Style Magazine, November 2018

LAKE LAK KE & SUM SUMTER MTERR

NNovember No vember er 201 2018 18

THE

EXTRAORDINARY ISSUE

Our annual Extraordinary issue highlights amazing people and places

Featuring Eva Kovacs’ escape from Hungary to the U.S.

MY FIRST TIME

Style debuts new monthly column

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Check out the cool items available in local shops

ARTS AND CULTURE

24-page insert showcases Lake County’s fine arts, music, festivals, and performing arts

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NOVEMBER 2018 // VOL.15 NO. 1 // F e a t u r e s

48 Extraordinary Places Last year, the Howey Mansion was an abandoned building.

This year, it’s open for tours, weddings, and other events.

The beautifully restored mansion is filled with history and heart as the new owners make it a highlight in Howeyin-the-Hills. Astor is one of the gems of Lake County. It’s the ideal fishing village on the St. Johns River and a great place for a quiet Florida vacation.

STORIES: LEIGH NEELY AND CHRIS GERBASI

STORIES: LEIGH NEELY, JAMES COMBS, THERESA CAMPBELL, CHRIS GERBASI

Special Adve rtising Section

Expert Ask the

H O M E

S E R V I C E S

67 Ask the Expert These experts hold the key to unlocking your home’s greatest potential. Find out what they have to say about making yours extraordinary.

Lake and Sumter counties offer a plethora of annual attractions, including the Leesburg Bikefest to be hosted in April 2019. Check out the latest on this motorcycle event, along with information about Dade Battle Reenactment, Florida Black Bear & Wildlife Conservation Festival, Mount Dora Arts Festival, Georgefest, Pig on the Pond, Mount Dora Bicycle Festival, Eustis Busker Festival, and Special Olympics Florida.

STORIES: JAMES COMBS AND CHRIS GERBASI

N November er 20188

Every year, this issue gets better as the staff finds extraordinary people to profile. This year’s edition includes a successful high school marching band, a nurse who gives aid during hurricanes, famines, and other disasters, a motocross racer who’s into music, a supermodel with a tale of Nazi terror, a Villages High School graduate who’s now a professional pitcher, and a woman who cared enough to be the outside friend of a young man who received a life sentence.

LAKE KEE & SUM SUMTER MTER

38 Extraordinary People

58 Extraordinary Events THE

EXTRAORDINARY ISSUE

Our annual Extraordinary issue highlights amazing people and places

Featuring Eva Kovacs’ escape from Hungary to the U.S.

MY FIRST TIME

Style debuts new monthly column

HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE

Check out the cool items available in local shops

ARTS AND CULTURE

24-page insert showcases Lake County’s fine arts, music, festivals, and performing arts

November Nove emb 2018

VILLAGE VILLAG LLAGE AGEE EDIT ED EDITION

Our annu annual u Extraordinary issue highlights amazingg people and places Featuring Ev Eva v Kovacs’ escape from Hungary to the U.S.

MY FIRST TIME T

Style debutss new monthly profile

HOLIDAY GI GIFT I GUIDE

Check out the cool c items available in local shops

ARTS RTS AN AND CU CULTURE U

E TRA24 page insert 24-page ins sh showcases Lake County’s mus festivals, and music, a performing arts

fine arts,

THE T HE E

ORDINARY ISSUE

On the covers DIRECTION: JASON FUGATE PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTHONY RAO MODEL: EVA KOVACS

November 2018

13

*

You can see right through this Celebrities never die, they just become digitalized.

STORY: CHRIS GERBASI // PHOTO ILLUSTRATION: JOSH CLARK

I

’m going to be big when I’m dead. Decades from now, at theaters spread across what’s left of the Eastern Seaboard, my disembodied head will float above a stage and read from a collection of columns on the This N’ That N’ the Other Tour. I’m recording the audio now, trying to make my voice sound as eerie as possible. I figure fans plunking down bitcoins for a night on the town will expect eeriness from a disembodied head.

