Living in Winter Park 2018-2019 Edition

Living in

THE OFFICIAL RELOCATION GUIDE

2018-2019 EDITION

THE CITY OF

CULTURE AND HERITAGE HISTORY  HOMES  HEALTH  ARTS  PARKS  DIRECTORIES

AURORA AWARD WINNER FOR

32

NEW CONSTRUCTION & REMODEL

TIME

CHARLES CLAYTON CONSTRUCTION

Catch a Breeze CHARLES CLAYTON

SERVING ORLANDO, CENTRAL FLORIDA AND COASTAL VOLUSIA COUNTY

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CharlesClayton.com

407.628.3334

CGC#061392

©Cucciaioni Photography 2018

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

Brookside Trail in Mead Botanical Garden, from a circa-1940s postcard.

2018-2019 EDITION

Randy Noles EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Theresa Swanson GROUP PUBLISHER/DIRECTOR OF SALES Pam Flanagan DIRECTOR OF ADMINISTRATION Kathy Byrd ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Heather Stark ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER/SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE Carolyn Edmunds ART DIRECTOR

CONTENTS FEATURES 16 | MASTERFULLY PLANNED Winter Park’s visionary founders were new urbanists a century before the term existed.

It seems they were onto something.

By the Editors, photography courtesy of The Rollins College Department of Archives and Special Collections, digital art by Chip Weston

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM, COLLECTION OF RICK FRAZEE

44 | ENLIGHTENING, ENCHANTING, UPLIFTING “The City of Culture and Heritage” is more than a slogan in Winter Park. By Michael McLeod, Randy Noles and Jay Boyar, photography

by Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com) 60 | ADVENTURES IN ACADEMIA A historian recounts the turbulent, triumphant tale of Rollins College. By Randy Noles, photography by Mitchell Lane Thomas, Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com), digital art by Chip Weston

80 | HOW DOES OUR GARDEN GROW? “Winter Park’s natural place” is more than pretty and peaceful. It’s also an important ecosystem.

By Leslie K. Poole, photography by Rafael Tongol, Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com), Laurence Taylor, Bobby Fokidis 94 | 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 98 | CHANGE MAKERS Winter Park Institute’s speakers are making a difference. And they want you to know that you can, too. By Randy Noles

DEPARTMENTS 6 | MAYOR’S WELCOME 8 | WINTER PARK CHAMBER WELCOME

70 | BACH RULES The revered German master has fans and kindred spirits in Winter Park. By Randy Noles

10 | FAST FACTS

76 | COURSE OF ACTION Winter Park Golf Course’s historic layout boasts a new, more challenging design. Players give it a thumb’s up. By Dana S. Eagles, photography by Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com)

40 | PROUD AS A PEACOCK

12 | DIRECTORY

L I V I NG I N WI N TE R PARK

Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com) Rafael Tongol, Chip Weston, Mitchell Lane Thomas Laurence Taylor, Bobby Fokidis, Christine Krikliwy 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.

WINTER PARK PUBLISHING COMPANY LLC Randy Noles CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER Allan E. Keen CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF MANAGERS Jim DeSimone VICE CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF MANAGERS Theresa Swanson VICE CHAIRMAN, BOARD OF MANAGERS Rick Walsh MEMBER, BOARD OF MANAGERS Michael Okaty, Esq. GENERAL COUNSEL, FOLEY & LARDNER LLP

COMMUNITY PARTNERS Larry and Joanne Adams; The Albertson Company, Ltd.; Richard O. Baldwin Jr.; Jim and Diana Barnes; Brad Blum; Ken and Ruth Bradley; John and Dede Caron; Bruce Douglas; Steve Goldman; Hal George; Michael Gonick; Micky Grindstaff; Marc Hagle; Larry and Jane Hames; Eric and Diane Holm; Garry and Isis Jones; Allan E. and Linda S. Keen; Knob Hill Group (Rick and Trish Walsh, Jim and Beth DeSimone, Chris Schmidt); FAN Fund; Kevin and Jacqueline Maddron; Drew and Paula Madsen; Kenneth J. Meister; Ann Hicks Murrah; Jack Myers; Michael P. O’Donnell; Nicole and Mike Okaty; Bill and Jody Orosz; Martin and Ellen Prague; Serge and Kerri Rivera; Theresa Swanson, LLC; Sam and Heather Stark; Randall B. Robertson; George Sprinkel; Philip Tiedtke; Roger K. Thompson; Ed Timberlake; Harold and Libby Ward; Warren “Chip” Weston; Tom and Penny Yochum; and Victor and Jackie A. Zollo.

14 | PARKS, PLAYGROUNDS AND GARDENS 68 | LIBRARY AND EVENTS CENTER 100 | EVENTS 104 | EDUCATION GUIDE

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 40. Photograph by Winter Park Pictures (winterparkpictures.com)

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Jay Boyar, Dana S. Eagles, Michael McLeod, Leslie K. Poole CONTRIBUTING WRITERS

Copyright 2018 by Winter Park Publishing Company LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Winter Park Publishing Company 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 Winter Park Publishing Company LLC, 201 Canton Avenue, Suite 125B, Winter Park, FL 32789.

FOR GENERAL INFORMATION, CALL: 407-647-0225 For advertising information, call: Kathy Byrd, 407-399-7111; Theresa Swanson, 407-448-8414; or Heather Stark, 407-616-3677

DREAMING ABOUT A NEW HOME? LET FCB HELP YOU LIVE THE DREAM WITH CUSTOM FINANCING.

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Winter Park | 369 N. New York Ave. Winter Park, FL 32789 | 407.622.5000

Florida Based. Florida Focused.

FCBMortgageCentral.com Programs, rates, terms and conditions may vary and are subject to change without notice and may be withdrawn at any time. All credit applications are subject to standard credit and underwriting guidelines and approval. This offer is nontransferable and cannot be combined with any other offer. Applicants must apply and be approved for a secured conforming residential first mortgage loan (purchase or refinance with no cash out); consumer, home equity loans and home equity lines of credit do not qualify for this offer. Security property must be residential property, investment properties are not included in this offer. This offer does not include the payment of closing costs for property taxes, appraisal, and any type of insurance. 1. Florida Community Bank will either pay: A) 2% up to a maximum of $6,000 of the loan amount towards closing costs OR B) 1% up to a maximum of $6,000 of the loan amount towards closing costs. The closing cost credit will have an impact on the interest rate for your loan. The rate increase will be set at time of the rate lock-in date and will be applied for the life of the residential mortgage loan. Any portion of the amount not used towards closing costs will be waived. Credit will be applied at closing and cannot be transferred or exchanged for cash equivalent.

NMLS # 486539 6873 0418

WELCOME HOME W

elcome! Whether you’re new to the area or just relocating within the city, welcome 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 such exciting annual events as Dinner on the Avenue and many others.

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 cultural 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 haven’t raised the millage rate since fiscal year 2009, and the city enjoys the second-lowest operating millage rate of any major jurisdiction in Orange County.

In addition, at the beginning of 2018 we held approximately 20 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 that 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 or YouTube. If I can be of service to you in any way, please don’t hesitate to contact me directly at sleary@cityofwinterpark.org.

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Best,

STEVE LEARY, Mayor, City of Winter Park

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For your every need.

For your next special occasion, let us help with your event planning and catering needs.

From decorating to dinnerware, business luncheons to wedding showers, and setup to cleanup, we do it all.

Now at your service in our Winter Park Village location.

Visit us at publix.com/catering or call 407.644.2015

Publix at Winter Park Village 440 N. Orlando Ave., Winter Park, FL 32789

PEOPLE, IDEAS AND ACTION T

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

he mission of the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce is to convene people and ideas for the benefit of our businesses and community.

Our main goal is to provide community leadership by bringing stakeholders together to inform and empower the business community.

Year after year, our chamber hosts more than 110 events and programs that connect our member businesses to the community. Our team works with each business to match opportunities with the message, budget and timing that are an ideal fit for their organization.

Our Leadership Winter Park program equips and mobilizes advancedlevel leaders and community trustees for Winter Park and our region. It’s a must-do program for those eager to become involved in the decisionmaking process within the community as well as for those who have a desire to enhance Winter Park’s quality of life and are already active in local civic or professional organizations.

We also host a summertime Youth Leaders program — Central Florida’s premier leadership program for students entering their sophomore, junior or senior years in high school — designed to help participants develop new leadership skills and expose them to opportunities within our community.

This year, we launched a new program titled Relaunch: Career Reentry for Professional Women. This program is designed for any woman who wants to build her resumé, confidence and network through an eight-month curriculum that will cover everything from how to get the most out of LinkedIn to building your personal brand.

Our political advocacy platform continues to grow. This year, we expanded our presence by releasing a guide summarizing state legislation pertinent to Winter Park. And we continue to monitor issues at the city level for our members.

Finally, in the past year, we’ve launched a tourism outreach campaign. We led a group of stakeholders to the World Travel Market in London, and watched as the world became even more interested in visiting our city’s world-class museums, upscale boutiques and shopping, fine-dining restaurants and sidewalk cafés. Winter Park is proud to welcome guests, both domestic and international, to enjoy all that we have to offer.

All of these initiatives give us the capability to provide public relations, marketing and political advocacy for our members. Our staff is equipped with hundreds of years of collective experience living and working in Winter Park. We’re always excited to leverage those connections to create value and opportunities for our new and established chamber members.

Winter Park is unique because it benefits from its adjacency to fast-growing Orlando while retaining its small-town charm and appeal. We know you’ll love Winter Park. Count on the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce to connect you to our community.

For more information about the organization, including its upcoming events and opportunities, please visit winterpark.org.

BETSY GARDNER ECKBERT President/CEO, Winter Park Chamber of Commerce

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

2005 • Lake Virginia & Mizell • $6.745.000

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

2018 • Downtown WP • $3.350.000

4,244 SF, 3BR, Premier front unit - Park Hill, an ultra-luxury townhome project w/ unmatched quality craftsmanship located along the famed stretch of Park Ave

2007 • Winter Park • $1.545.000

5,347 SF, 5BR, Elegant Modern Mediterranean conveniently located w/ top quality finishes, downstairs master retreat, 2 bonus rms & backyard w/ summer kitchen & pool

1961 • Winter Park • $825.000

3,195 SF, 4BR, Wonderful rare one level pool home in highly desirable Park Grove neighborhood, beautifully remodeled, open split plan, spacious rms, plus a wine room

MICK NIGHT REALTOR

micknight1@gmail.com

2016 • Lake Maitland • $6.595.000

1989 • Lake Maitland • $4.950.000

7,984 SF, 6BR, Private gated estate on 2+ acres w/ timeless architecture, breathtaking lake views, guest apartment, tennis court, resort style pool & oversized boathouse

9,838 SF, 4BR, Stunning lakefront estate in premier location, walking distance to Park Ave & situated on 1.5 acres w/ 280’ of lakefront on Winter Park chain of lakes

2018 • Downtown WP • $2.650.000

2011 • WP Chain of Lakes • $1.695.000

3,180 SF, 3BR, Only remaining private rear unit at Park Hill, classically styled architecture, energy efficient & state-of-the art smart home technology, an ideal lock & leave residence

2004 • Winter Park Via’s • $1.325.000

3,794 SF, 4BR, Elegant pool home located on desirable street w/ flexible flr plan, generous rm sizes, downstairs master suite & private backyard setting

2003 • Winter Park Via’s • $812.900

2,521 SF, 3BR, Modern Mediterranean on quiet street w/ deeded access to chain of lakes, wide open living areas, downstairs master suite & private backyard w/ pool

407.629.4446

www.night-pinel.com

4,036 SF, 4BR, Key West architecture & timeless design elements in private setting w/ pool & covered boat dock w/ lift to easily enjoy lakefront living

1975 • Winter Park • $875.000

4,046 SF, 4BR, Spacious pool home located in Sevilla neighborhood available for 1st time, well maintained w/ formal dining & living rms, fireplace & large master suite

1995 • Maitland • $749.000

4,755 SF, 5BR, Gorgeous traditional home in gated community of Lake Colony Estates, 3 car garage, downstairs master suite plus study, bonus rm, covered lanai & pool

JOHN PINEL REALTOR

johnbpinel@gmail.com

OBJ - 2018 Agents of the Year / Over $1.5 Billion in Career Sales

WINTER PARK FAST FACTS FOUNDED: 1881 FIRST NICKNAME: “CITY OF TREES” 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, 19 %; persons 65 years and older, 23 %; white, 86 %; black, 7 %; Hispanic or Latino (regardless of race), 6 %; Asian, 2 %; two or more races, 1 %.

TOTAL RETAIL SALES (2012):

PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

$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 (2017):

30,132 $62,699 MEDIAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME (2016):

Up 8.0 percent from 2010.

MEDIAN VALUE OF OWNER-

OCCUPIED HOMES (2016):

$340,400 CITY COMMISSION MEETINGS: Second and fourth Mondays of each month, 3:30 p.m.

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ELECTION DATES: Primary elections, second Tuesday in February (if necessary); general elections, second Tuesday in March.

PERSONS (AGE 25-PLUS) WITH BACHELOR’S DEGREE OR HIGHER (2017):

HOUSEHOLDS (2017):

13,093 PERSONS SPEAKING A LANGUAGE OTHER THAN ENGLISH AT HOME:

13.9 % PROPERTYTAX MILLAGE RATE (2017):

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

TOTAL BUSINESS FIRMS

(BOTH EMPLOYERS AND SOLE PROPRIETORSHIPS, 2015):

5,745

54.1% 22.3 MINUTES MEAN TRAVEL TIME TO WORK (2015):

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, 407-599-3234; 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 Dan Hagedorn; 407-599-3297; emergency, 911; non-emergency, 407-644-1212.

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.

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 Golf Course, 407-623-3339; Rachel D. Murrah Civic Center, 1050 W. Morse Blvd., 407-599-3341; Winter Park Community Center, 721 W. New England Ave., 407-599-3275; Azalea Lane Recreation Center, 1045 Azalea Lane, 407-599-3323; Lake Island Hall, 450 Harper St., 407-599-3341; 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.

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

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

Winter Park YMCA: 1201 N. Lakemont Ave., 407-644-1509.

PHOTOS BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

Winter Park boasts an abundance of beautiful places for relaxation and recreation. Shown is the iconic exedra at Kraft Azalea Garden and (below) the fountain at the McKean Arboretum in Central Park on Park Avenue.

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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 South Park Avenue 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. 407599-3397.

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 legally off-leash. A playground, picnic tables, dock and boat ramp complete the fun.

2000 S. Lakemont Avenue 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,

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 West Morse Boulevard. 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 South 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 gettogethers. 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 West 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 Olympic-sized 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.  LIVING IN WINTE R PARK

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PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

MASTERFULLY

PLANNED Winter Park’s visionary founders were new urbanists a century before the term existed.

It seems they were onto something.

BY THE EDITORS

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.

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK

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Downtown Winter Park in the late 1880s encompassed a general store, a bakery, a saw mill, a wagon factory, an ice house and a combination livery stable and blacksmith shop.

The very earth is lyric With red hibiscus bloom; The flame-vine and azalea Are threads on beauty’s loom.

The orange trees shed incense Along the common road, Then bow them down in worship Beneath their golden load.

DIGITAL ART BY CHIP WESTON

E

dwin Osgood Grover, who rhapsodized so eloquently about Winter Park in the 1930s, was an acclaimed poet and professor of books at Rollins College. Like many Winter Parkers, his roots were in New England.

Yet he fell in love with this sophisticated, subtropical paradise, where beauty, education and the arts were celebrated.

Grover’s poem, “Lyric Florida,” vividly describes the area as it would have looked during his tenure at Rollins. But it also would have been accurate a half century earlier or a half century later.

Winter Park remains lush with foliage and, at certain times and in certain places, the warm air still carries the scent of citrus. It is still a place where a professor and a poet can sip coffee at a sidewalk café alongside a developer, a stockbroker, an activist, an actor or an athlete.

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Founded as a getaway for Northeastern tycoons, today’s Winter Park is considerably more egalitarian than its developers probably expected or intended.

Although a Winter Park address carries considerable panache, most residents are not millionaires. The average household income, as of 2017, was $131,254 versus $67,510 for the state of Florida.

It’s an impressive number, to be sure, but a neighboring Orange County community, Windermere, is far ahead at $179,000-plus.

Money, however, is not the only measure of a community’s worth. Although Winter Park was advertised as a refuge for “men of means,” early promoters also envisioned a place that was enlightened, welcoming and, to use a more modern term, livable.

In that regard, today’s Winter Park remains remarkably true to their vision.

PIONEER DAYS Prior to the 1850s, the area that would become Winter Park had few permanent settlers. A rough-and-tumble character named David Mizell Jr., large family in tow, arrived in 1858 from Alachua County, near Gainesville, and bought an 8-acre tract between present-day Lakes Virginia, Mizell and Berry, where he built a cabin and began farming and raising cattle.

Mizell named his homestead, appropriately, Lake View, which was also adopted as the name of the fledgling settlement that formed around it. In 1870,

Learn more about our Tinkering Lab! Visit: parkmaitland.org/technology

Achievement Rises To The Level Of

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COURTESY OF THE ROLLINS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

The Seminole Hotel (above) opened in 1886 and was, at the time, the state’s largest hotel. Winter Park didn’t yet have a golf course, but the Seminole offered a driving range, as well as tennis courts and a bowling alley. There were two yachts, one of which launched on Lake Virginia and one on Lake Osceola. Two presidents — Grover Cleveland (1889) and Benjamin Harrison (1890) — were among the guests. The original hotel burned to the ground in 1902, and was replaced by a smaller (but no less posh) version in 1912. Loring A. Chase and Oliver Chapman (left) were the entrepreneurs who decided to develop the area into a resort community for “northern men of means.” A newspaper article called Chapman “cool, quiet, level-headed and judicial in his makeup, but once his mind is made up, he never relaxes his grip until his end is accomplished.” Chase, however, was described as “a rustler, quick to grasp, vigorous to act and relentless in his efforts.”

DIGITAL ART BY CHIP WESTON

Lake View got a post office and a new name, Osceola, in honor of the Seminole warrior who had died in American captivity more than 30 years earlier.

In the late 1860s, Mizell was elected to the Orange County Commission and the state Legislature. His eldest son, also named David, was appointed Orange County sheriff, while another son, John, was an Orange County Court judge.

The legendary sheriff, who was killed in 1870 while trying to settle a dispute over the sale of two cows, is buried in a small family plot just beyond the entrance to what is now the Harry P. Leu Botanical Gardens in Orlando.

Father and son are often confused in local histories, but it is the elder Mizell who was arguably Winter Park’s earliest non-native pioneer.

A few years later, Wilson Phelps of Chicago visited the area and was entranced by its thick woods and shimmering lakes. In 1874 he bought a sizable tract, including a large part of the Mizell homestead, and began selling lots to fellow Chicagoans.

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The following year, Phelps built his own home, a rambling cracker farmhouse in the midst of a 60-acre orange grove hugging the shores of Lake Osceola. Interestingly, part of the Phelps home survives as a wing of the Queen Anne-style Comstock-Harris House, otherwise known as Eastbank, which was built in 1883 by William Comstock, a wealthy grain merchant who also hailed from the Windy City.

Eastbank is today the city’s oldest home, and one of only three listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In a region that was supposed to be below the frost line, two ruinous freezes — in December of 1894 and February of 1895 — brought temperatures that set historic lows, wiping out citrus groves and devastating the economy. The Winter Park Company 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. But by 1914, the citrus industry had come back and Winter Park had its own citrus packing house (facing page).

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

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The land was beautiful and, in his opinion, would continue to rise in value.

Their confidence bolstered, the entrepreneurial New Englanders officially named their holdings Winter Park — a logical decision, since they felt that the words “winter” and “park” would be appealing to potential relocators — and quickly had the land surveyed, platted and mapped.

Chapman and Chase clearly made an effective team. A newspaper article from 1886 called Chapman “cool, quiet, level-headed and judicial in his makeup, but once his mind is made up, he never relaxes his grip until his end is accomplished.” Chase, on the other hand, was described as “a rustler, quick to grasp, vigorous to act and relentless in his efforts.”

MASTERFUL PLANNING The two promoters, unlike some others touting Florida real estate deals, were genuinely passionate about creating a special place. The town plan, designed by civil engineer Samuel Robinson, included a central park fronted by lots for commercial buildings as well as tracts for schools, hotels and churches. Curved streets radiated out from the town center.

