarns is worth the price. Tours are offered in a fleet of six 18-passenger pontoon boats. Admission is $14 for adults and $7 for children. Call 407644-4065 or visit scenicboattours.com.

EVENTS, FESTIVALS AND ATTRACTIONS Listed in January-to-December order; those showing 2016 and 2017 dates reflect the dates they were held, or will be held before year’s end. In some cases, the dates may be different in 2018, but had not been finalized at press time. Call or check the websites provided for the most up-to-date information.

UNITY HERITAGE FESTIVAL JANUARY 15, 2017 Shady Park, 721 West New England Avenue This annual festival in the city’s historically black Hannibal Square neighborhood promotes awareness of family history and raises money for the Educational Fulfillment Fund, which benefits local economically disadvantaged youth. Activities from 1-5 p.m. include performances by various gospel-music artists, children’s games, food and retail vendors, and presentation of the annual Heritage Award. Free. 407-599-3275. cityofwinterpark.org.

SIDE BY SIDE JANUARY 27, 2017 Knowles Memorial Chapel, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Avenue

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This annual event, inspired by the city’s celebration of its 125th anniversary in 2012, is designed “to pause and honor the gifts of our community.” It features remarks from civic, business and spiritual leaders as well as performances by talented musical groups and soloists. It starts at 8:30 a.m. in the chapel, with refreshments served afterward, outside near the rose garden.

The program is presented by First Congregational Church of Winter Park and Rollins College in partnership with the City of Winter Park and the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce. 407599-3506. cityofwinterpark.org.

ANNUAL BACH FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 2018 Knowles Memorial Chapel, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Avenue The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park was founded in 1935 to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s birth by presenting the composer’s orchestral and choral music to the public. More than eight decades later, it offers a diverse program of concerts and educational programs, with choral, orchestral and visiting-artist concerts throughout the year.

But for several weeks each February, the society’s renowned Annual Bach Festival features works of Bach and other great composers performed by the 160-voice Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra and guest soloists. Ticket prices vary. 407-6462182. bachfestivalflorida.org.

WINTER PARK ROAD RACE MARCH 25, 2017 Central Park, 251 North Park Avenue The Zimmerman Kiser Sutcliffe Winter Park Road Race is a local tradition and the grand finale each year of the region’s Track Shack Running Series. In addition to the 10K main event, it

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offers a 2-mile race and a kids’ run, so the whole family can participate. The 6.2-mile route features slight inclines, tree-lined streets, historic homes and views of the Winter Park Chain of Lakes as it passes through several of the city’s beautiful neighborhoods. The first race starts at 7 a.m.; the event ends at 10 a.m. with the Track Shack Running Series awards ceremony.

WINTER PARK SIDEWALK ART FESTIVAL MARCH 16-18, 2018 Central Park, Park Avenue This annual, nationally ranked juried arts fest features about 225 artists chosen by a panel of judges from more than 1,100 applicants. The three-day outdoor event also features live jazz and children’s activities. (Pets are not allowed in the park or along the avenue between New England and Canton avenues during the festival.) Free. Friday and Saturday, 9 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sunday, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. wpsaf.org.

by the Centers for Medicaid & Medicare Services and the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration

With a small, 40-bed “neighborhood” setting and an experienced staff, The Gardens at DePugh provides an intimate extended-family environment that helps each resident achieve the highest level of independence and best possible quality of life.

Call today to schedule your visit.

407-644-6634 • thegardensatdepugh.org

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EARTH DAY IN THE PARK APRIL 9, 2017 Central Park, Park Avenue This city-sponsored event, presented by its Sustainability and Keep Winter Park Beautiful programs, includes a kids’ zone with games, art projects, an educational planting experience, live music, an art contest, yoga for children and adults, a composting demo, a bike rodeo with safety checks for ages 5 and older, food-and-beverage vendors, and an electric-car show. Those riding bicycles to the 11 a.m.-3 p.m. event will be able to use a free bike-valet service on Morse Boulevard between Park and New York avenues.

407-599-3364. cityofwinterpark.org/earthday.