That’s if I’m lucky, of course.

The market for postmortem entertainment will be saturated if today’s trend is any indication. Dead celebrities are live commodities.

Just check out the Roy Orbison “In Dreams” hologram tour Nov. 16 at Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando. Fans will see a full-bodied Orbison, the singer of “Oh, Pretty Woman” and so many other hits, who died in 1988. (For my tour, I would prefer just the noggin, to create that “Wizard of Oz” effect. He was ahead of his time.)

In recent years, performers such as Tupac Shakur, Michael Jackson, and Elvis Presley have “appeared” as holograms, but a full-scale tour may be a first.

The possibilities are endless.

Imagine the vast number of lost legends who could get new life: David Bowie and his Ziggy Stardust to Dust Tour, Prince and his Purple Rain from Heaven Tour, or Chuck Berry and his Roll Over Beethoven, I’m Rollin’ Over Too Tour.

Promoters are telling fans they can see Roy in a new, thrilling way as he “comes back to the stage he commanded for decades through breathtaking state-of-the-art, cuttingedge digital and laser technology, and extraordinary theatrical stagecraft.”

Wow. It’s to die for. Sounds like the show will almost be like seeing a live person. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it. Tickets cost as much as $525 on scalper sites, if there’s a ghost of a chance of getting that price.

But by all means, go see Roy. Looking at him now, he doesn’t look a day past dead. Just don’t expect much in the way of stage banter. After Orlando, he’s got additional Florida dates for three straight nights.

That’s the beauty of working with a dead performer—the road can’t kill him.

The tour was “estate-approved,” which means at some point, a conversation among

Orbison family members had to take place. Someone had to say, “Yes, let’s turn Daddy into a digital freak show!”

So Roy’s out there “singing” all his greatest hits accompanied onstage by a live orchestra—a live orchestra and a dead frontman? The producers could have saved themselves a huge expense. But at least fans know Roy will never miss a note or forget a lyric—unless the recording malfunctions and his trademark three-octave range becomes an embarrassing, stuttering warble.

“Somebody kick the boombox!

Roy’s stuck!”

What do you do at one of these shows? Is there a warmup hologram, like Bill Haley & His Comets? Do you applaud? “Gee, technology has never sounded better.” Do you shout? “Bust a move, Roy!” Do you call out for songs? “Play No. 23 on the recording!”

Does the hologram “walk off” at the end of the set and wait for chanting fans to coax it back out for an encore? “One more phony image! One more phony image!”

The irony is that the basic technology really isn’t new.

I don’t know anything about it, I’m just a headless writer, but the concept of holograms apparently is based on something called “Pepper’s ghost,” an illusionary technique created for stage shows by John Henry Pepper way back in the 1860s.

Wait a minute. Doesn’t that call for a John Henry Pepper hologram show? Promoters could call it the I Can’t Believe People Are Still Falling for This Tour.

*

So Roy’s out there “singing” all his greatest hits accompanied onstage by a live orchestra—a live orchestra and a dead frontman?

November 2018

29

MARGIE SALYER WITH SOME OF HER FLORIDA HIGHWAYMEN COLLECTION

a quieter picture

F

estivals are fun, but getting up-close and personal with the artwork and its creators is a memorable experience, especially when the artists are Florida’s original Highwaymen. In the early 1950s, 26 African-American artists painted vivid Florida landscapes and sold their works to hotels, businesses and along the highways. They became known as the Florida Highwaymen, even though one of the original members was a woman. Their distinct works sold for around $25 but now are worth thousands.