Remarkably, Winter Park today looks very much like the original town plan envisioned that it would. Indeed, Robinson’s work could serve as a template for present-day planners responsible for so-called New Urbanist communities such as Baldwin Park and Celebration. There is, however, one key difference.

Establishing a precedent for segregation that would endure for generations, the plan designated a west side tract, dubbed Hannibal Square, for African-Americans. After all, “men of means” would need a labor force to work in their groves, homes and hotels. So, 38 small residential lots were made available to “Negro families of good character.”

In fact, Winter Park was a relatively enlightened place, particularly for the Deep South. Many of its early boosters, well-educated Northeastern Republicans, would have held views on race relations that were liberal for the time.

In the aftermath of Reconstruction, given the limited options open to them, many displaced former slaves considered it an attractive place to live and work.

Chase, in particular, strongly advocated education for all races and was outspoken in his belief that African-Americans should be active participants in local government. In 1890, during dedication ceremonies for a school in Hannibal Square, he delivered a speech that would have sounded just as timely during the civil rights movement of the next century.

“Knowledge is power,” Chase thundered. “Get knowledge and you shall command the respect of those who would count you out. Then you may stand erect, though your skin may be black, and say, ‘I, too, am a free, intelligent citizen with a thought of my own in my head and a ballot in my hand and I demand recognition and a voice in the management of affairs.”

In the meantime, the marketing campaign orchestrated by Chase and Chapman was working. Winter Park’s population grew from about a dozen scattered families in 1881 to more than 600 people by 1884. The first commercial building, a railroad passenger depot, was completed early in 1882, followed by the town’s first hotel, the Rogers House, located on Interlachen Avenue.

Park Avenue’s first commercial building came next. The two-story structure, which is still standing at the corner of Park Avenue and Morse Boulevard, housed the Pioneer Store, with John Ergood and Robert White as proprietors.

The second floor of the general-merchandise emporium was used for social

COURTESY OF THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM, COLLECTION OF RICK FRAZEE

The 1880s were pivotal years, and saw the reshaping of a haphazard frontier settlement into what today would be called a master-planned community.

A major catalyst was completion in 1880 of the South Florida Railroad, which connected Orlando with Sanford and continued through to Tampa.

The effort to snare the state’s first post-Civil War rail line was led by developer Edward Henck, one of Longwood’s first settlers and a tireless advocate of the town’s growth. The project was bankrolled by R.M. Pulsifer of Pulsifer & Company, owner of the Boston Herald, whom Henck had personally solicited for support.

But it was not Longwood that fired the imagination of Loring Chase, a New Hampshire native who was raised in Massachusetts and lived in Chicago. Harsh winters did not agree with the hard-working real estate broker, whose doctors had advised him to seek a warmer climate to alleviate his chronic respiratory problems.

Chase, who first visited the area in February 1881, was particularly smitten by the land surrounding Lakes Osceola and Virginia. “Never will the delightful impression of that first visit be obliterated from my mind,” he recalled in a speech 10 years later. “Before me lay these beautiful rolling plains, covered everywhere by majestic pines, forming, not an impenetrable forest but a vast grove through which we could drive our team at will.”

The land, although beautiful, was basically wilderness. “Save two faint streaks of iron, over which a box car went slowly once a day between Sanford and Orlando, and a rude platform and two or three windowless cabins of the original homesteaders, no sign of civilization greeted the eye,” Chase recalled.

Still, once a real estate man, always a real estate man. Where some saw wilderness, Chase saw a winter resort for wealthy Northerners. “The idea of a town … on this delightful spot took full possession of me,” he said. Chase believed his boyhood friend, Oliver Chapman, would be an ideal partner in such a venture.

Chapman, a Massachusetts-born importer of luxury goods, had moved to Florida in 1880 and lived in Sorrento, a small settlement in what is now Lake County. The pair met in Sanford and set out to visit the property, which was then owned by B.R. Swoope, superintendent of the South Florida Railroad.

Chapman, like Chase, recognized an opportunity when he saw it. By July 1881 they had formed a company — called, appropriately, Chapman & Chase — which bought 600 acres between present-day lakes Maitland, Virginia, Killarney and Osceola. The cost: $13,000, the equivalent of about $290,000 today. Then, while in the vicinity, they sought validation from none other than Phelps, who had already enjoyed success marketing the area to out-of-staters.

Phelps, who undoubtedly saw in Chapman and Chase an opportunity to increase the value of his own investments, could hardly have been more enthusiastic and encouraging. He claimed that, prior to relocating to Central Florida, he was “nearly dead with bronchitis of 30 years standing” as a result of living in New York, Ohio and Illinois.

In a four-page, handwritten letter dated August 12, 1881, Phelps raved about “the beneficial effects of this climate” and even offered to provide the names of other residents, including Comstock, his neighbor, who would confirm his statements about the area’s health benefits.

A one-man chamber of commerce, Phelps, then an energetic 59 years old, also provided Chapman and Chase with an almanac of information, including average year-round temperatures. He described the soil as well-suited for growing citrus, noting that Central Florida was “below the frost line.”

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COURTESY OF THE ROLLINS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

When the General Congregational Association of Florida announced plans to found a college somewhere in Florida, competition among cities was intense.

An article in the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville, at the time the state’s largest city, suggested that it was a bad idea “to locate colleges in out-of-the-way places, and in sparsely settled com­munities.” Nonetheless, Winter Park won — and the inaugural class in 1885 met in the First Congregational Church until campus buildings were constructed the following year.

functions, church meetings and civic gatherings. Consequently, locals soon began referring to the first-floor general mercantile store as Ergood & White and to the building in its entirety as Ergood’s Hall.

Shortly thereafter, downtown Winter Park encompassed a bakery, a watchmaker, a saw mill, a wagon factory, an ice house and a combination livery stable and blacksmith shop.

Judge Lewis H. Lawrence, a wealthy boot and shoe manufacturer from Utica, New York, sent the first telegraph message from Winter Park on January 1, 1883, to his friend, President Chester A. Arthur. It read, “Happy New Year. First message from office opened here today. No North. No South.”

Prominent people began making the trek southward to visit their wealthy friends. One was President Arthur, who visited Lawrence and declared Winter Park to be “the prettiest spot I have seen in Florida.” He had said essentially the same thing about Sanford the day before, but the sentiments likely were sincere.

Some stayed and made more enduring civic contributions. Minneapolis businessman Frederick Lyman, who retired to Winter Park in 1882, led the effort to found what is now the First Congregational Church of Winter Park. Congregationalism is a progressive denomination whose New England roots appealed to Winter Park’s substantial Northern contingent.

The church’s first pastor, Dr. Edward Hooker, arrived from Massachusetts in 1883 and quickly mobilized an influential flock. Led by Lyman and Hooker, funds were raised to build a sanctuary, the town’s first, on New England Avenue in 1885.

Congregationalists, who consider education to be as much a part of their

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mission as spreading the gospel, founded some of the first colleges in the U.S., including Harvard, Yale and Dartmouth.

Adhering to that tradition, the Winter Park church and its members, many of whom were driven by both financial and altruistic motives, acted quickly to bring an institution of higher learning, the first in Florida, to their small but ambitious town.

AN EDUCATED GAMBLE The opportunity came in 1884, when the General Congregational Association of Florida met, prophetically, in Winter Park. Among those pushing for a church-related college in Central Florida was a remarkable woman named Lucy Cross, an Oberlin College graduate who lived in Daytona and founded the Daytona Institute for Young Women in 1880.

Cross discussed her notion with the Rev. C.M. Bingham, a Congregationalist minister in Daytona. At the assembly, Bingham presented a paper written by Cross on the formation of a college “for the education of the South, in the South.” In it, Cross posed a challenge disguised as a question: “I ask you gentleman to discuss thoroughly the question, ‘Shall an effort be made to found a college in Florida?’”

In response, delegates asked Hooker to prepare a report on education in Florida, to be presented at the 1885 annual meeting in Mount Dora. Hooker, who had been appalled at the crudeness and ignorance he had encountered in Central Florida and worried about the role the church should play in “building a wholesome order” in the area, took his assignment seriously.

The paper, read by Hooker at the subsequent association meeting in Jan-

ey SmithuaryBarney very grateful to be located 1885, was is entitled “The Mission of Congregationalism in on Florida.”

He began by summarizing what he called “Congregationalism’s mission ue in beautiful Winter Park. That’s why our office of Christian education.” Then he directly and forcefully addressed the issue t the publication Cross had raised.of this unique letter from Mr. No area of the nation, Hooker insisted, was more in need of a college. ich wasEuropeans written in 1881 to Loring Chase and Oliver had arrived in Florida 50 years before the Plymouth settlement, entrepreneurs who dreamed the he noted. Why, then, should Florida beof so developing far behind New England?

Hooker also argued that the growth and prosperity of Florida depended ommunity. just as much on education as agriculture. Businesspeople from other parts of thesettler country would not investwas in Florida if there were no educational as an early of what then known as Os-opportunities for their children, he warned. ovided Chase Chapman with antheoutline thea Spurred and to action

by Hooker’s presentation, association of adopted resolution even agreeing more with its premise and appointing of five but, perhaps importantly, hea committee also gave members, including Hooker and Lyman, to receive “inducements” for the ement they order to move forward. locationneeded of a college. in Those inducements, it was determined, wouldIn be unveiled and evaluated at a special meeting in April. d that this letter, reproduced for the first time in its Church leaders then solicited offers from civic leaders who wanted the Park’s true founding document. institution in their towns.

Among the respondents: Mount Dora, Daytona Beach, Jacksonville, Orange City and Winter Park, where the indefatigable ey SmithLyman Barney is a global leader in wealth manwas already hard at work raising funds. fierce. An in the Florida Times-Union in Jackg access The to competition a wide was range ofarticle products and services sonville, at the time the state’s largest city, suggested that it was a bad idea inesses “to and institutions, including locate colleges in out-of-the-way places, andbrokerage in sparsely settledand communities.”

Perhaps, but Winter Parkers knew that their town would not ry services, financial and wealth planning, creditbe an “out-of-the-way place” for long, and that a college would boost its profile management, annuities and insurance, and retireand its prestige immeasurably.

When the association reconvened, it reviewed the five proposals. Lyman’s vices. and Hooker’s membership on the committee worked to Winter Park’s adffice employs 58arranged licensed Advisors vantage; they to haveFinancial their proposal presented last so and they could gauge the strength of the other inducements. members.

We are committed to providing the finMount Dora offered cash, lumber and land in a package valued at $35,564.

Jacksonville and Daytonato offered and $11,500, respectively, along e best-in-class advice our$13,000 clients, helping them with tracts of land for a campus. Orange City committed about $25,000. eir most challenging goals.

Lyman would later write: “As one proposal after another was read, it became evident to me … that [the] other towns were within hopelessly outdistanced, and I was do in Winter Park does not stay the walls correspondingly elated but managed to maintain a calm exterior, perhaps even employees are actively in local charities to assume an aspect of gloom, involved which was misleading,” Park’s offer, which encompassed land andencourcash in a packnizations.Winter Morgan Stanley Smithstock, Barney age valued at $114,180, shocked its competitors. Some $50,000 of that oyees toamount givewasback to the charity their pledgedannually

by Alonzo Rollins, a Maine native whoof made his fortune in Chicago selling dyes to woolen mills before retiring to Winter Park ough financial donations but also through their for health reasons.

Competitors howled that Winter Park’s Lake Virginiain sitethe was basically are dedicated to being deeply involved com-a swamp, prompting delegates to visit and see for themselves before making e live and work. a final decision. Three days later, after judging the land to be high and dry, the association to accept Winter Park’s offer andwe to appoint 21 charter ur location at 250voted Park Avenue, where occupy trustees. Shortly thereafter, the trustees adopted a constitution and bylaws y renovated sixth floors.forWe invite you to come by and named the institution its primary benefactor.

Hooker, as he had likely hoped, was appointed the first president of Rolls and consult with one of our Financial Advisors ins College. Cross, who had presented Daytona’s case before the association, an Stanley can help and you achieve becameSmith known asBarney “The Mother of Rollins,” today the college’s Lucy Cross Center for Women and Their Allies keeps her name at the forefront s in a way that surely would have pleased her.

Rollins himself,rewarding who ironically never earned a college with degree, attended ard to a mutually relationship two annual meetings of the Board of Trustees before he died in 1887. ne and the City of Winter Park.

MAKING IT OFFICIAL

Lyman, not content to rest on his laurels, quickly set his sights on another opportunity. He approached Chase and offered to buy his holdings through a combination of cash and stock in a new entity, the Winter Park Company.

Chase, who had bought out the ailing Chapman in 1885 for $40,000, agreed.

k Office of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney

nue, Floors 5 and 6, Winter Park, FL 32789

This promotional brochure, distributed in the Northeast by Chapman &

Chase, touts Winter Park’s many brochure, charms, not the least of which was the yearThis promotional distributed in round temperate weather. The town plan, designed by civil engineer Samuel Robinson, included a central fronted by lots for the Northeast bypark Chapman &commercial Chase,buildings touts as well as tracts for schools, hotels and churches. Curved streets radiated Winter Park’s out from the town center.many charms. But it probably was not any more effective than the LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK the 25 Wilson Phelps letter, which first made case for developing the area.

COURTESY OF MORGANSTANLEY SMITHBARNEY

ADE WINTER PARK HISTORY

COURTESY OF THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM, COLLECTION OF RICK FRAZEE

In the 1890s, the Orlando & Winter Park Railway, otherwise known as the Dinky Line, ran between Orlando and Sanford, hugging Lake Virginia’s shoreline.

The bumpy, smoky 6-mile trip between Orlando and Winter Park took about a half-hour and cost 15 cents. The two engines were known as the “Tea Pot” and the “Coffee Pot,” and the train itself was the “Little Wiggle.”Cute and quirky though it was, the Dinky Line’s popularity waned as roads were improved and automobiles proliferated, although it managed to hang on until the last tracks were removed in 1969.

Shareholders in the new Winter Park Company included prominent citizens whose names will still be familiar to anyone who drives regularly along the city’s streets: In addition to Lyman, Chase and Rollins, partners included F.G. Webster, William Comstock, J.F. Welbourne and Franklin Fairbanks.

Among the company’s powers were laying out roads, buying and building hotels and “the sole and exclusive right to build, equip, maintain and operate a street railway or railways.”

One of its first acts was to borrow $150,000 from Francis Knowles, a retired Massachusetts industrialist, to build the 400-room Seminole Hotel, a luxurious resort between lakes Osceola and Virginia boasting steam heat and private bathrooms.

The hotel, which was the largest in the state when it opened in 1886, was served by two yachts — the Alice, which launched on Lake Osceola, and the Fanny Knowles, which launched on Lake Virginia. Guests could listen to an orchestra, use the bowling alley or play tennis and croquet. Fishing on the surrounding lakes was also a popular pastime.

The Winter Park Company also built a mule-drawn streetcar line, known as the Seminole Hotel Horse Car, along New England Avenue west to the railroad depot. That first winter season, there were more than 2,300 registered guests. President Grover Cleveland visited in 1889 followed in 1890

by President Benjamin Harrison.

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Northern newspapers were taking notice. In an 1896 dispatch headlined “A Bright New England Town in Central Florida,” an unnamed New York Times reporter described Winter Park as “one of the neatest, cleanest and prettiest towns in Florida, with street after street lined with handsome, modern cottages and larger homes.”

The scribe, who stayed at the Seminole Hotel and was accorded red-carpet treatment during his visit, took special pains to mention that Winter Park’s homes were painted, unlike those in other Florida cities “where the use of paint is apparently totally unknown.”

As a growing cadre of moneyed Northerners built homes and opened businesses, Hannibal Square was becoming a vibrant community in its own right.

Assisted by the white Congregationalists, a black Congregational church was built in 1884. Methodist and Baptist Missionary churches followed. There was also an elementary school and a bustling commercial district.

One prominent African-American entrepreneur, Gus Henderson, moved to Winter Park from Lake City in 1886 and founded the South Florida Colored Printing & Publishing Company. He became involved in Winter Park civic affairs, founded a weekly newspaper called The Winter Park Advocate and encouraged his friends and neighbors to support the Winter Park Company’s newly announced plans to incorporate.

Nearly everyone thought that incorporation was a wise step. The issue

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Park Avenue was, is and always will be the vibrant heart of Winter Park. In fact, as these images demonstrate, the city’s signature street looks much the same today as it did in the 1920s and 1940s. A few buildings even date from the turn of the last century or earlier. Consequently, the entire Downtown Winter Park Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2011.

lachen Avenue site donated by the Knowles estate, in 1902.

In 1889, J. Harry Abbott debuted the Orlando-Winter Park Railroad, more commonly referred to as the Dinky Line, a nickname sometimes given to short-haul rail operations. The bumpy, smoky 6-mile trip between Orlando and Winter Park took about a half-hour and cost 15 cents. The two engines were known as the “Tea Pot” and the “Coffee Pot,” and the train itself was the “Little Wiggle.”

Cute and quirky though it was, the Dinky Line’s popularity waned as roads were improved and automobiles proliferated, although it managed to hang on until the last tracks were removed in 1969. Today, the site of the Dinky Line’s depot is a public park and swimming and fishing pier on Lake Virginia known as Dinky Dock.

As the 1880s drew to a close, Winter Park had attracted 250 families and 600 residents, many of them seasonal, from 29 states and five foreign countries. The Massachusetts and Illinois contingents were the largest, but New York and Georgia were also well represented.

According to an 1889 promotional brochure for the Seminole Hotel, occupations of those residents included “lawyers, judges, army and navy officers, civil engineers, college professors, journalists, physicians, ministers, manufacturers, bishops, merchants, bankers, millionaires, etc.”

There would, however, soon be a winnowing of millionaires.

COLD AND COLDER In a region that was supposed to be below the frost line, two freezes hit in consecutive years, 1894 and 1895. The first was damaging but the second was ruinous, wiping out citrus groves and devastating the economy. During the second freeze, temperatures dipped to the coldest ever recorded up to that time. Sap froze inside tree trunks, splitting many of them open with pops sounding like gunshots.

Even the financial wizards who comprised the Winter Park Company were not immune. After defaulting on loan payments to the estate of Knowles, who had died in 1890, they were forced to transfer ownership of roughly 1,200 lots to satisfy the debt. Adding insult to injury, the Seminole Hotel, which had been financed by a loan from Knowles, burned to the ground in 1902.

Enter Charles Hosmer Morse, a Chicago industrialist and recent widower who enjoyed passing icy winters ensconced at the Seminole Hotel. In 1904 Morse bought the Knowles estate’s vast holdings — plus 200 acres that encompassed half of the Mizell homestead — for roughly $10,000, the equivalent of about $250,000 today.

That fateful transaction was colorfully recalled by H.A. “Harley” Ward at a 1954 dinner commemorating his retirement from the Winter Park Land Company, which Morse formed to purchase the Knowles properties.

Ward was working at the Pioneer Store, which sold real estate as well as provisions. Here’s how he 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 will 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 under one condition: “Provided you can get released from your present work here, and take charge of the property for me.”

COURTESY OF THE ROLLINS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

became mired in controversy primarily because some white residents opposed having Hannibal Square included in the town limits. An article in Lochmede, another Winter Park newspaper, noted that there was considerable consternation over the idea of “residents who did not own land — and who were primarily black — levying taxes upon landowning residents from which they themselves would be exempt.”

Some Hannibal Square residents did indeed rent land from the Winter Park Company, which also employed them as laborers. Others, however, were homeowners and taxpayers. Henderson argued that it made no difference. Every registered voter, regardless of whether or not he was a landowner, had a right to be heard on this important issue.

Further complicating matters, local Democrats feared that the inclusion of Hannibal Square and its solidly Republican voting bloc would skew the balance of political power. In fact, at the time there were more black voters (64) than white voters (47) in Winter Park. Surely the idea of AfricanAmericans holding a voting majority was unsettling to some, even in a community where racial harmony generally prevailed.

On the afternoon of September 10, 1887, only 57 registered voters — mostly white — showed up at Ergood’s Hall for a meeting to decide on incorporation.

A quorum, however, required a minimum of 73 attendees. Only five more registered voters could be rounded up for a second meeting later that evening. Because no action could be taken, another meeting was called for October 12.

Why had black voters stayed away? Winter Park businessman J.C. Stovin, a native of England who favored incorporation but opposed including Hannibal Square, had convinced many west side residents that incorporation was a ruse to make them pay high taxes and lay bricks on city streets.