DINNER ON THE AVENUE APRIL 8, 2017 Park Avenue between New England Avenue and Morse Boulevard

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Each year the city shuts down a stretch of Park Avenue for the evening and replaces the cars with tables and white linen for a unique, funfilled dining experience and social event from 6-10 p.m. Friends, families, co-workers and neighbors organize groups, decorate their tables based on themes of their choosing, then sit down to pot-luck or catered dinners. 407-6431613. cityofwinterpark.org/dinnerontheavenue.

EASTER EGG HUNT APRIL 15, 2017 Central Park, Park Avenue This city-organized event is BYOB (Bring Your Own Basket). Children up to age 10 may hunt for the more than 10,000 eggs placed throughout Central Park. Anyone who comes up empty-handed can still enjoy special treats distributed at a designated candy area. Children with special needs are encouraged to join in the fun. 9:30-11 a.m., with the hunt starting promptly at 10 a.m. Free. 407-599-3463.

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TASTE OF WINTER PARK APRIL 19, 2017 Winter Park Farmers’ Market, 200 West New England Avenue This foodie festival, organized by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, showcases more than 40 of the region’s top chefs, bakers, caterers and confectioners. Admission to the event, which runs from 5-8 p.m., includes unlimited samples of signature dishes, beverages and desserts as well as live entertainment and raffle prizes. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

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Located on a beautiful 42-acre campus, Lake Highland Preparatory School is nestled in a scenic enclave of downtown Orlando. Here, Pre-K through 12th grade students receive a remarkable education and unique opportunities to learn and lead. Ingenuity is inspired in the classroom, and our nationally ranked academics, arts, and athletics prepare students to excel in college and beyond.

We invite you to tour our campus, see our extraordinary facilities, experience our atmosphere of love and respect, and envision your child’s success starting at Lake Highland.

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www.lhps.org | 407-206-1900 ext. 1 901 N. Highland Avenue | Orlando, Florida 32803

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WINTER PARK PAINT OUT APRIL 23-29, 2017 Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens The museum, formerly the home and studio of the late sculptor Albin Polasek, hosts its annual Paint Out the last full week of April, during which 25 professionally acclaimed plein air artists roam the city to capture favorite landscapes and landmarks with oils, watercolors and pastels. The museum and sculpture gardens, at 633 Osceola Ave., are open to the public free of charge during the event. Newly finished paintings are hung in the gallery’s “wet room” and may be purchased on the spot. 407647-6294. polasek.org.

OLDE FASHIONED 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION JULY 4, 2017 Central Park, Park Avenue and Morse Boulevard Not surprisingly, Central Park is the site of this annual Independence Day celebration, with patriotic music performed by the Bach Festival Brass Band and Bach Festival Choir. There’s also a sunrise 5K run as well as other musical performances, horse-drawn wagon rides, and an annual bicycle parade for children at 9 a.m. starting at City Hall, just south of the park. Free hot dogs, watermelon and water are served. Also, admission is free to the Charles Hosmer Morse

Museum of American Art from 9:30 a.m.-4 p.m.

407-599-3463. winterpark.org.

hundred guests sample cuisine prepared by 18 of Central Florida’s top chefs as well as wines curated by ABC Fine Wine & Spirits. cowsncabs.com.

KIDS TRICK-OR-TREAT ON PARK AVENUE October 29, 2016 Park Avenue Business District Children in costume can go trick-or-treating along Central Florida’s premier shopping thoroughfare from 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Merchants participating in this annual tradition greet the youthful ghouls and goblins with Halloween treats.

WINTER PARK AUTUMN ART FESTIVAL OCTOBER 14-15, 2017 Central Park, Park Avenue The other shoe drops when the city offers a second juried art show, this one in the fall. The two-day show, which draws more than 40,000 people each year, features work by outstanding Orlando-area artists, plus live entertainment and food. Children’s art workshops are also offered.

Free. 407-644-8281. autumnartfestival.org.