Margie Salyer and her husband, Randy Burgener, owners of Heron Cay B&B in Mount Dora, are big fans of Highwaymen art and over the years have collected more than 100 pieces. In 2008, the couple was looking for a way to bring visitors to Mount Dora during the slow months—when festivals weren’t scheduled. They

teamed with other innkeepers to host the first Florida Highwaymen show, which was attended by several of the original painters. The shows became so popular that Salyer and Burgener now host them twice a year at the Donnelly Park Pavilion in downtown Mount Dora. The public is invited to come in and chat with the artists (13 are still alive) and peruse their works at no charge. Some people choose to buy an original or at least a print from these quintessential Florida artists.

Florida Highwaymen Shows are scheduled in January and August each year. This year, expected artists include original members Mary Ann Carroll, the only woman to paint with the group, Isaac Knight, Robert Lewis, and Roy McLendon. Kevin Hair, son of the first Highwayman, Alfred Hair, and an artist in his own right, will also be showing his own works as well.

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The Florida Porch Café 706 W. Main St. 352.365.1717 The Old Time Diner 1350 W. North Blvd.

352.805.4250 Turners 114 S. 5th St. 352.530.2274 Two Old Hags Wine Shoppe 410 W Main St 352.435.9107 Vic’s Catering 352.728.8989 Wolfy’s 918 N. 14th St. 352.787.6777 Wrapsody 712 W. Main St. 352.801.7239 Mascotte Minneola Grill 117 W. Washington St. 352.394.2555 Napoli’s Pizzeria 556 Hwy. 27 352.243.7500 Rainbow Restaurant 704 E. Myers Blvd.

352.429.2093 The Surf Bar and Grill 650 Hwy. 27 202.527.0100 Minneola Jack’s Barbecue 100 S. U.S. Hwy. 27 352.394.2673 Lil Anthony’s Pizza 205 N. U.S. Hwy. 27 352.394.1516 Tiki Bar & Grill 508 S. Main Ave. 352.394.2232 Mount Dora 1921 by Norman Van Aken 141 E. 4th Ave. 352.385.1921 Anthony’s Pizza 17195 U.S. Hwy. 441 352.357.6668 Barnwood Country Kitchen and Smokehouse 3725 W. Old US Hwy 441 352.630.4903 Beauclaire Restaurant at Lakeside Inn 100 N. Alexander St. 352.383.4101

Bocce Pizzeria 925 E. First Ave. 352.385.0067 Breezeway Café 411 N. Donnelly St. 352.702.7898 Cecile’s French Corner 237 W. Fourth Ave. 352.383.7100 Cody’s on 4th Cafe 111 E. 4th Ave. 352.735.8426 Copacabana Cuban Cafe 320 Dora Drawdy Way 352.385.9000 Eduardo’s Loko Tacos Mexican Restaurant 226 Alfred St. 352.742.1181 Frog & Monkey English Pub 411 N. Donnelly St. 352. 383.1936 Highland Street Café 185 S. Highland St. 352.383.1446 Jeremiah’s 500 N. Highland St. 352.383.7444 J.K. Thai & Sushi 116 E. 5th Ave. 352.385.5470 Let’s Do Lunch 426 N. Donnelly St. 352.735.4577 Mount Dora Pizza & Subs 2718 W. Old U.S. Hwy. 441 352.383.5303 One Flight Up - Coffee, Dessert & Wine Bar 440 N. Donnelly St., Ste. 100 352.758.9818 Pisces Rising 239 W. 4th Ave. 352.385.2669 PizzAmore’ 722 E. 5th Ave. 352.383.0092 Shiva Indian Restaurant 140A W. 5th Ave. 352.735.4555 Sidelines Sport Eatery 315 N. Highland St. 352.735.7433 Sugarboo’s Bar-B-Que 1305 N. Grandview St. 352.735.7675

The Goblin Market 331-B Donnely St. 352.735.0059 Whale’s Tale Fish House 2720 W. Old U.S. Hwy 441 352.385.1500 Zellie’s Pub 4025 N. U.S. Hwy. 19A 352.483.3855 Sorrento Del Franco Pizza Place 31436 CR 437 352.383.8882 Gi Gi’s 25444 State Road 46 352.735.4000 Tavares Angelo’s Italian Restaurant 2270 Vindale Rd. 352.343.2757 Buzzard Beach Grill 12423 U.S. Hwy. 441 352.253.5267 Hurricane Dockside Grill 3351 W. Burleigh Blvd.