Henderson and others went to work, going door to door and pleading with their friends and neighbors to exercise their rights as free citizens and attend the next incorporation meeting. It was certainly pointed out that the principals of the Winter Park Company, particularly Chase, had treated blacks fairly, and should expect their support in return.

A curfew forbade blacks from crossing the railroad tracks that divided east from west after nightfall. But on the evening of October 12, Henderson led a group of black registered voters from Hannibal Square directly to Ergood’s Hall. Some accounts — likely exaggerated — claim that a band and children waving banners accompanied the west side delegation.

In any case, a quorum was achieved and incorporation — with Hannibal Square included — was approved by a vote of 71 to 2. In addition, two black men, Walter B. Simpson and Frank R. Israel, were elected aldermen. They were the first, and the last, black elected officials in Winter Park.

White, of Ergood & White, was elected as the first mayor.

The union of Hannibal Square and the Town of Winter Park was to be temporary, however. In 1893, Comstock led an effort by Democrats to remove the west side neighborhood from the town limits. Although Winter Park officials refused to change the boundaries, the Florida Legislature did so over their opposition.

“It is, in my opinion, a scheme originated by those who desire to run the town government and feel that their only chance is to take out the mass of the colored voters,” said a letter writer to the Advocate.

Hannibal Square was not a part of incorporated Winter Park again until 1925, when local leaders sought to change its status from town (fewer than 300 registered voters) to city (300 or more registered voters).

Immediately upon the heels of incorporation, the Town Improvement Association, later renamed the Winter Park Village Improvement Association and ultimately the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, was organized with the goals of planting trees, repairing sidewalks, maintaining parks and encouraging residents to be sociable.

Also in the active 1880s, a reading circle of nine women led by Hooker’s wife, Elizabeth, began an effort to establish the Winter Park Circulating Library Association. The small collection of books was placed in the home of a reading circle member until the library got its own facility, on an Inter-

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK  

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COURTESY OF THE ROLLINS COLLEGE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHIVES AND SPECIAL COLLECTIONS

An aerial view of Winter Park from the early 1900s shows how the city was beginning to fill in. Having a hard time getting your bearings? The railroad tracks are on the left, making a loop and running alongside the rear boundary of Central Park, just as they do today. Commercial buildings already line Park Avenue, which appears to be unpaved. Lake Osecola is at the top right and Lake Maitland at the top left. The large, red-roofed building facing Lake Osceola is the Seminole Hotel. The Rollins campus would be further right, outside the frame.

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 Winter Park Land Company. Suddenly, one very rich Chicagoan owned half the town.

Clearly, had Morse been a less enlightened person, Winter Park would likely be a very different place today. Fortunately for future generations, however, the Vermont native was a visionary who insisted that enhancing Winter Park was far more important than profiting from it. He quickly strengthened his personal connection to the town by remodeling and expanding a home at the corner of Interlachen and Lincoln avenues and using it as his personal winter residence.

Under Morse’s supervision, the aptly named Osceola Lodge was transformed into a textbook example of Craftsman-style architecture and filled with custom Mission Oak furniture, walls of books and an array of rustic Indian artifacts. From this cozy and comforting setting Morse supervised development of his properties and quietly supported community causes.

Osceola Lodge still stands, and is today headquarters for the Winter Park Institute, a Rollins-affiliated organization that sponsors seminars, lectures, readings, classes and discussions with prominent scholars and thought leaders in an array of fields. The home and the adjacent Knowles Cottage serves as a study center for scholars-in-residence — a use that the urbane Morse would have appreciated.

In 1906 Morse deeded the land that is now Central Park to the town, but only so long as it was open to the public and not developed. He helped form

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the Winter Park Country Club and, for $1 a year, leased the organization land on which to build a clubhouse and golf course. The recently renovated course, now owned and operated by the city, is still in use today.

Morse also donated an Interlachen Avenue site on which the Woman’s Club of Winter Park built its headquarters. He paved roads, funded a citrus packing house, gave property to churches and even provided start-up capital for a second Seminole Hotel.

He funded numerous civic improvements out of his own pocket, anonymously paying for construction of a town hall in 1916 and for years routinely covering operating deficits as a member of the Rollins Board of Trustees.

Morse, who retired and moved to Winter Park permanently in 1915, also personally selected who could buy lots. He refused to sell to speculators, for example, explaining in no uncertain terms that he would do the speculating in Winter Park. Only people who planned to build homes could buy lots.

And, of course, the homes had to be of acceptable quality.

The city’s benevolent autocrat also recruited potential residents whom he admired, among them novelist Irving Bacheller (Eben Holder: A Tale of the North Country and D’ri and I had been among his bestsellers.) “Now, Mr. Ward, I’ve got to get Irving Bacheller to come down here,” he told his manager in 1918. “He’ll be a real asset to Winter Park, and I want you to land him no matter what you have to do.”

Bacheller, though, drove a hard bargain. Morse ended up taking the author’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 Bacheller missed his calling,”

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COURTESY OF THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM, COLLECTION OF RICK FRAZEE

What would a resort community be without a country club? In 1914, Charles Hosmer Morse commissioned Harley A. Ward and Dow George to install a ninehole golf course, which was later expanded to 27 holes, at the north end of Park Avenue. The clubhouse, built in 1914 and enlarged in 1937, is still in use and is the city’s oldest civic building. The clubhouse and the course, now back to nine holes, were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

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. In 1937, Morse’s sonin-law, Richard Genius, built a vacation home on the Genius property. It was first dubbed Casa Genius, but later renamed Wind Song. (Genius’ wife and Morse’s daughter, Elizabeth Morse Genius, had died in 1928.)

Jeanette Genius McKean, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth, moved there with her husband, Hugh McKean, in 1951. The McKeans brought with them the now-iconic peacocks, the descendants of which still preen noisily 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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A NEW CENTURY By the early 1900s, Winter Park’s founders were either dead or in their final years. Many of them ended up in the Palm Cemetery, resting beneath ground on West Webster Avenue donated by none other than Chase, the man without whom there might not have been a Winter Park.

The cemetery, which was for whites only when it opened in 1906, is notable for the fact that golfers on the adjacent municipal course must sometimes hit errant shots from around tombstones. Pineywood Cemetery had been established in 1890 for black residents. Both are now operated by the city of Winter Park.

In 1908, Jerry and Mary Trovillion and their 16-year-old son, Ray, arrived in Winter Park from Harrisburg, Illinois, where Jerry, a medical doctor, had operated a sanitorium. The couple bought Maxon’s Drug Store, located in Ergood’s Hall, and renamed the business Trovillion’s Pharmacy.

The mercantile store founded by Ergood and White, now owned by William Schultz Jr., had moved in 1900 to Park Avenue and Morse Boulevard.

The Trovillions prospered. Jerry installed a modern soda fountain in the pharmacy and began assembling an impressive portfolio of investment property.

High-spirited Ray, meanwhile, tried to acclimate himself to living in what he found to be a rather stuffy community with an absurdly rigid code of behavior.

In a 1978 interview with the Winter Park Sun-Herald, the 86-year-old raconteur recalled running afoul of the law by playing horseshoes with friends near the railroad depot.

“Up rides our little town marshal on his big bay horse to inform us that we were under arrest … for pitching horseshoes on Sunday,” he said. “It was

rough in those days. No golf or fishing on Sundays. Another law was you couldn’t buy gasoline or kerosene after dark.”

In 1912, a second Seminole Hotel was built at the foot of Webster Avenue. With 82 rooms, it was smaller than the original, but still attracted a discerning clientele. Among them: President Calvin Coolidge, who appears to have been characteristically silent about his Winter Park sojourn. The hotel stood until 1970, when it was demolished, and homes were built along what is today Kiwi Circle.

Also in 1912, brothers B.A. and Carl Galloway were awarded a franchise for the Winter Park Telephone Exchange. In 1913, there were a total of 35 operating telephones in Winter Park and Maitland, and phone rates were $1 per month.

The First Baptist Church of Winter Park was founded in 1913, and a new railroad depot opened along the west side of the tracks facing Morse Boulevard. In 1915, the fire department bought a fire wagon pulled by a single horse. The horse lost its job the following year, replaced by a motorized vehicle. The Woman’s Club was organized in 1915, and the building that the club still uses was completed in 1920.

The red-brick Winter Park Grade School, later known as Park Avenue Elementary School, opened in 1916 at the southeast corner of Park Avenue South and Lyman Avenue. Initially there were 150 students in 11 grades.

Twelfth-graders attended classes at the Rollins Academy until the school was expanded several years later.

The building was bought by Rollins in 1961 and used for the college’s continuing education programs until 1988, when it was razed despite emotional appeals from former students and local history buffs. Today the 400 block of Park Avenue encompasses a Mediterranean-style office and retail complex. A plaque installed by Rollins is the only indication that a school ever stood on the site.

By the early 1900s, the citrus industry was finally recovering from the catastrophic freezes of the 1890s. Just as growers were regaining their footing, one Winter Park rookie found himself in possession of a history-making tree that produced a different sort of fruit and attracted worldwide notice.

In 1910, while New Yorkers John and Mary Hakes were vacationing in Winter Park, John became fascinated with the area’s citrus groves and resolved, to his wife’s chagrin, to invest in a 17-acre tract of orange and grapefruit trees. Their son, Louis, and his wife, Ethel, later relocated from New York to Winter Park to manage the business.

Although neither had any experience growing citrus — Louis had worked in a real estate office and Ethel had been a schoolteacher — the couple made the grove a success. In 1915, Louis noticed that one particular tree produced a different sort of fruit, its color more deep, its pulp more tender and its flavor more exotic.

He took one of the curious, sunset-colored orbs to William Chase Temple, a onetime Pittsburgh steel magnate who was now a Winter Park citrus grower and president of the Florida Citrus Exchange. Temple, recognizing that the fruit was unique and potentially valuable, advised Louis to send a box to D.C. Gillett, owner of the Buckeye Nursery in Tampa and, in Temple’s opinion, the best citrusman in the business.

Gillett examined the fruit and concluded that it was likely a hybrid of an orange and a tangerine. He also recognized its commercial potential and rushed to Winter Park, where he made a deal with the Hakes family to secure exclusive rights to all of the budwood from the parent tree. His nursery would then grow and sell new trees, for which the Hakes family would receive a $2 per tree royalty for three years.

The savvy Gillett also applied for and received a patent for the fruit, which he proposed naming the Hakes orange. Louis and Ethel demurred, and Temple suggested that it be called “the Winter Park Hybrid.”

Ultimately, The Florida Grower magazine recommended that it be named for Temple, who first recognized its potential. As the Temple orange became popular nationwide, the tree from which it sprang became something of a

tourist attraction, prompting the Hakeses to erect a wire fence around it.

But who came up with the idea of crossing an orange and a tangerine? Surely the Winter Park tree, from which millions of others have descended, could not have been the first and only one like it. Tangors, a comparable hybrid, were being grown in the West Indies at the time, and some historians believe that a Florida fruit buyer sent a tangor seedling to Oviedo friends in 1896.

About 1900, Allan Mosely, a caretaker in Winter Park, may have obtained budwood from one of those friends, J.H. King. Mosely, then, may have grafted the budwood onto a tree in the grove owned by John Wyeth, who would later sell the property to Hakes. But this is impossible to document with certainty.

At the time the Temple orange was patented, Dr. David Fairchild, head of the Bureau of Plant Introductions in Washington, D.C., had definite ideas: “This tree is undoubtedly an accidental hybrid,” he declared.

In 1920, Winter Park’s population topped 1,000 for the first time — it would top 4,000 just five years later — and city officials adopted the slogan “City of Homes” as its municipal motto. But the big news two years later was about a hotel, when Ohioans Joseph and Anna Kronenberger completed the 80-room Alabama Hotel on the south side of Lake Maitland.

The Alabama changed hands several times, and was finally closed in 1979.

But in its heyday, it hosted such luminaries as authors Margaret Mitchell and Thornton Wilder and conductor Leopold Stokowski. Today, the impressive old building is a luxury condominium complex.

Mediterranean Revival-style Winter Park High School, “the most complete and architecturally perfect school buildings to be found anywhere in the state, according to an article in Winter Park Post, was built in 1923 on Huntington Avenue. The school remained in that location until 1969, when the present campus, on Summerfield Road, was completed. The original campus remains in use as the Winter Park High School Ninth Grade Center.

Also in 1923, Austrian-born hotelier Max Kramer opened the 50-room Hamilton Hotel on Park Avenue South. The building, with balconies overlooking Park Avenue and Central Park, replaced a circa-1880s frame office built by the Winter Park Company. Today, it’s the Park Plaza Hotel, a boutique property that charms visitors with its elegant, wood-paneled lobby and posh, antiquefurnished rooms.

Rollins began getting national attention during the 24-year presidency of Hamilton Holt, which got underway in 1925. Holt’s innovative teaching method, dubbed the Conference Plan, discouraged the rigid classroom lecture format and encouraged student-teacher interaction.

Holt, a Brooklyn native who published a liberal magazine called The Independent in New York from 1897 to 1921, made many changes during his long tenure and forever altered the look of the New England-flavored campus by adding 23 buildings in the now-familiar Spanish Mediterranean architectural style.

In 1926, Holt and Grover — the previously mentioned professor of books — created the Animated Magazine, a live program in a magazine format that brought speakers on a variety of topics to the college every February. Drawing on his contacts, Holt was able to attract such diverse figures as actress Mary Pickford, novelist Faith Baldwin and RCA Chairman David Sarnoff.

Holt served as editor in chief for the Animated Magazine, often sitting on stage with a giant pencil and eraser to “edit” verbose presenters.

During the 1930s, the University Club was organized as well as the Hannibal Square Library. Mead Botanical Garden, named for renowned horticulturalist and Oviedo resident Theodore Mead, was also opened. Its amphitheater, completed in 1959, remains a favorite venue for weddings, concerts and other special events.

In 1932, the Annie Russell Theater was built on the Rollins campus in honor of popular stage actress Annie Russell, who had retired to Winter Park in 1918 and had become a professor of theater arts at the college. Construction was made possible by a $135,000 donation from Russell’s friend Mary Louise Bok, a patron of the arts and wife of Ladies Home Journal LIV I NG IN WINTE R PARK

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The city’s signature event, the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, debuted in 1960. The idea appears to have originated with Darwin Nichols, an art­ist and owner of Park Avenue’s Barbizon restaurant, and his friends and fel­low artists Don Sill and Bob Anderson. Community activist Jean Oliphant headed a planning group, and funds were raised from Park Avenue merchants.

editor Edward Bok. The first performance at the new theater, directed by Russell, was Romeo and Juliet.

The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park was founded in 1935 by Isabelle Sprague-Smith, a former New York artist and school principal, who was the president and driving force behind the organization until her death in 1950. The future of the festival was in doubt until John Tiedtke, a Rollins professor and the first dean of the college’s graduate programs, stepped in to serve as chairman of the board of trustees, a position he held until his death in 2004.

During the Great Depression, Winter Park benefited from President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s various recovery programs. For example, workers from the Federal Emergency Relief Administration widened and deepened the canals connecting Winter Park’s lakes.

Still, hundreds of properties went into foreclosure during the depths of the downturn. The Bank of Winter Park and the Winter Park Building and Loan Association closed, while the Union State Bank transferred its assets to the newly organized Florida Bank at Winter Park. In 1932, the city defaulted on $134,000 in bonds and interest, slashing its budget to remain solvent.

As the economy began to improve, activity in Winter Park picked up.

Between 1940 and 1950, the population increased nearly 75 percent, to more than 8,000 people. Many of them saw the latest movies at the 850-seat Colony Theater, which opened on Park Avenue in 1940.

During World War II, matinees at the Colony cost 39 cents and evening

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shows cost 44 cents. Although the theater closed in 1975 and was converted to retail use, the iconic Art Deco sign has been preserved as a delightfully gaudy reminder of a simpler time.

Like communities across the country, Winter Park supported the war effort in numerous ways. A variety of relief groups were organized, and Rollins offered courses in War Problems, Literature and Psychology of Propaganda and Radio Communications.

In 1945, architect James Gamble Rogers II was hired by developer Raymond Greene, who would be elected mayor in 1953, to design a fashionable retail complex on Park Avenue South. The result, Greeneda Court, set the stage for the European ambience that would come to define Park Avenue in the decades to come.

MODERN TIMES As World War II drew to a close, the Showalter brothers, Howard and Sandy, along with their cousin, Ford “Buck” Rogers, opened the Showalter Airpark on 100 acres south of Oviedo Road (now Aloma Avenue) and west of present-day S.R. 436. The land had been part of the golf course at the long-defunct Aloma Country Club.

For the trio, building an upscale airpark where flying lessons and charter flights could be offered was the fulfillment of a longstanding dream. The Showalter family later opened similar airparks in Sanford and Orlando, where Showalter Flying Service is still in operation at what is now the Orlando Executive Airport.

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When the Winter Park Mall opened in 1964, it was the largest climate-controlled mall in the Southeast. Although the 400,000-square-foot complex was damaged by fire in 1969, it was repaired and continued to thrive until the 1980s. Most of the structure was razed in the late 1990s to make room for Winter Park Village, a sprawling retail and restaurant development with residential lofts.

The final Winter Park landing took place in 1963 and real estate developers bought the airpark property, which today encompasses the Winter Park Village Apartments and much of the Winter Park Pines subdivision.

Also on the site is Showalter Field, where Winter Park High School plays its home football games, and Ward and Cady Way parks, which feature softball fields, tennis courts, a playground and a swimming pool operated by the YMCA. Winter Park’s stature as an upscale retail mecca was bolstered in 1948 with the arrival of Eve Proctor Morrill, a former fashion buyer for major department stores in Philadelphia. Morrill enlivened Park Avenue with The Proctor Shops, one offering sporting goods and the other offering stylish women’s attire. She also championed beautification projects for Winter Park’s quaint but still sleepy downtown, where shop hours were sometimes erratic and more than a few merchants closed for the summer.

The Proctor Shops were sold in 1972 and later became Jacobson’s, a popular department store. But Proctor stayed active for decades to come, buying and selling property and raising funds for her favorite causes, including the Florida Symphony Orchestra and PESO (Participation Enriches Science, Music and Art Organizations), an advocacy group that she helped form.

The city honored Morrill with an “Eve Proctor Morrill Day’’ in 1985, during which a garden and plaque in Central Park were unveiled. The plaque is inscribed with lines from a poem by Logan Morrill, her late husband: “Love quietly and greatly. Seek immortality in those around you where we live eternally. In each day’s striving justify the lives we might have lived.’’

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One of the most significant milestones in the city’s history occurred in 1955 with the opening of Winter Park Memorial Hospital, built on a portion of the long-defunct Aloma Country Club golf course. Today the stateof-the-art facility is part of the Florida Hospital system, a group of private hospitals owned and operated by Adventist Health Systems.

In 1956, Robert Langford opened the thoroughly modern Langford Hotel on East New England Avenue, giving Winter Park its first resort-style getaway. The 82-room Langford, which remained a favorite for locals and visitors until its closing in 2000, hosted an eclectic assortment of VIPs, including Lillian Gish, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mamie Eisenhower, Ray Charles, Bob Dylan, George McGovern, Charlton Heston, Louis Rukeyser and Ronald and Nancy Reagan, who spent their 25th wedding anniversary there.

Langford, who died the year the hotel ceased operation, was one of the first eight inductees into the Florida Tourism Hall of Fame, along with such luminaries as Walt Disney, Dick Pope, founder of Cypress Gardens, and Henry Flagler, whose Florida East Coast Railway opened South Florida for tourism and development.

In the late 1950s, Winter Parkers came together to fight a proposed Interstate 4 route that would have paralleled Orange Avenue and then crossed U.S. Highway 17-92 before it turned north toward Maitland.

This route would have destroyed the motels lining the east side of 17-92 from Fairbanks Avenue to Lee Road — colloquially known as the Million Dollar Mile — and would have sliced through property where locals hoped a shopping mall would be built. In addition, many residents feared that an

interstate highway so nearby would impact the city’s tranquility.

Winter Park voters strongly rejected the proposed route in a 1958 referendum, much to the consternation of some Orlando movers and shakers, such as William H. “Billy” Dial, executive vice president of First National Bank and a major proponent of the route.