COWS ‘N CABS OCTOBER 22, 2016 West Meadow, Central Park (corner of Morse Boulevard and New York Avenue) This charity-based food-and-wine festival (tickets range from $110 to $500 per person) offers a signature rustic, Western atmosphere under one large tent in Central Park’s West Meadow. Several

CHRISTMAS IN THE PARK DECEMBER 1, 2017 Central Park, Park Avenue Since 1979, on the first Thursday of December, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art has helped launch the holiday season in Winter Park with a display of Tiffany stainedglass windows in Central Park and performances by the Bach Festival Choir, Youth Choir and Brass Ensemble. The tradition was started by Hugh and Jeannette McKean, the museum’s benefactors, as a way to share a sampling of

their rare Tiffany collection with the public in an informal setting. This year’s event, with music on the Central Park stage, is 6:15-8 p.m. Free. morsemuseum.org.

YE OLDE HOMETOWN CHRISTMAS PARADE DECEMBER 2, 2017 Park Avenue, from Cole to Lyman avenues The city’s annual Christmas Parade has been held on the first Saturday in December for more than six decades, making it the longestrunning parade in Central Florida. More than 100 units will march south down Park Avenue between 9-11 a.m.; highlights include local dance troupes, police and fire departments, marching bands, Scout troops, local dignitaries and, of course, Santa Claus. Before and during the free parade, Leadership Winter Park hosts its annual Pancake Breakfast at the Central Park stage from 7-10:30 a.m.; tickets are $6 for adults, $4 for children, and proceeds benefit the Winter Park Improvement Foundation. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

WINTER IN THE PARK NOVEMBER 18, 2016 – JANUARY 8, 2017 West Meadow, Central Park (corner of Morse Boulevard and New York Avenue) The city’s annual holiday season kicks off with Winter in the Park, an indoor ice-skating rink erected each year in Central Park’s West Meadow. A full day of skating, skates included, costs $12 per person, though group discounts are available. The rink, open weekdays from midafternoon and weekends from late morning or noon, has holiday music and a full calendar of activities and festivities. 407-599-3203. cityofwinterpark.org.

NATIONAL AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS n Bicycle-Friendly Community, League of American Bicyclists (2015) nO utstanding Achievement Award for Overall Impression, America in Bloom (2015)

nB est-Tasting Water in Central Florida, 2nd Place, American Water Works Association/Florida Section (2007, 2005) nT ree City USA Award, National Arbor Day Foundation (2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002)

nN ational Award, 25,001-30,000 Population, America in Bloom (2013) nP layful City USA Community, KaBOOM! (2012, 2011) nG reen Local Government, Gold-Level Certification, Florida Green Building Coalition (2011) nC ity of Excellence Finalist, Florida League of Cities (2008)

n I nternational SWAT Roundup for Police Departments with Fewer Than 100 Sworn Officers, Central Florida SWAT Association, First Place (2003) nP residential Circle Award, Keep America Beautiful (2003) nR ollins College, No. 1 Regional University in the South, U.S. News & World Report (10 of the past 12 years)

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EDUCATION GUIDE PRIVATE-SCHOOL DIRECTORY SCHOOL NAME/ADDRESS

WEBSITE/PHONE

UNIFORMS

GRADE

NUMBER OF STUDENTS

STUDENT TEACHER RATIO

*ACCREDITATIONS

2017-2018 TUITION

THE GENEVA SCHOOL 2025 S.R. 436, Winter Park, FL 32792

407-332-6363 genevaschool.org

Yes

K-12

505

10:1

FCIS

$6,540$14,150

JEWISH ACADEMY OF ORLANDO 851 N. Maitland Ave., Maitland, FL 32751

407-647-0713 jewishacademyorlando.org

Yes

K-5

135

6::1

FCIS

$13,910$15,860

LAKE HIGHLAND PREPARATORY SCHOOL 901 N. Highland Ave., Orlando, FL 32803

407-206-1900 lhps.org

Yes

PreK-12

1,924

13::1

FCIS, FKC, NAIS, SACS

$11,900$20,500

ORANGEWOOD CHRISTIAN SCHOOL 1300 W. Maitland Blvd., Maitland, FL 32751

888-469-8211 orangewoodchristian.org

Yes

PreK-12

694

9::1 / 11::1

CSF, NCPSA, SACS

$7,500$13,220

PARK MAITLAND SCHOOL 1450 S. Orlando Ave., Maitland, FL 32751

407-647-3038 parkmaitland.org

Yes

Pre-K-6

625

10::1 / 15::1

FCIS, FKC

$11,800$14,600

THE PARKE HOUSE ACADEMY 1776 Minnesota Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789