In a letter to Winter Park Mayor J. Lynn Pflug, Dial wrote that interstate highways should be built “not on the basis of popular vote or referenda, but on traffic and engineering standards by qualified persons with consideration for the needs of the traveling public, the effect the location might have on existing businesses and residents and by the accessibility of the facility to those who, in their daily lives, require its use.”

Greene, the former mayor and developer of Greeneda Court, is credited with effectively scuttling the proposal by persuading the Florida Cabinet to approve construction of the Dan T. McCarty State Office Building — now site of the CNL Heritage Park office complex at the corner of Morse Boulevard and Denning Drive — directly in the interstate’s proposed path. A second route was also scuttled before a third, well to the west, was chosen and approved in 1963.

The city’s signature event, the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, debuted in 1960. The idea appears to have originated with Darwin Nichols, an artist and owner of Park Avenue’s Barbizon restaurant, and his friends and fellow artists Don Sill and Bob Anderson. Community activist Jean Oliphant headed a planning group, and funds were raised from Park Avenue merchants.

In early February, 1960, the Orlando Evening Star announced the venture with the headline: “Date Set for ‘Arty’ Park Ave. Three Days of Bohemia.”

Less than a month after the idea was casually proposed among three friends at the Barbizon, the inaugural show was held in Central Park and attracted 90 exhibitors. Today, around 225 artists participate and some 300,000 people view the displays, listen to live jazz and nosh festival food.

With its population now topping 17,000, Winter Park attracted more retail development beyond Park Avenue. The Winter Park Mall, with 400,000 square feet under roof, opened in 1964 and was at the time the largest climate-controlled mall in the Southeast. The complex was damaged by a major fire in 1969, but was repaired and continued to thrive until the 1980s.

The final stores in the mall closed in the late 1990s, and most of the low-slung white structure was razed to make room for Winter Park Village, a sprawling retail and restaurant development with residential lofts.

But a generation of Winter Parkers recall buying their school clothes at J. C. Penney and Ivey’s, the two major anchors, and the latest batch of Marvel Comics at Mall News.

Winter Park was not entirely untouched by the turbulent 1960s, although it was hardly a hotbed of discontent. Hordes of young people with no apparent political purpose began gathering in Central Park, much to the dismay of Park Avenue merchants, who said they were scaring the customers. And in 1970 about 200 Rollins students protested the war in Vietnam by marching from the campus to the McCarty State Office Building, where the Selective Service offices were located.

In 1981, a new attraction opened — literally — when a huge sinkhole began to form in the front yard of Mae Rose Owens, who looked outside the window of her house on West Comstock Street and saw a sycamore tree disappear as if it were being pulled underground by its roots. Owens, who soon realized that a crater was forming in her front yard, packed some belongings and quickly left with her family.

Within a few hours, the structure had vanished. To the north, the city swimming pool cracked and its deep end crumbled and disappeared. The hole expanded eastward, swallowing part of Denning Drive, and southward, creeping uncomfortably close to the back walls of several buildings along Fairbanks Avenue.

There were no injuries, although five Porsches and a travel trailer behind German Car Service were devoured. City Planner Jeff Briggs, recalling the scene years later to a reporter from the Orlando Sentinel, said, “Where else

do you get to see Porches in a sinkhole except Winter Park?”

No one knew how big the hole would get, and no one knew how to stop it from getting bigger. Within a few days, however, the ground appeared to stabilize and onlookers could only marvel at how, in such a densely developed urban area, the abyss had formed only on land that was largely vacant.

In the coming days, a circus atmosphere developed as vendors sold food, Tshirts and other souvenirs. One Fairbanks Avenue business charged admission to view the gaping maw, which measured 335 feet wide and 110 feet deep, from a rear balcony.

Adding to the absurdity, a pawnbroker sued Winter Park for unfair competition after the city began selling sinkhole photos from a tent, which was set up as a shelter for security police, while refusing to issue him a permit to operate a similar enterprise nearby.

Local geotechnical engineer Jim Jammal described the phenomenon, which garnered national news coverage, as “the largest sinkhole event witnessed by man as a result of natural geological reasons or conditions.” Today, it’s simply Lake Rose.

In the 1980s, Winter Park became synonymous with the so-called quality revolution when Philip Crosby, an author and a retired ITT executive, opened the Quality College in offices on New England Avenue and later Morse Boulevard.

For more than a decade, the college hosted as many as 6,000 corporate executives from around the U.S. for weeklong seminars on quality management.

Quality College attendees filled rooms at the Mount Vernon Inn on U.S. Highway 17-92 — the only hotel in the city large enough to accommodate them all — and dined in a different Park Avenue restaurant every day.

The economic impact on local businesses was tremendous. But more important, the Quality College regularly showcased Winter Park to captive audiences of influential movers and shakers.

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED In recent years, as it approached its 125th anniversary, Winter Park has seemed even more cognizant of its heritage. Because the city is largely built out, its population inched up only slightly, from 24,000 to 27,000, between 2000 and 2010. Unlike most Central Florida cities, it is less concerned with growth than with preservation and enhancement.

In 2007, the Hannibal Square Heritage Center opened to honor the history and culture of the neighborhood, where the business district has been redeveloped to encompass trendy restaurants and upscale boutiques. The center was founded by the Crealdé School of Art in partnership with the City of Winter Park. And in 2011 the entire Downtown Winter Park Historic District was added to the National Register of Historic Places.

In 2016, through a year-long visioning process that involved hundreds of local residents, a Visioning Steering Committee produced a document meant to identify priorities and to establish an overarching direction that elected officials should consider when establishing policy. Four major themes emerged: n Cherish and sustain Winter Park’s extraordinary quality of life. n Plan our growth through a collaborative process that protects our city’s timeless scale and character. n Enhance the Winter Park brand through a flourishing community of arts and culture. n Build and embrace our local institutions for lifelong learning and future generations.

Would Chapman, Chase and other Winter Park founders be pleased with how their city has developed? Almost certainly, they would be impressed at how today’s Winter Park has adhered to their original vision of a beautiful, peaceful, culturally sophisticated community.

Late in life, Chapman wrote: “Starting Winter Park was probably the most important event in my life.”

Important to a lot of us, Mr. Chapman.  LIV I NG IN WINTE R PARK

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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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COURTESY OF THE MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

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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ENLIGHTENING

ENCHANTING

UPLIFTING ‘The City of Culture and Heritage’ is more than a slogan in Winter Park.

BY MICHAEL MCLEOD, RANDY NOLES AND JAY BOYAR

The restored (and breathtaking) Tiffany Chapel, at the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art (facing page), 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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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 world-class) museums. Another is just a short drive away.

Here’s an insider’s tour of the city’s marvelous museums. Once you’re finished, you’ll understand why Winter Park bills itself, quite rightly, as “The City of Culture and Heritage.”

Ready? Let’s take a tour.

THE ALBIN POLASEK MUSEUM & SCULPTURE GARDENS 633 Osceola Avenue, Winter Park, 32789

On the eastern shore of Lake Osceola, the lushly landscaped grounds and breathtaking statuary of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens is one of the most hauntingly beautiful — and historically significant — cultural attractions in Winter Park.

What’s most remarkable about the Polasek, however, is the spirit of indomitability that hovers over the place. Once you hear the back story, you’ll understand why.

Born in Moravia (now the Czech Republic), Albin 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, retiring in the late 1940s as an established master.

He crafted monumental works: warriors and mythological figures, a 28foot statue of Woodrow Wilson, and a breathtaking rendering of Christ on the cross, who appears, even in 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 the physical challenges he now faced.

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 undaunted, 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 operated by the Albin Polasek Foundation.

Its major annual event is the Winter Park Paint Out, held in April, when

Located on the eastern shore of Lake Osceola, the lushly landscaped grounds and breathtaking statuary of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens (facing page, top) combine to offer one of the most beautiful sights Winter Park has to offer. Also on the grounds is the Capen-Showalter House (facing page, bottom), a once-endangered historic home floated across the lake via barge and restored for use as offices and an events space.

artists are invited to paint in the open air, creating oils and watercolors of local settings that are then offered for sale. Proceeds support the foundation.

Polasek’s home, while beautiful, is unpretentious and compact. The museum needed more room for administrative offices and a space to host events, such as weddings. The solution to the space problem arrived in a form that would have delighted the iron-willed artist. It was dramatic — and it seemed utterly impossible.

The Capen-Showalter House, a historic home on the opposite side of Lake Osceola from the museum, was scheduled for demolition. Alarmed, a group of Winter Park residents mounted a campaign to save it.

When the Polasek offered to relocate the house to its gardens, the preservationists came up with a radical idea. Why not cut the house in half, load it on 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 trade using an assistant’s hands. And it happened, thanks to a campaign that raised $650,000 to fund the 500-meter voyage.

At dedication ceremonies in 2014, former Rollins College 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. It’s nice to imagine that Albin Polasek might have been, 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.

THE CASA FELIZ HISTORIC HOME MUSEUM 656 North Park Avenue, Winter Park, 32789

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. While all of Rogers’ buildings are community treasures, the Barbour House, as it was then known, was arguably the iconic architect’s masterpiece.

Suffice it to say, there was quite a commotion 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.

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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.

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 operated 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 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 free. Call 407-628-8200 or visit casafeliz.us for more information.

THE CORNELL FINE ARTS MUSEUM AND THE ALFOND INN n The Cornell: 1000 Holt Avenue, Winter Park, 32789 (Rollins College) n The Alfond: 300 East New England Avenue, Winter Park, 32789

The Cornell Fine Arts Museum and the Alfond Inn have formed a pioneering partnership that has drawn national attention from art lovers and art experts alike.

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The museum overlooks Lake Virginia from the back side of the Rollins College campus at the southern end of Park Avenue. The hotel was built five years ago on the footprint of the old Langford Hotel, and is just a short walk from campus, across Fairbanks Avenue and two blocks east of Park Avenue.

Rollins owns the 112-room facility, which is named for Ted and Barbara Lawrence Alfond, both 1968 Rollins graduates. The Alfonds, through a charitable foundation established by Ted’s late father, Harold, provided a $12.5 million gift to jump-start construction.

And there was more to come. The couple also donated the 260-piece Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art to the museum, which was established in 1978. Roughly 140 of those pieces, on a rotating basis, now adorn the hotel’s walls, thereby expanding the museum’s footprint into downtown Winter Park.

While much of the collection is visually pleasing, even to the untrained eye, none of it 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, director of the museum. “It’s a collection with a point of view. It’s about issues our students will be confronted with.”

Works deal with 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 who are more familiar 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

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make their way to the museum 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 Winter Park and expand the Rollins boundaries in the community,” she says. “This partnership has allowed us to do both.”

Heller has a friendly, ongoing debate with the hotel’s general manager, Jesse Martinez. “I say the Alfond is an art museum with guest rooms,” says Heller. “Jesse says it’s a hotel with an art museum in it.”

Of course, they’re both right.

Even prior to the Alfond infusion, the museum 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.

Its holdings encompass more than 500 paintings, some dating from the 14th century. There are 1,600 prints, drawings and photographs, and thousands of artifacts and archaeological fragments from around the world.

Heller notes that the museum has enjoyed a large increase in visitors, in part because admission, this year subsidized by PNC Financial Services Group, is free.

The Cornell Fine Arts Museum on the Rollins campus 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.

For information, visit rollins.edu/cfam, thealfondinn.com or call 407-6462526.

THE CHARLES HOSMER MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

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445 North Park Avenue, Winter Park, 32789

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.

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.

Guided group tours of the Alfond Collection are offered every Friday at 1 p.m., and “Happy Hour” tours are led by museum docents at 5:30 p.m. on the first Wednesday of each month. Tours 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, the hotel’s award-winning restaurant. Many Happy Hour attendees, their curiosity piqued, eventually

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North Park Avenue is anchored by a 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.

The Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art is named for a Chicago industrialist and philanthropist who made Winter Park his vacation home in the late 1800s and later retired here. In 1904, Morse bought 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.

In 1942, Morse’s granddaughter, Jeannette Genius McKean, founded the museum and named it for her grandfather. Its first location was a small, out-of-the-way gallery on the Rollins campus. It did not move to its present Park Avenue facility until 1995.

The museum is inextricably linked to Jeannette’s husband, former Rollins president Hugh McKean. As a young man, McKean had studied with Louis Comfort Tiffany at the artist’s lavishly appointed, 65-room Long Island country estate, Laurelton Hall.

Following Tiffany’s death in 1933, the estate fell into disrepair and was further damaged by fire in 1957. The McKeans, determined to salvage what they could, gathered truckloads of art and architectural elements and shipped it all to Winter Park.

Tiffany’s work had fallen so far from favor that the now-priceless creations were considered to be of little value at the time. But the McKeans’ decision to bring the gilded art nouveau treasures to Winter Park for safekeeping would help define the city as an arts mecca.

After Jeannette died in 1989, Hugh carried on, making plans for a facility to properly display the collection, most of which was stored in an unmarked warehouse. He died in 1995, just months before construction was complete.

The museum’s holdings — apart from the world’s most extensive array of Tiffany jewelry, pottery, paintings, sculptures, and leaded glass — also include other late-19th- and early 20th-century American art.

Tiffany highlights include a restored Byzantine-Romanesque chapel interior, a terrace from Tiffany’s estate decorated with multicolored glass daffodils, and galleries that evoke the beauty of Laurelton Hall — and the

guiding philosophy behind it.

“If the Morse has one controlling belief, it’s that art is life enhancing, and that every individual is better off when art is a present and significant part of their life,” says Laurence J. Ruggiero, the museum’s director.

McKean, who hired Ruggiero, would surely be pleased at how the museum has evolved over the past two decades. Since McKean’s death, the breathtaking Tiffany Chapel was opened, and a new wing built in which entire portions of Laurelton Hall have been re-created.

The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays from 1 to 4 p.m. On Fridays, from November through April, closing time is extended to 8 p.m. Admission is $6 for adults, $5 for seniors and $1 for students. Children under 12 are admitted free. Call 407645-5311 or visit morsemuseum.org for more information.

CREALDÉ SCHOOL OF ART 600 St. Andrews Boulevard, Winter Park, 32792

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 sprawling lakeside haven tucked behind a strip mall where you can take classes in just about every art form imaginable.

Behind Crealdé’s yellow stucco 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 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.

Crealdé is open Mondays through Thursdays from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Admission to the galleries is free, although there are fees for art classes. Call 407-671-1886 or visit crealde.org for more information.

THE WINTER PARK HISTORY MUSEUM AND THE HANNIBAL SQUARE HERITAGE CENTER n History Museum: 200 West New England Avenue, Winter Park, 32789 n Heritage Center: 642 West New England Avenue, Winter Park, 32789

Winter Park’s two history museums have distinct but complementary purposes. One encompasses the city as a whole, beginning with its founding as a cold-weather getaway for wealthy Northerners. The other focuses specifically LIVING 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.

on the traditionally African-American west side, which has its own tales to tell.

The cozy (900-square-foot) Winter Park History Museum occupies a corner of the old Atlantic Coast Line freight office — the site where the Farmers’ Market is now held — on New England Avenue one block west of Park Avenue.

Through March of 2020, the museum is saluting the golden age of local hotels and motels in a new exhibition, Wish You Were Here: The Hotels & Motels of Winter Park.

More than century ago, during the winter months, wealthy Northerners ensconced themselves at luxury resort hotels in fledgling Winter Park. Many visitors ended up investing in the community and ultimately moving here.

By the 1930s and 1940s, middle-class families were flocking to more modest accommodations — including tourist cottages — along U.S. Highway 17-92 (Orlando Avenue). And by the 1950s, Winter Park boasted a now-legendary resort hotel where the Empire Room supper club epitomized Rat Pack culture.

Wish You Were Here celebrates the role of hotels in accommodating visitors

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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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Celebrating the economic impact of the arts are (left to right): Jan Clanton, member, Public Art Advisory Board; Lindsey Hayes, economic development program manager, City of Winter Park; Craig O’Neil, assistant director of communications, City of Winter Park; Clarissa Howard, director of communications, City of Winter Park; and Lauren Branzei, chair, Public Art Advisory Board.

WINTER PARK INVITES YOU TO BE INSPIRED Winter Park has been committed to arts and culture since it was established in the 1880s. That commitment is reflected in the city’s visioning document: “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.”

That’s why the city has launched an Arts & Culture Subcommittee of the Public Art Advisory Board. Its mission: To enhance and improve awareness and visibility of 18 unique nonprofit arts and culture organizations within the city limits.

Promotion is a year-round job, but a signature event, “Weekend of the Arts” is held each February to celebrate those organizations, and the ways in which they improve the city’s quality of life.

The inaugural Weekend of the Arts featured live music and theater, free art exhibitions, children’s arts and crafts, and other activities. The second celebration is already set for February 15 to 18, 2019.

Participating organizations include the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens (and the adjacent Capen-Showalter House), the City of Winter Park’s Art in Chambers and Art on the Green programs, Arts@ Rollins, the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park, Blue Bamboo Center of the Arts, Casa Feliz Historic Home and Museum, the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art and the Cornell Fine Arts Museum.

Also, Crealdé School of Art, GladdeningLight, the Hannibal Square Heritage Center, Mead Botanical Garden, the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, the Winter Park History Museum, the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College, the Winter Park Playhouse, the Winter Park Public Library and the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival.

For more information on Winter Park’s many museums and cultural organizations, visit the cityofwinterpark.org/arts-culture. There you’ll find: n A comprehensive directory of all nonprofit arts and cultural organizations within the city, including links to each one. n Extensive calendars featuring events scheduled for each venue as well as communitywide arts and culture events n Whether you’re making plans for an afternoon, a long weekend or a lifetime, every day in Winter Park is a special experience.

Winter Park invites you to be inspired! #WPinspires.

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and hosting casual gatherings and civic events for locals. Inside the small space, the luxurious circa-1930s hotel lobby has been re-created. Also on display is the swank and swinging Langford Resort Hotel’s original piano, around which generations of Winter Parkers sipped highballs and tipsily requested “Moon River.”

There are also photographs and descriptions of small but architecturally intriguing working-class motels and tourist cottages, along with a re-imagined Victorian-era children’s playroom of the sort that guests of the posh Seminole Hotel or Alabama Hotel might have stashed their youngsters.

“Our town is built on the foundation of luxury hotels,” says Susan Skolfield, executive director of the Winter Park Historical Association, which operates the museum.

“In the 1880s, Winter Park founders assigned lush lakefront sites for beautiful hotels. These accommodations were the draw for well-heeled tourists to become investors in a planned community and, ideally, Winter Park citizens. This is how our town was settled.”

The Winter Park History Museum ought to be known as “the little museum that could.” Skolfield and a cadre of volunteers never fail to shoehorn in more creativity per square foot than seems humanly possible, with past exhibitions focusing on turpentine, railroading, peacocks, schools, businesses and the homefront during World War II. Wish You Were Here, like all museum exhibitions, is free and open to the public — although donations are gladly accepted. Museum hours are Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Saturday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Visit winterparkhistory.org for more information.

Museum hours are Tuesdays through Fridays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Each Monday at 10 a.m., the museum stages a children’s show, Penelope, Princess of the Peacocks. Admission is free. Call 407-644-2330 or visit wphistory.org for more information.

The Hannibal Square Heritage Center is set in the heart of Winter Park’s bustling west side, which was platted in the 1880s with lots designated specifically for African-Americans. By the harsh standards of the post-Reconstruction South, Winter Park was considered to be a relatively welcoming place for black families.

However, the stringent east-west racial division continued until well into the 1960s. By the 1990s, the west side’s business district had been redeveloped as an upscale shopping and dining destination, and the neighborhoods surrounding it had begun to gentrify.

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, knowing they had to be “back across the tracks” by nightfall.

Inside, you’ll see 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 that Proctor made by crumpling the pages of a 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 center’s manager. “She just smiled and told me, ‘I pay my respect to it better this way.’”

Among the many stories you’ll encounter via videotapes and displays is that of a local hero named Richard Hall, who’s now 95 and lives just a few blocks away. A full-sized “lifecast” of Hall, in a red sports jacket and red cap, stands next to the front door of the center.

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 African-American military pilots who formed the segregated 332nd Fighter Group and the 477th Bombardment Group of the U.S. Army Air Force.

The center is open Tuesdays through Thursdays from noon to 4 p.m., and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Admission is free. Call 407-539-2680 or visit hannibalsquareheritagecenter.org for more information. 

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MAITLAND IS ALSO A MUST ART & HISTORY MUSEUMS – MAITLAND

n Maitland Art Center, Maitland Historical Museum, Maitland Telephone Museum: 231 West Packwood Avenue, Maitland, 32751 n William H. Waterhouse Museum and Carpentry Shop Museum: 820 Lake, Lily Drive, Maitland, 32751 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 known as 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.

The Maitland Art Center is open Tuesdays through Sundays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. The other museums are open Thursdays through Sundays 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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ENZIAN

1300 South Orlando Avenue (U.S. Highway 17-92), Maitland, 32751 Central Florida’s only art-movie house is included in this story because it’s a museum, of sorts — one that just happens to curate films rather than paintings or sculptures.

Indeed, Enzian 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 beneath towering live oaks and an intimate, cabaret-style movie theater just inside.

In the next year or two, Enzian plans to add two more small theaters — one with 80 seats and another seating 30 — thanks to a proposed $6 million expansion.

Enzian is a nonprofit organization with a Winter Park connection. It was founded 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, held every April, which 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 Central Park. The family-friendly classic flicks typically 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.

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The Maitland Art Center (above), 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. Enzian’s 220-seat theater (below), with comfortable chairs and table service, is a welcoming place to watch offbeat films. Plans are afoot to add two more screens to the Maitland complex.

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ART ALONG THE AVENUE If people know nothing much about Winter Park — and there are few such people — they at least know about its art festivals. One is approaching its 60th year and attracts artists from all over the U.S. The other, entering its 45th year, spotlights only Florida artists.

THE WINTER PARK AUTUMN ART FESTIVAL

October 13-14, 2018 Ordinarily, the Winter Park Autumn Art Festival has at least one thing going for it: the weather. There was a rare exception in 2016, thanks to Hurricane Matthew, when the festival had to be cancelled.

But ordinarily, Central Park is a gorgeous seasonal setting for an event devoted exclusively to Florida artists — and a community that appreciates them.

The free, 45-year-old annual event, hosted by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and presented by the Rifle Paper Co., is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the second weekend in October. The dates of this year’s festival are October 13-14.

It will feature 180 artists, whose works encompass ceramics, drawings and graphics, fine crafts, jewelry, mixed media, paintings, photographs and sculptures. In addition, the Crealdé School of Art presents workshops for children ages 5 and up during the festival, which also features musical entertainment.

“We’re very excited about this year’s festival, and the artists who are traveling from across Florida to share their work,” says Betsy Gardner Eckbert, president and CEO of the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce. “I love seeing people from miles around enjoying the art and our community.”

Visit winterpark.org for information.

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Downtown Winter Park is the scene of numerous events and festivals, among the most notable of which is the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, 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.

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THE WINTER PARK SIDEWALK ART FESTIVAL

March 15-17, 2019 When the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival made its debut in the spring of 1960, the volunteers who created it wondered if they could attract the attention of enough artists and art lovers to make the event work.

So far, so good.

The 2019 festival is slated for Friday, Saturday and Sunday, March 15, 16 and 17. Some 225 artists — selected from among more than 1,000 applicants — will showcase their work for an estimated 350,000 people.

Artists compete for 63 awards totaling $72,500. The Best of Show winner is purchased for $10,000 by the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival Board and donated to the City of Winter Park. Previous Best of Show winners are on permanent display at the Winter Park Public Library.

Youngsters can create their own artwork at the Children’s Workshop Village. Easel painting is a popular activity, and budding artists can take their creations home with them. The Leon Theodore Schools Exhibit showcases art by students in Orange County schools.

There are sculptures, drawings, paintings, photography, mixed media and a variety of other genres on display at the festival, which is consistently rated among the most prestigious in the U.S. Festival traditions include the selection of original art for the official festival poster, which is sold at the event. Posters from prior years are considered collectible by festival fans. Also during the festival, admission to the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art is free.

The mission of the festival — which is still run entirely by volunteers — hasn’t changed since its beginnings decades ago, says past president Alice Moulton. “The event offers an enjoyable, fulfilling and profitable experience for artists,” she says. “Plus, it enhances art appreciation, art education and community spirit.”

Visit wpsaf.org for more information.

ADVENTURES A historian recounts the turbulent, triumphant tale of Rollins College.

PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

BY RANDY NOLES

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IN ACADEMIA

One of Rollins College’s most important buildings is Knowles Memorial Chapel, designed by acclaimed architect Ralph Adams Cram and dedicated in 1932. It was named for the Knowles family, early benefactors of the college and the community.

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“It dawned on me that the college community was in danger of losing its institutional memory — and I felt a strong obligation to make sure that didn’t happen. That sense of responsibility overrode any other considerations.”

— Jack Lane

PHOTO BY MITCHELL LANE THOMAS

F

ew cities and colleges have origins as intertwined as those of Winter Stability” and “The College in Crisis,” to name just a few. Often, money — or Park and Rollins College. But, until now, there had been no comprelack thereof — was the problem. Other times, imperious administrators and hensive history of the state’s oldest institution of higher learning. At peculiar professors wreaked havoc. (See the chapters on President Paul Wagleast, not one in print. ner and Professor John Rice.)

The Rollins centennial celebration in 1985 seemed an ideal opportunity to But by 1985, when Lane completed his manuscript, the charismatic Seytell the college’s entire story, from its founding by enterprising town boosters mour had righted the ship. Today, Rollins enjoys lofty national academic in 1885 through its emergence as one of the most respected rankings and is bolstered by a healthy endowment of more small liberal arts colleges in the U.S. than $370 million.

Enter Jack C. Lane, then a professor of history and now a No one was better suited to write this roller-coaster of a professor emeritus and college historian, who was asked by history than Lane, who had at the time taught at the college then-President Thaddeus Seymour to write a book marking for more than 20 years, serving on an array of committees the anniversary. and logging a stint as chairman of the history department in Lane was at first reluctant, fearing that an institutional the 1970s. history would invariably be a dry tome that would generate When he retired in 1999, Lane received the William little interest beyond administrators and a handful of alumni.

Freemont Blackman Medal — named, appropriately, in honor But he quickly realized that the story of Rollins was of his favorite past Rollins president — for distinguished service. jam-packed with eccentric characters, near-disasters, darSix years later, at the 2006 commencement exercises, Rollins ing innovations and heady achievements. He embraced the awarded him an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree. project, combining a storyteller’s zeal and a historian’s rigor.

In addition to Rollins College Centennial History, Lane Yet the completed manuscript — fascinating and revealing has published three books and numerous articles on Ameras it was — gathered dust for more than three decades. ican military history, foreign relations and the history of Lane posted it online, and in recent years some of the education. In recent years, however, he turned his scholarly Jack Lane’s fascinating new more colorful chapters were expanded and excerpted in book was originally written to attention to the history of Florida.

Winter Park Magazine. Those excerpts always generated sig- commemorate the college’s In 1991, he and a Rollins English professor, Maurice nificant reader interest — and prompted questions about 125th anniversary in 1985. It “Socky” O’Sullivan, compiled a collection of Florida writing wasn’t published at the time, when the book would become available. ranging from folk tales and Spanish myths to Florida-related Finally, though, it’s been published. Rollins College Centen- but a revised version was work by writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, John James nial History: A Story of Perseverance, 1885-1985 (Story Farm released in November of 2017.

Audubon, Zora Neale Hurston, Zane Grey, Wallace Stevens, Inc.) is a handsome hardback available for $21.95 from the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Jose Yglesias, and Harry Crews. usual online booksellers and at the Rollins College Bookstore.

Visions of Paradise: From 1530 to the Present (Pineapple Press) won the Florida But don’t expect a typical self-congratulatory coffee-table book filled with Historical Society’s Tebeau Award as the year’s best book on Florida history. pretty pictures and effusive promotional copy. Lane’s work is, instead, a In addition to writing, during his retirement Lane has conducted historimeticulously researched, warts-and-all look at the college’s ups and downs cal tours of the campus, assisted as guest lecturer in several classes and served through a century of tumult and triumph. on the boards of the Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum and the Winter The chapter headers offer confirmation that Lane was granted carte Park Institute at Rollins College. blanche to tell it like it really was: “The Struggle for Survival,” “The Search for Living in Winter Park sat down with Lane to discuss his lively new book.

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Q:

Your book is subtitled Centennial History, so obviously it was written to be published in 1985. What was the origin of the book, and why was it not published at the time?

A:

Good question, and one that many others, I imagine, have been asking. Well, the road to publication was a bit circuitous. In 1984, President Thaddeus Seymour, with the college’s 100th anniversary imminent, called to ask if I would be interested in writing Rollins’ centennial history.

I was a little hesitant about accepting, because I was involved in writing another book that would have to be postponed. But later I thought: I’ve been at the college for more than 20 years, and I know almost nothing about its history.

It dawned on me that the college community was in danger of losing its institutional memory — and I felt a strong obligation to make sure that didn’t happen. That sense of responsibility overrode any other considerations.

Besides, the president offered to appoint me college historian, and allow me a year off from teaching to complete the project. So, I said yes.

I completed a first draft at the end of the year, after which I returned to full-time teaching, leaving me little time to revise and rewrite.

Plus, the administration had published a pictorial history that I had put together during my research. It was difficult, I was told, to find funding to publish the historical narrative.

So, I put the manuscript aside. I turned to other scholarly endeavors, and the whole project sort of went dormant.

Q: A:

What was the impetus to publish it now, more than 30 years later?

The impetus came from the college’s new president, Grant Cornwell. Shortly after he arrived, I approached him at a social gathering to ask him about his recent trip to India.

“Funny you should ask,” he said. “On the plane on the way home, I read your centennial history manuscript, and I think we should publish it, if you’re willing to work on it some more.”

He couldn’t have surprised me more. It had been more than 30 years since I’d even looked at the manuscript. To tell you the truth, I could remember little of what I’d written, or what the quality of my research and writing had been.

But the president caught me at a moment in my retirement when I had little in the way of scholarly activity going on. I said yes, but added that it would have to remain a centennial history.

Frankly, I just didn’t have the energy to conduct the research required to write about the years since 1985. He agreed.

If I might add something here — for several reasons, the gap between writing, rewriting and

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Beautiful Rollins College is one of the region’s most precious cultural treasures as well as an intellectual and cultural hub. 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 (left), which serves as the campus’s formal entry and anchors the southern terminus of Park Avenue.

publication proved to be fortuitous. That 30 years gave me the perspective to make revisions and additions that, I think, greatly improved the original manuscript. And my writing style, I hope, had much improved. I spent a year rewriting virtually the entire book.

Given the transformations taking place today in higher education — and particularly in liberal education — it seemed to be a propitious time to make public the richness and significance of the Rollins story.

And more importantly, it seemed to be an equally propitious time to remind the present campus community of the significance of institutional memory.

PHOTOS BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

Q: A:

What facet of the college’s history surprised you the most?

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Well, as I mentioned before, there was very little that I did know of Rollins’ past, so I had many surprises. Part of my reluctance at first to undertake this project was the idea of doing an institutional history — that it would be dull.

But was I wrong. Not only was it not dull, but as I began to dig into the material in the archives, I quickly found the story fascinating. What human drama here!

A group of intrepid Congregationalists (Rollins was founded by the Florida Congregational Association and members of the First Congregational Church of Winter Park) had either the audacity or the foolhardiness to start a college in the Florida wilderness, in a village that had only about 150 souls.

What’s more, they installed a course of study that required extensive preparation in classical languages and literature. For heaven’s sake, there LI V I NG I N WI N TE R PAR K

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4 0 7. 3 8 3 . 2 5 6 3

Dr. Edward Hooker (above) was pastor of Winter Park’s first church and the founding president of Rollins College, which began earning national attention under the presidency of Hamilton Holt (below), a charismatic innovator.

Q:

Who would you rank as the top five most important figures in Rollins’ history, and briefly why?

A:

Well, at the top of the list would be the obvious one, Hamilton Holt (president from 1925 to 1945). Holt is such an iconic figure — not only at Rollins but in the larger community — that it’s difficult to come up with new accolades to express his impact on the college.

Under Holt’s leadership, Rollins was transformed both educationally and physically. He established its identity as a proponent of innovative, experimental teaching and learning. His leadership made it a nationally recognized institution of higher education.

Moreover, he transformed the campus with more than 30 buildings constructed in the Mediterranean Revival architectural style. That’s one reason that Rollins is routinely recognized as having the nation’s most beautiful campus.

What other figures? Well, two at the turn of the century: the almost-regal George Morgan Ward (president from 1896 to 1902, and acting president on two subsequent occasions), who gave the college stability and daringly abandoned the classical curriculum.

Then there was William Freemont Blackman (president from 1903 to 1915), who brought the college back to its liberal education roots when it was tending to drift toward vocational or professional education. By the way, seven decades later, President Seymour did the same thing.

Also, I’d credit the Blackman family, including President Blackman’s wife, Lucy, and their three children. They were by far away the most delightful and entertaining presidential family.

The chapter on Blackman was fun to write. Prophetically, I was presented the Blackman Medal at my retirement.

Still, I think the unsung heroes have been the generations of trustees, faculty and students — particularly those who stuck with the college in times of serious adversity. They never lost the faith when many wanted to throw in the towel. I spend some time revealing their tireless efforts.

Q:

What was the most difficult period for the college? Did it ever seem as though it might not survive?

A:

DIGITAL ART BY CHIP WESTON

I’ve chosen the theme of “perseverance” because there were so many periods when it seemed the college wouldn’t survive. But rather than damaging the college, the struggle gave it strength to weather storms of adversity at times when countless other colleges facing similar problems went under.

But to answer your question about a specific period: I would say the immediate years after

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World War I. The conflict had almost denuded the college of its male students, and depleted its finances. It emerged from the war deeply in debt.

Many wanted to give up the struggle as a lost cause. That’s when Hamilton Holt came to the rescue — the college’s knight in shining armor, if you will.

Q: A:

Did writing the book give you a greater appreciation for Rollins? In what way?

Oh my, yes. For so many reasons. Because I knew so little of the college’s past, I had countless “ah ha” moments during my research.

I realized that many of the things we were doing academically had been passed down to us from previous generations of leaders.

For example, from my earliest days at Rollins, I sensed that I was expected to be innovative in my teaching, to experiment with new ideas and to create innovative educational programs. These were time-honored Rollins traditions — but I didn’t know that at the time.

Also, I was surprised to learn how long Rollins had been so renowned. It had, all along, attracted brilliant professors and highly regarded figures.

I made two major discoveries in this realm.

First, I learned that Zora Neale Hurston was deeply connected to the college, and that two Rollins professors had jump-started her fabulous career.

Second, I learned that Rollins was the seedbed for the founding of Black Mountain College, probably the nation’s most celebrated experimental institution. Former Rollins professors started the school in North Carolina.

Let me just add here what I see as an important insight that came to me as I researched the college’s past. As I mentioned earlier, the college community was in danger of losing its institutional memory. I had that fact reinforced to me time and time again.

As I had been reminding my history students, ignorance of our past can be seriously damaging.

For a college, that can mean dangerously wandering into ways that seriously impair its historic mission.

Forgive me if I include a quote from President Cornwall’s forward to the book: “In this time of rapidly shifting changes, one that requires (re)envisioning the role of liberal education in a global context, it is critical that present and future Rollins generations embrace the distinctive character that previous generations strove to build.”

My hope is the Rollins College Centennial History provides assurance that we will never forget this college’s past — and particularly how previous generations doggedly kept alive the commitment of liberal education. That’s one of the meanings of the motto, “Fiat Lux.” 

PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

weren’t even any secondary schools in Florida at that time.

How the college survived — through depleted finances, epidemics, freezes, internal conflicts and the effort of heroic individuals — was a story that captivated my interest from the very beginning.

And then I found that the college’s history was populated by engaging and brilliant personalities — some of whom did the college no favors, and others of whom were instrumental in pulling the institution through its adversities.

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Rollins College, which virtually always ranks at or near the top in compilations of the most beautiful campuses in the U.S., is dotted with architecturally striking nooks and crannnies.

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A LIBRARY, AND SO MUCH MORE

BY MICHAEL MCLEOD Miss Evaline Lamson’s front porch is long gone. So is Miss Lamson. So are the eight other “well-educated, capable, energetic, and affluent” women who decided, in 1885, that Winter Park needed a library.

The front porch of Miss Lamson’s cottage on Interlachen Avenue served as the library’s first home. A year later, progress and good fortune provided another.

Owners of a fledgling company that operated a new, mule-drawn streetcar line offered a vacant room in their Park Avenue offices for the “Winter Park Circulation Library Association.” Members only. Dues: $1 a year.

It’s not much of a journey from where Miss Lamson’s porch once stood to the future home of the community resource she helped pioneer.

Just a mile west down Morse Boulevard, on the northwest corner of Martin Luther King Jr., Park, where the Rachel D. Murrah Civic Center now stands, a $35 million library and events center — to be dubbed “The Canopy” — is scheduled to open in 2020.

Though its impact will be considerably more dramatic than keeping the association’s treasured copies of Silas Marner and The Scarlet Letter out of the weather, it all began with a “Shhhhh!”

Members of the Winter Park Library Facility Task Force had that familiar fingerto-lips imperative in the back of their minds three years ago, when they were charged with investigating whether or not Winter Park needed a new library.

“When we started, most of us had the idea in our heads of a library as a place where people go, ‘Shhhhh!’” says Sam Stark, the committee’s chair and the associate vice president of strategic partnerships at Rollins College.

Maybe in the 19th and the better part of the 20th centuries it was. It’s not that simple these days. In an age of insularity and information overload, a public library is a lively throwback, a stubbornly democratic town square where people of all ages, ethnicities and tax brackets still gather on an equal footing for a curated window on the world. It’s free in more than one sense of that word — with no agendas or pop-ups ads.

The current library on New England Avenue, built in 1979, was crowded and outdated. For every new book in the children’s section, another had to

go. Expanding digital needs would have required taking the building down to the bones.

Plans call for a 35,690-square-foot library with an adjoining 13,456-squarefoot events center. The city will spend about $2.6 million more for a raked auditorium, a porch cochère and an outdoor amphitheater, although a rooftop venue — privately funded — will be built later.

But this was about heart and soul as much as bricks and mortar.

Choosing to build a new library and events center — and choosing to build it on the west side — was a test of character for a place that calls itself the city of arts and culture.

In its visioning document, Winter Park vows to “build and embrace our local institutions for lifelong learning and future generations.” This project gives weight to those lofty words.

So does the project’s designer. That’s Sir David Adjaye, working in tandem with HuntonBrady Architects, a local firm.

Named by Time magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world, the U.K.-based Adjaye was born in Tanzania and recently knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He’s best known in this country for designing one of the most significant monuments in its history: The Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture, which opened last year on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The museum’s architecture begins to tell a story even before you walk inside.

From the Metro station exit on the far side of the mall, it’s a long, long walk past white marble neoclassical buildings before the museum looms into view: an angular, metallic silhouette, both magnificent and vaguely foreboding.

Shadows and light play over a decorative grillwork pattern on the building; Adjaye formulated it based on ornamental metal castings once forged by slaves.

Adjaye is a knighted man of color who designed a place of communal enlightenment for our country. Now he’s doing the same for our city.

This world-class facility will be located in a part of town that was once segregated housing for those who worked for employers across the tracks.

Perhaps Evaline Lamson was among the employers. Perhaps she would appreciate seeing progress and good fortune overtake her enterprise once again.

Sir David Adjaye, in collaboration with Orlando-based HuntonBrady Architects, will design the most significant public building in Winter Park’s recent history. Among Adjaye’s most notable recent projects was the Smithsonian Institute’s National Museum of African American History and Culture.

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The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park boasts a 160-member choir and a permanent orchestra, which have made five European tours and performed in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and in Royal Albert Hall, London, with the Bach Choir of London. The music during the season is not limited to Bach — or even to classical music.

T

THE REVERED GERMAN MASTER WOULD HAVE LOVED WINTER PARK.

BY RANDY NOLES

he Bach Festival Society of Winter Park stages the oldest continuously running Bach Festival in the nation. It began at Rollins College, on a Sunday in 1935, with a performance to commemorate the 250th birthday of the revered German master.

From that auspicious beginning, the Bach Festival has grown to a three-week extravaganza of concerts, lectures and events offered annually in February and March. In addition, the society offers an eclectic, year-round schedule that includes choral and orchestral performances, several of them highlighted by world-renowned guest artists.