407-647-3624 theparkehouseacademy.com

Yes

Pre-K-5

200

10::1

FCIS, FKC

$10,500$13,500

TRINITY PREPARATORY SCHOOL 5700 Trinity Prep Lane, Winter Park, FL 32792

407-671-4140 trinityprep.org

No

6-12

875

12::1

FCIS

$21,190

*CSF: Christian Schools of Florida (christianschoolsfl.org); FCIS: Florida Council of Independent Schools (fcis.org); FKC: Florida Kindergarten Council (fkconline.org); NAIS: National Association of Independent Schools (nais.org); NCPSA: National Council for Private School Accreditation (ncpsa.org); SACS: Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (sacs.org).

Tuition was correct as of presstime. Call individual schools for confirmation.

HIGHER-EDUCATION DIRECTORY SCHOOL NAME/ADDRESS/WEBSITE

FULL SAIL UNIVERSITY 3300 University Blvd., Winter Park, FL 32792 407-679-6333 / fullsail.edu ROLLINS COLLEGE 1000 Holt Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789 407-646-2000 / rollins.edu

UNDERGRADUATE DEGREES

VALENCIA COLLEGE 850 W. Morse Blvd, Winter Park, FL 32789 (Winter Park Campus) 407-299-5000 / valenciacollege.edu

*COST

NOTES

BFA, BS

MA, MFA, MS

Undergraduate PCH: $467-$621 Graduate PCH: $534-$850

Offers undergraduate and graduate degree programs for careers in film, music, gaming, animation and other forms of interactive entertainment.

BA

MA, MEd, MHSA, MPH, MHR, MLS

Undergraduate Full Time PY: $48,335 Undergraduate Part Time PC: $1,780 Graduate PC: $1,530-$2,392

For the 22nd consecutive year, Rollins has been ranked among the top two regional universities in the South by U.S. News & World Report.

EDBA, MBA

PP varies from $55,000$99,076

Ranked one of the Top 10 least-expensive private business schools in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Offers three types of MBA, plus an executive doctorate.

ABACS, MA, MEd, MHSA, MPH, MHR, MLS

Undergraduate PC: $1,896 Graduate PC: $1,575-$2,556

Named for Rollins’ eighth president; offers evening classes for working adults pursuing bachelor’s or master’s degrees.

PCH: $103-$112

Chosen in 2011 as the top U.S. community college by the Aspen Institute; graduates from its five campuses are guaranteed admission to UCF and other public state universities as well as Rollins College.

ROLLINS COLLEGE CRUMMER GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS 1000 Holt Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789 407-646-2405 / rollins.edu/mba ROLLINS COLLEGE HAMILTON HOLT SCHOOL 311 W. Fairbanks Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789 407-646-2232 / rollins.edu/holt

GRADUATE DEGREES

BA

AA, BS, AS, Cert.

MEd, MA, MHR

*PCH: Cost per credit hour, PS: Cost per semester, PY: Cost per year, PP: Cost per total program, PC: Cost per course. Note: Costs for in-state residents were correct as of presstime, but are subject to change. Call individual schools for confirmation.

PUBLIC SCHOOLS Aloma Elementary School (Pre-K-5), 2949 Scarlet Road, 407-672-3100; Brookshire Elementary (Pre-K-5), 2500 Cady Way, 407-623-1400; Killarney Elementary School (K-5), 2401 Wellington Blvd., 407-623-1438; Lakemont Elementary School (K-5), 901 N. Lakemont Ave., 407-623-1453; Winter Park High School (1012), 2100 Summerfield Road, 407-622-3200; Winter Park High School Ninth Grade Center, 528 Huntington Ave., 407-623-1476; Orange Technical College Winter Park Campus, 901 W. Webster Ave., 407-622-2900.

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