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) never actually visited Winter Park, of course, but it’s a safe bet the German master would have found a kindred spirit in Dr. John V. Sinclair, 64, chair of the department of music at Rollins College and artistic director of the Bach Festival Society, where he has wielded the baton since 1990.

The society boasts a 160-member choir and a permanent orchestra, which have made five European tours and performed in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican and in Royal Albert Hall, London, with the Bach Choir of London. The music is not limited to Bach — or even to classical music.

The history of the Bach Festival Society has always been closely tied to the history of Rollins College. By the time Sinclair arrived in 1985, the society and its annual festival had for decades been the personal domain of John M. Tiedtke, a shrewd businessman who had made his fortune growing sugar, citrus and corn in South Florida.

Tiedtke was a boyhood friend of Rollins President Hugh McKean, who asked him to take charge of the Bach Festival in 1950, when LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK

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“John [Sinclair] is a natural educator,” says Eric Ravndal, chairman of the festival board of trustees. “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.”

founding society president Isabelle Sprague-Smith died and the organization’s future seemed in doubt.

The no-nonsense Tiedtke proved a fortuitous choice. He loved music — he played a little piano, but mostly enjoyed listening — and was a consistent and generous donor to community-based arts organizations. At Rollins, he had been treasurer and chairman of the board of trustees.

McKean, an iconic Winter Park figure, had been an art professor at Rollins before his elevation to the presidency. He had married Jeannette Morse Genius, granddaughter of Charles Hosmer Morse, a benevolent industrialist who helped shape modern Winter Park.

“Mr. Tiedtke and Dr. McKean understood that with great wealth comes responsibility,” says Sinclair, who still refers to both men using formal titles.

“They would have lunch together every Saturday. They started inviting me to come along, and those lunches were hugely interesting.”

Sinclair, who admits that he sometimes felt “a little like a third wheel,” would listen as the old friends discussed art, philosophy and the events of the day. They would often spar over who should pay the tab. McKean liked to joke that after 40 years of lunches, he remembered only a handful of times when Tiedtke picked up the bill.

When the subject of the society came up, however, it was clear that Tiedtke, primary funder and hands-on boss, called the shots.

Traditionally, a Rollins professor had always done double duty teaching and serving as the society’s artistic director. Sinclair was eager to take the helm. “That’s what enticed me to the school,” Sinclair said. “There were other offers on the table, but Rollins had the Bach Festival.”

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The society already had an artistic director, however, in Murray Somerville, who served concurrently as artistic director of the Bach Festival and as choirmaster at the Cathedral Church of St. Luke in Orlando. Somerville seemed in no hurry to leave. Nearly five years passed before Somerville left for a position as organist and choirmaster at Harvard University’s Memorial Church, and the baton — literally and figuratively — passed to Sinclair.

“Mr. Tiedtke knew I had strong opinions,” recalls Sinclair, whose wife, Gail, is an American literature expert and executive director of the Winter Park Institute at Rollins College. “But he could be persuaded in some instances. Basically, he said, ‘You pick what you want to do and I get veto power.’”

The society, which is technically a separate organization from Rollins, is funded by grants, donations, ticket sales and an endowment that was initially bolstered by gifts from the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation and from Tiedtke himself, who continued as society president until 2003. He died the following year at the age of 97.

Just before Tiedtke’s death, Rollins established the John M. Tiedtke Endowed Chair of Music. For once, the man for whom the chair was named wasn’t asked to write a check.

Others contributed generously, including an anonymous $250,000 donation that was later revealed to have come from one Fred McFeely Rogers, Class of ’51. A music composition major who became TV’s Mister Rogers, Fred Rogers befriended the Sinclairs during his frequent Winter Park visits.

John Sinclair, in fact, was the Tiedtke Chair’s first recipient. “It was an honor to know these two brilliant and good men,” Sinclair says of Tiedtke and McKean, who died in 1995. “They were great role models for me.”

“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.”

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

— John Sinclair

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Against the soaring backdrop of Knowles Memorial Chapel, 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 and March.

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Living up to the examples set by Tiedtke and McKean has been a continuing priority for Sinclair. Tiedtke believed that well-run, well-supported arts organizations were integral to any enlightened community, and McKean believed that any academician worth his salt was first and foremost a classroom teacher.

Susan Tucker, who sings in the Bach Festival Choir, has admired Sinclair’s synthesis of organizational prowess, intellectual heft and personal empathy for more than 25 years.

“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, chairman of the Bach Festival Society board of trustees, is a retired Episcopal priest and a Tiedtke cousin. Under his leadership, the organization has been revamped as a more traditionally structured not-forprofit, 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. Each year, Sinclair conducts about 150 performances of one kind or another.

He also serves as music director of the First Congregational Church of Winter Park. He is director of the local Messiah Choral Society and conductor of the International Moravian Music Festivals. His seemingly boundless energy 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,” said 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 seems that 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 beginning to consider what they might do during retirement.

“No, no,” said 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 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 said. “I want this book to be my gift to the profession.”

Visit bachfestivalflorida.org for more information. 

A SEASON TO SING ABOUT The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park hosts guest artists from all over the world. But Artistic Director John V. Sinclair had only to walk upstairs from his office in Keene Hall on the Rollins College campus to book a headliner for 2019.

Jamey Ray, assistant professor of music, theory and technology, may be best known beyond the campus as founder of Voctave, a wildly popular 11-member a cappella group with four albums and millions of YouTube followers to its credit. Voctave will perform in February, marking its orchestral debut during the annual Bach Festival.

But there’s a lot more going on during the society’s 2018-19 season.

Here’s a look at this season’s programs, most on the Rollins campus.

Go to bachfestivalflorida.org for more information.

CHORAL MASTERWORK SERIES n Mendelssohn and Mahler, November 17-18: Featuring the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra. n A Classic Christmas, December 15-16: Featuring the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra. n Power of Romanticism and Resurrection, April 27-28, 2019: Featuring the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra.

84TH ANNUAL BACH FESTIVAL n Spiritual Spaces: Musical Meditations, February 10, 2019: Gentle music to soothe the soul, featuring members of the Bach Festival Choir and Orchestra and guest musicians. n Paul Jacobs, February 15, 2019: Jacobs, the first organist to receive a Grammy Award, is chair of the Juilliard School’s organ department. n Voctave: Orchestral Debut, February 16-17, 2019: The internationally popular a cappella group performs in multiple styles, from gospel to barbershop to pop. n Concertos by Candlelight: Four Seasons Around the World, February 22-23, 2019: Features members of the Bach Festival Society Choir and Orchestra, with performances followed by workshops and discussions. n Itamar Zorman, February 24, 2019: The Israeli violinist who won the 2011 Tchaikovsky International Violin Competition and the 2013 Avery Fisher Career Grant. n Mozart: Great Mass and Symphony No. 40, March 2, 2019. Features the Bach Festival Society Choir and Orchestra. n J.S. Bach’s St. John Passion, March 3, 2019. Features the Bach Festival Society Choir and Orchestra.

INSIGHTS & SOUNDS n Flute, Harp and Strings, September 20. Features members of the Bach Festival Society Choir and Orchestra. n Joe and Mike: The Haydn Brothers, November 8: Music written by Franz Joseph and Johann Michael Haydn. n Judith Triumphant, January 24, 2019: Vivaldi’s oratorio based on the biblical story of a Jewish widow who saves her people from an invading army.

VISITING ARTISTS In addition to Zorman and Voctave, whose appearances are part of the annual Bach Festival, the society will present these guest performers. n Eroica Trio, October 28: The award-winning combo of pianist Erika Nickrenz, violinist Sara Parkins and cellist Sara Sant’Ambrogio. n Berlin Philharmonic Principal Players: Scharoun Ensemble, March 16, 2019: The German chamber-music ensemble has a repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary compositions. n Richard Goode, April 14, 2019: The New York native is the first American pianist to record all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.

SPECIAL EVENTS n Olde Fashioned Fourth of July Celebration, July 4: Enjoy patriotic music, children’s activities and food and on Independence Day in Central Park. n Carmina Burana, October 12-14: The extravaganza, which combines choral and orchestral music with dance, is performed with Orlando Ballet at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando. n Christmas in the Park, December 6: Traditional Christmas music and stunning lighted Tiffany panels combine for a magical evening in Central Park.

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COURSE

OF ACTION

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WINTER PARK’S HISTORIC LAYOUT BOASTS A NEW, MORE CHALLENGING DESIGN. PLAYERS GIVE IT A THUMB’S UP.

BY DANA S. EAGLES Photography 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.

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The city’s beloved nine-hole course, playfully dubbed “Winter Park National” by PGA Hall of Fame pro Nick Faldo, was plowed under in March and has reopened with a new, more challenging design. The reconfigured course occupies the same footprint and still abuts Palm Cemetery, where errant balls sometimes land. However, the layout makes the most of its 2,480 yards — and in 2017 was ranked among Golf Digest’s Best 9-Hole Golf Courses in the U.S.

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ollowing a seven-month, $1.2 million renovation, the Winter Park Golf Course re-opened two years ago to considerable fanfare. So far, patrons of the city-owned course are giving the upgrades a big thumb’s up.

During its first full year of operation, total golf course revenue increased 89 percent, from $408,535 to $774,284. The number of rounds played increased and per-person revenue nearly doubled, from $12 in 2015 to $21.39 in 2017. Merchandise sales increased by 70 percent.

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 selfdescribed hackers. Clearly, it was time.

The reconfigured course occupies the same footprint and still abuts Palm Cemetery, where errant balls sometimes land. (The protocol: Retrieve your ball, but please don’t play out of the cemetery.) However, the layout makes the most of its 2,480 yards — and in 2017 was ranked among Golf Digest’s Best 9-Hole Golf Courses in the U.S. 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.

Although it’s more expensive to play than it used to be, fees are still relatively low. Residents who play Monday through Thursday mornings from November through April — the busiest time for the course — pay $14. Annual memberships for residents are $900.

There’s a new, free 10,000-square-foot putting

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course on Park Avenue near the ninth-hole tee box. The exclusive-sounding “country club” label — a misnomer, since the course is public — was eliminated.

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. However, it’s only the second-oldest course in the Orlando area. 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 — attracting, as he puts it, “blue-collar, white-collar and no-collar players.” The course had char-

acter, 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 2016, 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 in 2001 to a patch of unused city property adjacent to the 9th hole 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 ninehole course commissioned by Morse that encompassed the west side of the Rollins College campus and part of what is 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 H.A. “Harley” 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 sometimes 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 Aloma Country Club, which encompassed the present-day location of Ward Park and Winter Park Memorial Hospital, opened in 1926 and lured players away.

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.

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 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.

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 ill-fated 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 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 in early 2016.

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.

Despite the course’s continuing popularity with tourists, loyal locals such as Danny Stanley, 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 wife has made his membership an annual Christmas gift.

Stanley, who describes his skills as “middle-ofthe-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 one 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 – down from 30.6 million in 2003 at the height of Tiger Woods’ popularity.

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.”

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.”  LIVING IN WINTE R PARK

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HOW DOES OUR GARDEN

GROW? ‘WINTER PARK’S NATURAL PLACE’ IS MORE THAN PRETTY AND PEACEFUL. IT’S ALSO AN IMPORTANT ECOSYSTEM.

BY LESLIE K. POOLE

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Catherine Bowman and her husband, Ron Blair, are with the Tarflower Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society. In 2013, the society began helping to restore the sandhill pine uplands at Mead Botanical Garden by installing 160 varieties of native plants.

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The snowy egret and the gopher tortoise are among the creatures that share the garden with humans, many of whom enjoy the tranquility or attend events at The Grove, which is one of two amphitheaters on the property. The portion of Howell Creek that runs through the garden is its longest uninterrupted stretch. It winds through cypress trees and Alice’s Pond (facing page) — named in honor of volunteer Alice Mikkleson — providing an important habitat and travel avenue for wading birds, otters, turtles and fish.

A

small white egret balances on a rock, eyeing an opportunity to experience a different kind of glassy pond water in search of silvery minpark — one that combines planted gardens with nows. Two gopher tortoises wrestle head-torestored natural areas. head in a slow-motion battle of wills. A bicyclist “Mead Botanical Garden is a little ecological takes a break, peering up into an enormous pine island,” says Forest Michael, a landscape architect tree from which comes a wind-borne tune. and master planner who has long been involved These are the creatures of Winter Park’s Mead in the garden’s restoration. “It’s one of Florida’s Botanical Garden — humans, birds, reptiles and most interesting spots, full of history and ecofish — that have found relief and sustenance in logical relevance.” its 47 acres of precious green space.

The garden is named for Theodore Luqueer Only two blocks from the incessant cacophoMead, an accomplished naturalist, entomologist ny of four-lane U.S. 17-92, it’s a quiet, verdant and horticulturist who moved to Oviedo in the This lively portrait of Mead was painted in 1932 haven from harassment that allows the human late 1880s. There he grew exotic plants — parby Sam Stoltz, an artist and self-trained architect spirit to rise while supporting habitats that have ticularly orchids — and became renowned for his whose quirky “Spanish Florida” homes can still be disappeared from much of Central Florida. hybridization techniques. seen in Windermere, College Park, Winter Park The loveliness that visitors find here is real. But A year after Mead’s death in 1936, his proand on scattered sites throughout Central Florida. the garden also serves practical purposes: It filtégé, John “Jack” Connery — who had inherited ters water destined for the St. Johns River, houses Mead’s teeming greenhouses — approached Edscarce species, and provides layover grounds for migratory birds in search of win Osgood Grover, the “professor of books” at Rollins College. food and rest.

Connery thought — and Grover agreed — that there should be a vast It also offers a glimpse into Winter Park’s past, when the area was mostly garden to memorialize their mutual friend, and to display his collection of pinelands with trees that extended to the horizon — a rare sight in presentamaryllis, hemerocallis, fancy-leaf caladiums and more than 1,000 orchids. day Central Florida.

But how could such an audacious goal be achieved?

“This is an ecological oasis in a very urbanized environment,” says Peter Near Rollins College was a low-lying area along Howell Creek that they Gottfried, an environmental consultant who visited the garden as a child. thought would be perfect for the venture. At Grover’s behest, owners of “There’s no place like it in all of Central Florida.” several tracts donated their holdings to Theodore L. Mead Botanical Garden While it may not be truly wild land, Gottfried says the garden is highly Inc., a newly formed nonprofit. valuable because it’s a last vestige of Central Florida’s natural landscape.

Four years later — aided by Works Progress Administration labor — the “Many Winter Park residents,” he adds, “don’t even know it exists.” dream became a reality. Mead Botanical Garden officially opened on January Tucked behind a busy municipal tennis complex, railroad tracks, apartment 15, 1940, in a formal ceremony that included local dignitaries and elected buildings and homes, the garden is located on the south side of the city, borofficials. Grover, who presided over the festivities, laid out a grand vision of dered by Pennsylvania Avenue to the east and South Denning Drive to the west. a garden that would encompass unspoiled natural areas, ornamental plots, But beyond its shady bricked entry, the garden offers calm amid chaos, and greenhouses for exotic plants and even aquariums — which were never built.

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PHOTO BY WINTER PARK PICTURES (WINTERPARKPICTURES.COM)

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Perhaps the garden wasn’t everything that Grover and Connery had envisioned. For years, though, it was arguably the most beautiful spot in Central Florida — a fitting tribute to the genius of Mead and the persistence of the unlikely pair who had implemented this far-fetched notion.

Then, in 1953, the original nonprofit headed by Grover was acrimoniously dissolved — there was a dispute over the distribution of admission fees — and operation of the garden was turned over to the city.

Gradually, it became a mishmash of elements. There were multiple greenhouses, two of which were filled with Mead’s orchids. A garden path was lined with palms and hybridized plants, and the wetlands encompassed an egret rookery.

But there was also a county-owned clay pit next to a landfill, which contained everything from old tires to chemical waste. And in 1959, an amphitheater was built next to Howell Creek.

Decades after its creation, the vision articulated by Grover and Connery had been forgotten — or, more likely, ignored. Non-native invasive trees, plants and vines overwhelmed the wetlands. Wooden boardwalks were built and then abandoned to rot.

The city even used the property to store and repair vehicles. Maintenance consisted of mowing over native plants, leaving them unable to naturally grow and reseed. An irreplaceable natural asset was being not only neglected, but abused.

In 1988, Mayor David Johnson appointed a 15-member Mead Garden Task Force, which recruited the Orlando Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects to assist in formulating a master plan. Perhaps predictably, the plan gathered dust.

In 1992, a Rollins class analyzed the site, offering a vision for a boardwalk system that included signage to educate visitors about local ecology. Again,

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Volunteers such as Alice Mikkleson and Jean Scarbourgh are crucial to maintaining the 47-acre garden, which is owned by the city, but operated by Mead Botanical Garden Inc., a nonprofit organization.

nothing of consequence resulted. Despite fits and starts of ideas and activity, comprehensive management — and adequate funding for restoration — never materialized.

By the early 21st century, the property had become not a botanical garden but an oversized and underused city park — breathtaking in places, but in a state of inexorable decline.

Enough maintenance was done to keep it looking respectable, and the amphitheater remained a popular venue among event planners. Some boardwalks were repaired, a few trails were built and the entry was rebricked.

However, the garden needed new energy to revive the vision of its early champions like Grover and Connery. Enter the Friends of Mead Garden, a nonprofit formed in 2003 by concerned residents.

The group organized volunteers for cleanup duty and advocated improvement plans to city officials. Those efforts were hampered, however, by the hurricanes of 2004. Charley, Frances and Jeanne — three storms in six weeks — left the wetlands a mess and blew in more invasive species.

Optimism was rekindled in 2007, when the city approved a master plan for the garden presented by Post, Buckley, Schuh & Jernigan, a large architecture and engineering firm.

But an economic storm — the Great Recession — caused funding for reclamation to be slashed. Still, volunteer “Weed Warriors” and “Butterfly Brigades” soldiered on, mostly on weekends, doing what they could with

limited resources and motivated by their vision for the garden’s future.

In 2012, the Friends of Mead Garden — now Mead Botanical Garden Inc. (MBG) — signed a multiyear agreement with the city that essentially turned over operational responsibility to the privately funded organization and its 18-member board.

The city still owns the property, but the nonprofit — with a shoestring staff — runs its facilities. MBG board members envision a new master plan that’s more ecologically focused and program-driven than past plans have been.

Central to MBG’s effort is enhancing and restoring habitats and natural systems. There’ll always be human manipulation of the property, notes Michael, but improving its ecology will be a boon for flora and fauna.

“If the ecology is good,” he adds, “people will love it.”

WATERWAYS AND BIRDS One of the most popular features of the garden is Howell Creek, which brings water from the wetlands near Orlando’s Spring Lake through Winter Park and into a lake system that eventually connects to the St. Johns River.

The portion of the creek that runs through the garden is its longest uninterrupted stretch. It winds through cypress trees and Alice’s Pond — named in honor of volunteer Alice Mikkleson — providing an important habitat

and travel avenue for wading birds, otters, turtles and fish.

During dry periods, the creek almost disappears; during rainy periods, it floods, demonstrating the fluctuations of natural systems and the importance of wetlands to the local ecology.

Joining the creek at the garden are two city stormwater pipes that collect water from the surrounding neighborhood and dump it onto the property.

The water — teeming with chemicals, fertilizers, leaves, grass clippings and trash — had for years been deposited into an increasingly mucky marsh.

But with Michael’s help — and through in-person lobbying of Tallahassee lawmakers by Winter Park Mayor Steve Leary — the city received $450,000 in state grants to remove 17 truckloads of muck and landfill debris from the half-acre site.

A clay pit and a plant-lined pond near The Grove — a newer amphitheater built in 2012 — assist in water treatment during storm and high-water times.

Now, when water enters the creek, it’s much cleaner than when it arrived.

“The garden is going to be a managed system to some extent, but we want it to be managed as close to natural as possible,” says Tim Egan, water quality manager for the City of Winter Park’s Public Works Department.

Egan’s department is supervising an ongoing wetlands restoration and reforestation effort using $100,000 from the city’s stormwater utility capital improvement fund.

The entire job may take decades to fully complete. For now, though, the garden provides priceless green space for the city — which is important for people and animals alike.

“The tremendous ecological value of the garden is, in part, its proximity to other natural resources,” Egan says. The city’s various parks support many species — particularly birds — that have adapted to living in an urban environment.

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PHOTO BY LAURENCE TAYLOR

The garden has long been a popular birding site. Its checklist of almost 180 species, compiled by the Orange Audubon Society, includes native and migratory birds. Birders regularly roam the site carrying binoculars or cameras with large lenses to “capture” their prey. Among the year-round residents are barred owls, which regularly produce broods of adorable owlets (above).

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

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The garden has long been a popular birding site. Its checklist of almost 180 species, compiled by the Orange Audubon Society (OAS), includes native and migratory birds. “Mead Garden is a supermarket for migratory birds,” says MBG Executive Director Cynthia Hasenau.

Birders regularly roam the garden carrying binoculars or cameras with large lenses to “capture” their prey. During the spring and fall migration seasons, OAS conducts guided walks for birders, who come from across Florida in hopes of glimpsing, say, a colorful American redstart or hooded warbler.

Scot French, an amateur photographer, usually visits the garden twice a week. “Obviously, I love the place,” says French, who lives in Maitland and is a UCF history professor. “I go there all the time. I find it really peaceful.”

The wildlife is always changing, French says. On a recent visit, he realized that a barred owl was directly overhead, staring down at him — and offering an unexpected photo op. “It shot me a look like it was mad,” says French.

SANDHILL PINE UPLANDS The southern part of the garden, which offers the healthiest habitat, encompasses the sandhill pine uplands that once dominated the Central Florida landscape.

This tract, while not completely pristine, has the greatest potential to be restored to its natural state. It rises to 89 feet — the highest elevation in the garden. Its central feature is longleaf pine — majestic trees that can reach 50 to 60 feet in height and live up to 500 years.

Plant growth in the uplands was once kept in check by forest fires. However, with no fires for at least 150 years, other trees have sprouted, including palms and laurel oaks. In the meantime, native plants have been mowed over by city crews, and non-native plant species have invaded.

In 2013, in partnership with MBG, the Tarflower Chapter of the Florida Native Plant Society began restoring the sandhill area, creating two plots where a variety of plants have been located.

Signs to explain the habitat — and the gopher tortoises that thrive there — are displayed. Gopher tortoises are listed by the state as a threatened species, which means their numbers have dropped from historical levels.

Gopher tortoises also have an important function in the environment.

Their extensive underground tunnels — the entrances are cordoned off at the garden — may be home to some 350 other animal species.

Catherine Bowman, the society’s president, calls the garden “a treasure,” and notes that most other sandhill communities — including Wekiwa Springs State Park in Seminole County — are at least 25 miles away.

Bowman’s husband, Ron Blair, helped design and implement the restoration project. Volunteers have planted 160 sandhill plants such as saw palmetto, black cherry, persimmon and native grasses in the deep yellow sand, while also removing invasive plants.

“It’s a remnant of Winter Park — it’s all we have left,” Bowman says. “It’s a part of the garden where you can say, ‘It kind of feels like I’m in the woods here.’”

Volunteers, says Hasenau, are vital to the garden’s improvement. Susan League, an MBG board member, says that planting and weeding in the LIVING IN WINTE R PARK

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PHOTOS BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Just beyond the garden’s entrance is its restored greenhouse (above left), which is surrounded by a colorful and meticulously maintained Legacy Garden. Among the unusual plants you’ll find are staghorn ferns (above right), which hang from the large oak trees just to the left of the greenhouse. The ferns are native to Africa, Australia and Southeast Asia. During the most recent Young Naturalist Summer Camp, Shannon Charmley, program counselor, and a group of eager youngsters (facing page) collect samples of aquatic life from Howell Creek.

9

Through the Looking Glass

321-972-3985

WELCOME Museums & Cultural TO

Health & Beauty 23 9 12 6

Advanced Park Dental 407-628-0200 Clean Beauty Bar 407-960-3783 Eyes & Optics 407-644-5156 Kendall & Kendall, Hair Color Studio 407-629-2299 17 One Aesthetics 407-720-4242 15 See Eyewear 407-599-5455

Hotels The Alfond Inn Park Plaza Hotel

California Closets Ethan Allen Monark Premium Appliance The Shade Store

800-633-0213 407-622-1987 407-636-9725 321-422-1010

Jewelry Alex and Ani Be On Park International Diamond Center Jewelers on the Park Orlando Watch Company Reynolds & Co. Jewelers

8 11 3

321-422-0841 407-644-1106 407-629-5531 407-622-0222 407-975-9137 407-645-2278

Bicycle Parking

Shoes 25 Rieker Shoes 17 Shoooz On Park Avenue

407-539-0425 407-647-0110

Specialty Shops 2 5 14 7 15 13 3 13 20 18 19 6

Fig and Julep 321-972-1899 The Ancient Olive 321-972-1899 Brandywine Books 407-644-1711 Christian Science Reading Room 407-647-1559 Frank 407-629-8818 Maureen H. Hall Stationery & Invitations 407-629-6999 New General 321-972-2819 Partridge Tree Gift Shop 407-645-4788 Rifle Paper Co. 407-622-7679 The Spice and Tea Exchange 407-647-7423 Ten Thousand Villages 407-644-8464 Writer’s Block Bookstore 407-592-1498

COLE AVENUE

28

FREE 4 Hr Parking 4th & 5th levels

P

Hannibal Square NEW ENGLAND AVENUE

4

Park 23 Place

11

5 23

19

9

407-740-6003 321-274-6618

CANTON AVENUE

25

300 N

7 16 20 15 18 17 12 21

24

1

8 3 1 5 4 6 2 9

MAIN STAGE

Post Office

Central Park

200 N

LINCOLN AVENUE

P

4 Hour Public Parking

Weddings • = Not on Map

400 N

GARFIELD AVE.

Travel Services

The Collection Bridal Winter Park Wedding Co

2

Park Place Garage

1 Ben and Jerry’s 407-325-5163 1 Kilwins Chocolates & Ice Cream 407-622-6292 14 Peterbrooke Chocolatier 407-644-3200

1 3

N 500 N

CHARLES HOSMER MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART 1

Sweets

10 Luxury Trips 407-622-8747 18 Winter Park Welcome Center 407-644-8281

3 5

BRANDYWINE SQUARE

West Meadow

MORSE BOULEVARD

P FREE 4 Hour Parking LOT A

WELBOURNE AVENUE

LVANIA AVE

11 5 2 15 16 3

10 9 11 5

407-998-8090 407-647-1072

Interior Design 3 11 10 9

24

FREE 3-HOUR Street Public Parking

Beyond Commercial 407-641-2221 Brandywine Square 407-657-5555 Fannie Hillman + Associates 407-644-1234 Great American Land Management, Inc. 407-645-4131 Keewin Real Property Company 407-645-4400 Kelly Price & Company 407-645-4321 Leading Edge Title 407-636-9866 Olde Town Brokers 407-622-7878 Premier Sotheby’s International Realty 407-644-3295 Re/Max Town Centre 407-367-2000 Winter Park Land Company 407-644-2900 Winter Park Magazine 407-647-0225

5 10

9

2 1 6

Rose Garden

100 N

9

13 14 15

3

4

3 BOAT TOUR

2 14 4 1 15 13

11

6 7 5

Veteran’s Fountain

RGINIA AVE

8 9

•

FREE Public Parking

12 11

4 8 2 7 3 1

8 10 9 17 100 S

3

WELBOURNE AVENUE 6 P 3-hour Public Parking on ground level

Bank of America Parking Garage

200 S 12

NEW ENGLAND AVENUE

INTERLACHEN AVENUE

Financial Services

Real Estate Services 7 5 9

P

FREE 4-hour Public Parking

KNOWLES AVENUE

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

Parking Key

CENTER STREET

5 21 28 5 8

407-647-7277 407-629-0042 407-636-7366 407-960-3778 407-644-8609 407-790-7997 585-766-9886 407-671-4424 407-599-4111 407-335-4548 407-647-7520 321-972-2819 407-645-3939 407-629-7270 407-335-4914 407-381-4432 407-645-3616 407-262-0050 407-951-8039 407-960-3993 407-696-9463

Winter Park, Florida

Attractions

5 Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens 407-647-6294 2 Bach Festival Society of Winter Park 407-646-2182 407-628-8200 2 Casa Feliz 3 Cornell Fine Arts Museum 407-646-2526 1 Morse Museum of American Art 407-645-5311 3 Scenic Boat Tour 407-644-4056 • The Winter Park Playhouse 407-645-0145 10 Winter Park History Museum 407-647-2330

CASA FELIZ

310 Park South Barnie’s CoffeeKitchen BoiBrazil Churrascaria blu on the avenue Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine Cocina 214 Garp and Fuss Laurel Latin Cuisine Luma on Park Maestro Cucina Napoletana mon petit cheri cafe New General Panera Bread Pannullo’s Italian Restaurant Park Avenue Smoothie Cafe The Parkview Power House Cafe Prato Rome’s Flavours UMI Japanese Restaurant The Wine Room on Park Ave

PARK AVENUE

407-621-4200

WEST PARK

1 1 19 2 2 3 3 6 1 5 4 12 4 2 1 6 7 2 4 7 3

Small Business Counsel

NEW YORK AVENUE

Dining

Law Firms

8

PARK AVENUE

14 Arabella 407-636-8343 12 Bebe’s/Liz’s Fashion Experience 407-628-1680 2 Charyli 407-455-1983 9 Cottonways 321-203-4733 407-628-1087 6 Current 1 Evelyn and Arthur 407-740-0030 13 Forema Boutique 407-790-4987 15 The Impeccable Pig 407-636-4043 2 J. McLaughlin 407-960-3965 407-629-7944 7 John Craig Clothier 6 Lilly Pulitzer 407-539-2324 407-628-1222 19 Lucky Brand Jeans 5 Maestro Cucina Napoletana 407-335-4548 4 Max and Marley 407-636-6204 16 Siegel’s Winter Park 407-645-3100 407-647-7241 4 Synergy 321-209-1096 • TADofstyle 12 The Grove 407-740-0022 20 tugboat and the bird 407-647-5437 407-628-1609 17 Tuni

THE PARK AVENUE MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION • EXPERIENCEPARKAVENUE.COM

Jewelry

Specialty

Sweets

 C 14 Arabella

(407) 636-8343

 C 11 Be On Park

(407) 644-1106

 B 18 Belicoso Cigars & Cafe

 D 11 Bebe’s & Liz’s

(407) 628-1680

 E 11 International Diamond Center

(407) 629-5531

 B 20 Christian Science Reading Room (407) 647-1559

E7

(407) 455-1983

 C 12 Jewelers on the Park

(407) 622-0222

F5

Follett Bookstore at Rollins College

(407) 646-2133

C7

Maureen H. Hall Stationery & Invitations

(407) 629-6999

C5

(321) 972-3985

 B 14 Evelyn and Arthur

(407) 740-0030

 B 22 Forema Boutique

(407) 790-4987

 B 15 J. McLaughlin

(407) 960-3965

 C 10 John Craig Clothier

(407) 629-7944

C4

(407) 539-2324

(407) 647-7241

 C 15 The Grove

(407) 740-0022

 B 21 The Impeccable Pig

(407) 636-4043

 B 12 Tugboat and The Bird

(407) 647-5437

D9

(407) 628-1609

Tuni

Business Services  D 16 Bank of America

(407) 646-3600

——

Merrill Lynch

(407) 839-2617

E2

Moss, Krusick and Associates, LLC

(407) 644-5811

F2

PNC Bank

(407) 628-0118

 D 15 Small Business Counsel

(407) 621-4200

E8

(407) 381-4432

The Kozlowski CPA Firm, LLC

Dining  D 20 310 Park South

(407) 647-7277

C7

(407) 629-0042

Barnie’s Coffee Kitchen

 D 22 blu on the avenue

(407) 960-3778

C6

(407) 644-8609

Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine

 C 16 Cocina 214

(407) 790-7997

B9

(585) 766-9886

Garp and Fuss

 B 23 Laurel Latin Cuisine

(407) 671-4424

 D 18 Luma on Park

(407) 599-4111

 D 13 mon petit cheri cafe

(407) 647-7520

B4

(407) 645-3939

Panera Bread Park Ave.

 D 26 Pannullo’s Italian Restaurant

(407) 629-7270

 E 10 Park Avenue Smoothie Cafe

(407) 335-4914

 D 27 Power House Cafe

(407) 645-3616

C2

(407) 262-0050

Prato

(407) 622-7679

Ten Thousand Villages

(407) 644-8464

 E 12 Albin Polasek Museum

 B 11 The Ancient Olive

(321) 972-1899 (407) 647-7423

& Sculpture Gardens

(407) 647-6294

B6

D3

Axiom Fine Art Consulting

(407) 543-2550

 C 13 Williams-Sonoma

F4

Bach Festival Society of Winter Park

A2

Morse Museum of American Art

 C 21 Scenic Boat Tour

(407) 644-4056

F1

The Winter Park Playhouse

(407) 645-0145

D7

Winter Park History Museum

(407) 647-2330

(407) 628-5900

 D 28 Writer’s Block Bookstore

 D 15 Beyond Commercial

(407) 641-2221

A1

Brandywine Square

(407) 467-5397

E3

Fannie Hillman + Associates

(407) 644-1234

——

Great American Land Management, Inc.

(407) 645-4131

D8

Keller Williams Winter Park

(407) 545-6430

D6

Kelly Price & Company

(407) 645-4321

D5

Leading Edge Title

(407) 636-9866

 D 25 Olde Town Brokers

(407) 622-7878 (407) 644-3295

B1

The Keewin Real Property Company

C8

The Winter Park Land Company (407) 644-2900

(407) 645-4400

(407) 539-0425

B7

(407) 647-0110

Atomic Barber Co

(407) 636-7685

 B 13 Eyes & Optics

(407) 644-5156

C1

The Lash Lounge

(321) 617-5274

 C 20 Park District Hair

(407) 571-9725

 C 18 Park Smiles Dentistry

(407) 645-4645

 D 24 See, Inc.

(407) 599-5455

1

(407) 998-8090

Garfield Ave.

N

N O R T H

300 N

B

23

16 17

WEST MEADOW

2 3 4 5

100 N

6 7 12 8 9 10 13 11 15

1

3-Hour Parking Lot B

7

WELCOME CENTER

9 10 11 12 13

B3

Ethan Allen

(407) 622-1987

Concierge

E9

Monark Premium Appliance Co. (407) 636-9725

E4

Piante Design

Chamber

ATM

22

18 3-Hour Public Parking on Ground Level

28 14 25 15 26 16 17 18

D

200 S 29 30

19 20 21 22 23 24 27

31

300 S

10

CITY HALL

Comstock Ave.

E

400 S

7 8

3-Hour Public Parking Saturday & Sunday

Comstock Ave. 2

9

12

5 6

Public Parking Bicycle Parking

16

Lyman Ave. 4-Hour Parking

4-Hr Street Parking

(800) 633-0213

100 S

E. New England Ave. 3

21

Welbourne Ave.

Rose Garden

8

3-Hr Street Parking

26

17 19 20

W. New England Ave. 2

C

14

Morse Blvd.

Veteran’s Fountain

4 5 6

200 N

Lincoln Ave.

Lyman Ave.

California Closets

(321) 422-1010

15

CENTRAL PARK

HANNIBAL SQUARE

E6

 B 16 The Shade Store

24

14

Main Stage

Post Office

Welbourne Ave.

Interior Design (321) 316-4086

9 18 10 19 11 20 12 21 13 22

FREE 4-Hour Parking Lot A

3

(407) 647-1072

 D 31 The Alfond Inn at Rollins

400 N

Canton Ave.

K E Y

 D 10 Park Plaza Hotel

A

2

4 2 5 3 6 7 8

FREE 4-Hour Parking 4th & 5th levels

1

Hotels

500 N

3

CHARLES HOSMER MORSE MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART

New York Ave.

D2

1

1

Pennsylvania Ave.

(407) 628-0200

(407) 539-1538

Morse Blvd.

Health & Beauty Advanced Park Dental

(407) 740-6003

Winter Park Photography

Cole Ave.

Shoes

(407) 960-3993

B2

The Collection Bridal

E1

BRANDYWINE SQUARE

Virginia Ave.

UMI Japanese Restaurant

B8

4-Hour Public Parking

 B 24 Rieker Shoes

(407) 628-8200 (407) 218-5955

 C 22 Winter Park Wedding Company (321) 274-6618

(407) 335-4192

 D 17 The Wine Room on Park Avenue (407) 696-9463 E5

Friends of Casa Feliz, Inc.

 D 30 Penthouse 450

—— = Not On Map

Real Estate

Shoooz On Park Avenue

A3

(407) 645-5311 (321) 295-7317

Premier Sotheby’s International Realty

Weddings

 C 19 Woof Gang Bakery & Grooming (407) 790-7480

(407) 646-2182

 D 14 Ocean Blue Galleries

D4

The Spice and Tea Exchange

(407) 622-8747

Center St.

 D 14 Synergy

Rifle Paper Co.

B5

 C 17 Luxury Trips

Park Ave.

(407) 645-3100

D1

Travel Services

W. Park Ave.

(407) 628-0033

 D 23 Siegel’s Winter Park

(407) 645-4788

New York Ave.

 B 17 lululemon

 D 21 Partridge Tree Gift Shop

F L

(407) 628-1222

(321) 972-2819

P A R K ,

 D 12 Lucky Brand Jeans

Museums & Culture

 D 29 New General

W I N T E R

Lilly Pulitzer

Through the Looking Glass

Interlachen Ave.

(407) 975-9137

(407) 628-1087

(407) 644-3200

Knwoles Ave.

 B 19 Orlando Watch Company

Current

Center St.

(321) 203-4733

C9

Kilwins Chocolates & Ice Cream (407) 622-6292

 D 19 Peterbrooke Chocolatier

Casa Feliz

 B 10 Cottonways

PARK AVENUE

Charyli

C3

(407) 960-1899

Park Ave.

Apparel

Fairbanks Ave.

1 2

4

500 S 11

1

ROLLINS COLLEGE 3

4

5

F

Educational programs at the garden cultivate — literally — young ecologists. One of the most popular such programs is the Young Naturalist Summer Camp, held every June and July for children ages 5 to 12.

garden “keeps me sane.”

“This is a semi-wild garden, where visitors can be free and just wander wherever they want to go,” she says, taking a break on a sweltering August morning. Nearby, two wild honeybee hives prove her correct, as does a flowering vine that has attracted the attention of a flitting hummingbird.

NATURE EDUCATION AND PSYCHIC RELIEF

PHOTOS BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Ecology comes to life during the garden’s educational programs and camps, which aim to be incubators for future environmentalists. One of the most popular such programs is the Young Naturalist Summer Camp, held every June and July for children ages 5 to 12.

When it debuted six years ago, the camp had 35 registered children and ran three weeks. By 2017, the camp had extended to six weeks and hosted 375 campers. More than a quarter of the attendees came for multiple weeks, according to Hasenau.

The Rotary Club of Winter Park supports the program with a dozen scholarships annually. “The secret of the camp’s success is the awesome camp staff, the amazing natural setting, and the interesting activities and adventures,” Hasenau says. “Children have fun, they explore, they learn, and they don’t have to worry about tracking in dirt.”

Centered in the Discovery Barn — originally built as a storage facility for city tractors — and a small environmental building, the camp lets kids get

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up close and personal with everything from snakes to minnows to butterflies in the butterfly garden.

All the while, they’re learning about Florida habitats from a 14-member staff. There’s not an electronic device in sight — and the kids, some of them soaked through their clothes from wading, are having a ball.

“I’m fond of saying that if we can get kids to fall in love with the Earth when they’re little, they’ll love it forever,” says Hasenau as a group of boisterous campers pass. She describes the camp experience as “going green and getting grimy,” a phrase that seems to perfectly fit the bill.

Graham Fetteroff, 13, has been coming to the camp for six years, eventually becoming a junior counselor. “It’s my backyard,” he says. “I like to look for the birds.”

He’s helped with water quality testing in the garden, and today has been dip-netting for minnows with campers. Notes Graham: “When the kids learn a new thing, they go, ‘Wow!’” Last January, with a $2,500 grant from Healthy Central Florida, the gar-

den began a new Wednesday morning “Tyke Hike” program. Children ages 3 to 5 explore the garden on 90-minute guided treks, during which they examine bugs, leaves and flowers. That program resumes in October.

The garden also works with area schools. Fifth-graders from the Geneva School, for example, have planted flowering native plants and harvested noxious air-potato plants.

Meanwhile, fourth-graders from the school have wandered the garden’s waters acting as “wildlife detectives” while studying macro-invertebrates found there. Another summer activity, The Nature Camp, operates out of LIVING IN WINTE R PARK

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COURTESY OF BOBBY FOKIDIS

Bobby Fokidis (top), an assistant professor of biology at Rollins College, holds a 51-pound female Florida snapping turtle found in Howell Creek near the foot bridge. The turtle was given a unique mark on her upper shell (carapace) that allowed her to be tracked. “It’s cool to know that even in a small parkland in suburban Winter Park, such large and old reptiles are still out there,” Fokidis says. Former Rollins student Sarah Wright (right) holds a breeding pair of northern cardinals. The birds, captured where the upland area meets Alice’s Pond, were leg-banded as part of a study comparing the role of food on stress experienced by urban-dwelling birds.

PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

One of the most popular features of the garden is Howell Creek, which brings water from the wetlands near Orlando’s Spring Lake through Winter Park and into a lake system that eventually connects to the St. Johns River.

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the nearby Azalea Lane Recreation Center, and regularly brings youths to hike and explore the garden.

Rollins classes often walk to the garden, where they’re able to conduct studies in nature’s own laboratory. Students taught by Bobby Fokidis, an assistant professor of biology, have trapped, tagged and collected blood samples from turtles; their biggest catch was a 51-pound female snapping turtle, which they released.

Rollins students have also documented fish from the creek and from the stormwater retention ponds, discovering in the process that a South American fish species has somehow entered the ponds.

Fokidis, an eco-physiologist who studies the effect of urban environments on animal species, points to scientific studies indicating that a walk in the woods can decrease stress and improve human emotional wellbeing. “Psychologically, it’s important that people have this,” he adds.

Researchers have indeed found that people living near green space have less mental distress as well as lower incidences of 15 ailments, including asthma, migraine headaches, depression and heart disease.

“It’s very valuable to human beings to step aside … and be with real nature,” adds Gottfried, who is also a member of the MBG board. “It’s important to a lot of people.”

The garden offers some extraordinary ground-level sights. But sometimes, you can get the most breathtaking views by just looking up.

THE FUTURE

PHOTO

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

Improving Mead Botanical Garden means that future generations will benefit in many ways.

Bruce Stephenson, a Rollins professor who studies the history of city planning and parks, sees the garden as “an opportunity to create the type of open space that we need to have if sustainability is to become an organizing principle in our society.”

The garden, he says, provides three things: a recreational opportunity for people living in developed areas; a place for children to expand their experiences and imagination in nature; and natural ecological functions that support flora and fauna.

Nurturing the latter, he adds, requires a “full commitment to making it not just a botanical garden, but a fully functioning ecological habitat.”

That’s the challenge for the future. With a staff of two full-timers and two part-timers, the garden is reliant on a combination of taxpayer dollars, private fundraising and literal sweat equity — about 7,000 hours of labor per year — from volunteers.

The public-private partnership is proving beneficial to the city, which allocates approximately one sixth of one percent of its annual budget to the garden while earning back more than twice that amount, according to Hasenau.

Some of the challenges include reducing the impact of feral cats that hunt avian life — a problem made more difficult by people illegally feeding the felines — and working with local governments to reduce the use of insecticides and herbicides that can harm native biota.

Also high on the priority list is improving land-management practices; removing exotic species; and accelerating the wetlands restoration and reforestation program.

It’ll take time, money, energy, passion and vision. Michael, the landscape architect, says he’d also like to see markers erected that highlight the historical aspects of the garden, including Mead’s pioneering work.

Walking through the garden on a recent muggy afternoon, Hasenau energetically points to garden highlights, notes some problem areas and praises the passionate volunteer efforts.

“We’ve made a lot of progress since 2003,” she says. “And, there’s tremendous potential as well. We’re just scratching the surface of what we can do here.”  Leslie K. Poole, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Rollins College. She’s also the author of Saving Florida: Women’s Fight for the Environment in the Twentieth Century (University Press of Florida, 2015).

LIV I NG IN WINTE R PARK

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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

I

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

It’s taking physical form as the Center for Health & Wellbeing nears its opening date in December 2018. The center will bring wellness, fitness and medicine together in one state-of-the-art location.

Located on Mizell Avenue, the center was developed by the Winter Park Health Foundation in partnership with Winter Park Memorial Hospital, and promises to be the most innovative and comprehensive facility of its kind in Central Florida.

Within the two-story, 80,000-square-foot building — located just south of the hospital — there’ll be programs and activities providing comprehensive whole-person, whole-community care, which is a top priority for both organizations.

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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The heart of the $40 million center will be a natural light-flooded grand hall called The Commons, which will encompass the “nourish coffee bar + kitchen” (those lower-case letters are intentional) and the Elinor and T. William Miller Jr. Community Conference Center.

Activities will revolve around three areas: wellness, fitness and medicine.

Wellness-related offerings will also include a “Nutrition Theater,” where cooking demonstrations will take place, as well as children’s wellness and childcare facilities. There’ll also be outdoor gardens, a terrace with patio seating, and indoor and outdoor walking paths.

The fitness component will feature an all-new Peggy & Philip B. Crosby Wellness Center — formerly a branch of the YMCA — which will include a natatorium with two pools: a dedicated lap pool and a pool for warm-water therapy and aquatic exercise classes.

The $9 million Crosby facility will also encompass multipurpose fitness rooms for yoga and group exercise classes, and a fitness floor where there’ll be leading-edge equipment for cardio exercise and weight training. Staffers are working toward certification by the Medical Fitness Association, which means they’ll be specifically trained in such areas as exercise physiology and the incorporation of exercise in the treatment of chronic conditions.

The center’s medical component —15,000 square feet of space occupied by the hospital — will include a retail pharmacy and lab, specialty and primary care physician offices, and integrative medical services such as massage and acupuncture.

Since its inception in 1994, the Winter Park Health Foundation has quietly funded health programs through grants and partnerships in Winter Park, Maitland and Eatonville — from fighting diabetes in communities to placing counselors and nurses in schools.

The foundation has spent around $5 million annually on such efforts while intentionally remaining under the radar and out of the spotlight. But as the center’s developer, the busy not-for-profit is becoming much more visible in its support for wellbeing— 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 wellbeing for individuals, she adds. “We want

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.”

LIV ING IN WINTE R PARK

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PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

Patty Maddox, president and CEO of the Winter Park Health Foundation, hopes people who visit the center will discover new ways to be and 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 wellbeing going on.”

people to feel comfortable — what’s the best they can be?”

The center, which borders 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.

It will bring together in one place services that can help people improve and maintain their health and wellbeing — with free parking in a four-level garage. The center will be open every day of the week, with evening hours, too.

For Winter Park Memorial, the center offers a chance to “bend the cost curve” by preventing disease and keeping people out of sick beds, says Jennifer Wandersleben, the hospital’s administrator.

The hospital, founded as a grass-roots effort in 1956, is planning to offer primary care, pharmacy, nutrition, physical therapy, mental health and massage therapy services in its space, she says.

“We want to align with the Winter Park Health Foundation’s mission — they have the experience and the reach that we don’t have,” says Wandersleben.

And there’s another reason supporting wellbeing makes sense, she adds: It was a founding principle for what eventually became Adventist Health System, the parent organization of Florida Hospital, which owns Winter Park Memorial.

Seventh-day Adventist medical pioneers were promoting the importance of fresh air, sunshine and healthful eating 150 years ago, notes Wandersleben.

“We’re going back to our roots,” she adds.

Maddox hopes people who visit the center will discover new ways to be and 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 wellbeing going on.”

Some of that effect may come from the building itself, whose materials, gardens and natural light are intended to promote wellbeing. The project’s architect, Turan Duda of Duda|Paine in Durham, North Carolina, has em-

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phasized 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.

Inside, The Commons will offer warm shades of wood and an undulating ceiling. Despite its 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 wellnessoriented 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.”

Visit the foundation’s website wphf.org for more information about the center overall, and visit crosbywellnesscenter.org for more information about that facility. 

Winter Park Memorial Hospital, founded by the community in 1955, celebrated a significant construction milestone at the new $85 million five-story, Mediterranean-inspired Nicholson Pavilion, which will add 140 all-private rooms and a new patient lobby when it opens in 2019.

In April 2018, philanthropists Tony and Sonja Nicholson, for whom the pavilion is named, joined hospital leadership and construction teams for a “topping out” ceremony, signifying the building has reached its highest point.

To commemorate the event, crews hoisted a tree decorated with peacock feathers — Winter Park’s community symbol — atop the structure.

“Winter Park Memorial Hospital was founded with the goal of creating a world-class 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.”

“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 include private beds for orthopedic care as well as other surgical and medical services.

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. Each year, the hospital performs nearly 9,500 surgeries. It logs more than 75,000 outpatient visits and more than 16,000 inpatient admissions per year.

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.

Winter Park Memorial Hospital’s five-story, Mediterranean-inspired pavilion is named for local philanthropists Tony and Sonja Nicholson. A “toppingout” ceremony was held in April, and the building is scheduled to open in 2019. It will add 80 all-private patient rooms to the hospital, which opened in 1955 as the result of a broad-based community effort. Jennifer Wandersleben is the hospital’s busy administrator.

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PHOTO BY RAFAEL TONGOL

HOSPITAL’S GROWTH WILL ENHANCE PATIENT CARE

MAGGIE DOYNE

MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM

CHANGE MAKERS

WINTER PARK INSTITUTE’S SPEAKERS ARE MAKING A DIFFERENCE. AND THEY WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT YOU CAN, TOO.

BY RANDY NOLES

S SEAN BAKER

PHOTO BY CHRISTINE KRIKLIWY (BILLY COLLINS)

BILLY COLLINS

DR. M. SANJAYAN

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ince the 1920s, Rollins College has brought preeminent scholars, artists, entrepreneurs, entertainers, writers and activists 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 through its popular Speaker Series.

WPI’s 11th anniversary roster has just been announced, and as usual it’s an eclectic bunch.

There’s a young activist who built a shelter and a school for women and children in Nepal, a renowned philosopher of moral and political theory who discusses fear as a threat to democracy, and an awardwinning director whose gritty but inspiring film about childhood in the shadow of the Magic Kingdom has earned critical kudos.

There’s also a media-friendly scientist known for his work on conservation and animal preservation.

And, as usual, there’ll be an intimate reading by Billy Collins, a former two-term U.S. poet laureate who holds the post as WPI’s senior distinguished fellow.

“I always look forward to these Winter Park presentations,” says Collins. “It’s wonderful to appear before a hometown audience, and to see so many friends and neighbors.”

Collins — arguably the most popular living poet in the U.S. and a Winter Park resident — is likely the most widely known personality among this year’s speakers. Gail Sinclair, WPI’s executive director, says the focus of the series is shifting, relying less on marquee names and more on thought leaders who are making a difference outside the limelight.

“Each of the speakers in this year’s lineup commands the realm to which his or her passion is focused, and they’re all fascinating in unique and highly engaging ways,” she says.

Plus, Sinclair says, the speakers have been selected because they align with the college’s mission of educating students for global citizenship and responsible leadership. “We eagerly anticipate what they will be sharing with us,” she adds.

Following are the scheduled speakers. Venues will be announced later, but all are on the Rollins campus. Ticket prices vary by speaker. Go to rollins.edu/wpitickets for more information, or call the box office at 407-646-2145. 

ROLLINS MAGGIE DOYNE Wednesday, September 26, 7:30 p.m.

The BlinkNow Foundation

Doyne, a 31-year-old American activist, founded the BlinkNow Foundation in 2007 to promote a quality education and a safe environment for children and women in Nepal.

Overwhelmed by the poverty she encountered while backpacking through the Kopila Valley during her gap year between high school and college, Doyne used her life savings — $5,000 earned from babysitting — and raised additional money to buy land and build a home that cares for more than 50 orphans as well as a women’s center, a girls’ safe house and a school that educates more than 350 children.

Doyne, who was named CNN’s Hero of the Year in 2015, says that “in the blink of eye, we can all make a difference.”

MARTHA C. NUSSBAUM

W I N T E R

P A R K

INSTITUTE

effort that Walt Disney undertook in the late 1960s to assemble the multiple contiguous tracts of land on which Walt Disney World and Epcot Center would be built.

The film, which enjoyed an extended run at Enzian in Maitland earlier this year, follows a precocious 6-year-old as she courts mischief and adventure with her ragtag playmates and bonds with her rebellious but caring mother, all while living in a seedy motel in the shadow of the Magic Kingdom.

The film — which starred Willem Dafoe and a cast of unknowns and first-timers — premiered at the 2017 Director’s Fortnight in Cannes, and was nominated for two Independent Spirit Awards (Best Feature and Best Director) and a Gotham Award (Best Feature). Baker won Best Director of the Year from the New York Film Critics Circle.

Rollins offered a full scholarship to 10-year-old Christopher Rivera, one of the novice actors who was living with his mother in the Paradise Motel along U.S. 192 when he was cast.

Monday, October 22, 6 p.m.

Fear, Anger, and Hope: Democracy in Peril

Nussbaum, a philosopher, author and professor of law and ethics at the University of Chicago, is recognized around the world for her work on moral and political theory, emotions, human rights, social equality, education, feminism and Greek and Roman philosophy.

She delivered the 2017 Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities, the highest honor conferred by the U.S. government for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities, and is the recipient of the 2016 Kyoto Prize in Arts and Philosophy, widely considered the most prestigious award in fields not represented in the Nobel Prizes.

Her most recent book is The Monarchy of Fear: A Philosopher Looks at Our Political Crisis (Simon & Schuster).

SEAN BAKER Wednesday, January 23, 2019, 7:30 p.m.

Sean Baker: A Conversation with an American Filmmaker

Baker is director of The Florida Project, a critically acclaimed independent film whose title comes from the name given to the clandestine

Twain Prize for Humor in Poetry — he was the inaugural recipient — as well as fellowships from the New York Foundation for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation.

In 1992, Collins was chosen by the New York Public Library to serve as “Literary Lion.” And on the first anniversary of the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, he was asked to write a poem commemorating the victims, and to read it before a joint session of Congress held in New York City.

“The Names” remains as powerful and haunting today as when it was composed.

Last year, Collins was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an honor society of the country’s 250 leading architects, artists, composers and writers.

His work continues to engage sellout audiences, and each new collection of poetry inevitably wins new fans. His most recent collection, The Rain in Portugal (Random House), was described by Booklist as “disarmingly playful and wistfully candid.”

DR. M. SANJAYAN Tuesday, April 9, 2019, Time TBD Stories from the Natural World

BILLY COLLINS Sunday, February 17, 2019, 2 p.m.

What Poets Talk About When They Talk About Love

Collins, a former two-term U.S. poet laureate, is a rare poet whose work is esteemed in academic circles and adored by most everyone else — even people who don’t otherwise like poetry. That’s why his books are perennial New York Times bestsellers.

His work is often praised for its combination of poignance, depth and wry humor that rarely fails to surprise and delight. He relocated to Winter Park in 2008, when he accepted the post of senior distinguished fellow at WPI. In addition to his appointments as poet laureate in 2001 and 2003, he has received the Mark

Sanjayan, CEO at Conservation International, a not-for-profit environmental advocacy group, is an ecologist, speaker, author and Emmy-nominated television commentator who has hosted conservation-related documentaries for PBS, BBC, Showtime and the Discovery Channel.

He’s also a frequent contributor to CBS News, and most recently hosted the University of California and Vox Media’s Climate Lab series.​He helped launch “Nature is Speaking,” an awardwinning public-awareness campaign that featured Julia Roberts, Harrison Ford, Liam Neeson and Penélope Cruz, among others.

The Sri Lankan-born scientist holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and his peer-reviewed scientific work has been published in journals including Science, Nature and Conservation Biology. He’s a visiting researcher at UCLA and distinguished professor of practice at Arizona State University.

He’s a Disneynature Ambassador, a Catto Fellow at the Aspen Institute and a member of National Geographic Society’s Explorers Council. He posts frequently from his expeditions at @msan​​jayan.

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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, so dates for 2019 are shown for events that occurred prior to July 2018. Events scheduled to occur after July 2018 have the current year’s scheduled date. In some cases, dates for 2019 had not been finalized at press time. Call or check the websites provided for the most up-to-date information.

UNITY HERITAGE FESTIVAL JANUARY 21, 2019 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.

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SIDE BY SIDE JANUARY 2019 (DATE TBD) Knowles Memorial Chapel, Rollins College, 1000 Holt Avenue 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 the First Congregational Church of Winter Park and Rollins College in partnership with the City of Winter Park and the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce.

407-599-3506. cityofwinterpark.org.

ANNUAL BACH FESTIVAL FEBRUARY 10 – MARCH 3, 2019 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.

DINNER ON THE AVENUE

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 23, 2019 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 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 15-17, 2019 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.

APRIL 6, 2019 Park Avenue between New England Avenue and Morse Boulevard 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 potluck or catered dinners. 407-6431613. cityofwinterpark.org/dinnerontheavenue.

EARTH DAY IN THE PARK APRIL 13, 2019 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.

EASTER EGG HUNT APRIL 20, 2019 Central Park, Park Avenue This city-organized event is BYOB (Bring Your Own Basket). Children up to age 10 may hunt for

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the more than 10,000 eggs placed throughout Central Park. Anyone who comes up emptyhanded 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.

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.

TASTE OF WINTER PARK APRIL 2019 (DATE TBD) 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.

WINTER PARK PAINT OUT APRIL 21-27, 2019 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

WINTER PARK AUTUMN ART FESTIVAL

Avenue, 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. 407-647-6294. polasek.org.

OLDE FASHIONED 4TH OF JULY CELEBRATION JULY 4, 2018 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

OCTOBER 13-14, 2018 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 2018 (DATE TBD) Central Park, Park 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 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.

NATIONAL AWARDS AND RECOGNITIONS nB icycle-Friendly Community, League of American Bicyclists (2015) nO utstanding Achievement Award for Overall Impression, America in Bloom (2015) nN ational Award, 25,001-30,000 Population, America in Bloom (2013) nP layful City USA Community, KaBOOM! (2012, 2011)

n Best-Tasting Water in Central Florida, 2nd Place, American Water Works Association/Florida Section (2007, 2005) n Tree City USA Award, National Arbor Day Foundation (2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002) n International SWAT Roundup for Police Departments with Fewer Than 100 Sworn Officers, Central Florida SWAT Association, First Place (2003)

nG reen Local Government, Gold-Level Certification, Florida Green Building Coalition (2011)

n Presidential Circle Award, Keep America Beautiful (2003)

nC ity of Excellence Finalist, Florida League of Cities (2008)

n Rollins College, No. 1 Regional University in the South, U.S. News & World Report (10 of the past 12 years)

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KIDS TRICK-OR-TREAT ON PARK AVENUE

39TH ANNUAL CHRISTMAS IN THE PARK

YE OLDE HOMETOWN CHRISTMAS PARADE

OCTOBER 26, 2018 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.

DECEMBER 6, 2018 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.

DECEMBER 8, 2018 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 longest-running 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.

HOLIDAY POPS CONCERT DECEMBER 2, 2018 Central Park, Park Avenue Bring a blanket and a picnic basket and get ready for an Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra program of holiday favorites that will be sure to put everyone in the spirit of the season. Free.

WINTER ON THE AVENUE, FEATURING HOLIDAY TREE LIGHTING DECEMBER 7, 2018 Central Park, Park Avenue The Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and the City of Winter Park are proud to host “Winter on the Avenue,” a holiday season kickoff presented

by Westminster Winter Park. The street party will include a flurry of activities from 5 to 10 p.m. along Park Avenue and in Central Park. The annual tree lighting ceremony at dusk will include performances by children’s choirs as well as children’s activities. cityofwinterpark.org.

23RD ANNUAL MERRY TUBA CHRISTMAS DECEMBER 15, 2018 Central Park, Park Avenue Enjoy the rich sounds of Christmas as tuba, euphonium, sousaphone and baritone players of all ages gather in Central Park to perform a free concert beginning at 1 p.m. Registration is $10 for musicians and begins at 9 a.m. with rehearsal running from 10 am to 11:30 a.m. cityofwinterpark.org.

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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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Fitness Center

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1620 MAYFLOWER COURT | WINTER PARK, FL 32792 | 407.672.1620 | THEMAYFLOWER.COM 88141 PRAD WPM 5/2018