352.508.5137 Lake Dora Sushi & Sake 227 E. Main St. 352.343.6313 Mary’s Kountry Kitchen 15945 County Road 448 352.343.6823 O’Keefe’s Irish Pub and Restaurant 115 S Rockingham Ave. 352.343.2157 Palm Gardens Restaurant 1661 Palm Garden St. 352.431.3217 Ruby Street Grille 221 E. Ruby St. 352.742.7829 Sunrise Grill 462 E. Burleigh Blvd.

352.343.7744 The Hideaway 11912 Lane Park Rd. 352.343.3585 The Villages Amerikano’s Grill 998 Del Mar Dr. 352.633.8027 Bavarian Brewhaus 2738 Brownwood Blvd.

352.399.5516

Bravo Pizza 1080 Lake Sumter Landing 352.430.2394 Chengs Chinese and Sushi Restaurant 4050 Wedgewood Ln. 352.391.9678 China Gourmet III 343 Colony Blvd 352.750.4965 City Fire Brownwood & Paddock Square 352.561.2078 Fiesta Grande Mexican Grill 297 Colony Blvd 352.751.0400 Giovanni’s 3439 Wedgewood Lane 352.751.6674 Margarita Republic 1102 Main St. 352.753.4600 Mezza Luna Italian Restaurant and Bar 320 Colony Blvd.

352.753.3824 NYPD Pizzeria 4046 Wedgwood Ln 352.750.1994 RedSauce 1000 Canal St. 352.750.2930 Ricciardi’s Italian Table 3660 Kiessel Rd. 352.391.9939 Sakura 265 Colony Blvd 352.205.7393 Takis Greek and Italian Restaurant 13761 U.S. Hwy. 441 N. 352.430.3630 The Lighthouse Point Bar and Grille 925 Lakeshore Dr. 352.753.7800 VKI Japanese Steakhouse and Sushi Bar 1004 Old Mill Run 352.259.9887 Umatilla Fish & Chix 100 N. Central Ave. 352.669.7145 Gator’s 9 N. Central Ave. 352.669.6969 Greg’s Haystax 526 Umatilla Blvd.

352.669.1555

Nicky D’s Pizza 325 N. Central Avenue 352.669.2400 Old Crow Real Pit Bar-B-Q 41100 State Road 19 352.669.3922 Quarterdeck 801 Central Ave. 352.669.4662 Shanghai 531 N. Central Ave. 352.669.2004 The Mason Jar 37534 State Rd. 19 352.589.2535 Umatilla Tavern 605 N. Central Ave. 352.669.1325 Wildwood China Jade 420 W. CR 44 352.330.5913 Cotillion Southern Café 101 N. Main St. 352.748.1223 Los Magueyes Mexican Restaurant 346 Shopping Center Dr. 352.461.0577 O’Shucks! Oyster Bar and Grill 1016 S Main St. 352.399.2200 Traditions Café 3107 Hwy. 44 352.748.1077 Woody’s Bar-B-Q 1220 S. Main St. 352.748.1109 Yalaha Yalaha Bakery 8210 County Road 48 352.324.3366

Country Club Restaurants Clermont Sanctuary Ridge Bar & Grille 2601 Diamond Club Road 352.243.0411 Legends Grille & Tavern 1700 Legendary Blvd.

352.243.1118 Howey-in-the-Hills Mission Inn Resort El Conquistador Nicker’s Clubhouse Restaurant 10400 CR 48 352.324.3101 Mount Dora The Country Club 1900 Country Club Blvd.

352.735.2263 The Villages Belle Glade Country Club 446 Moyer Loop 352.205.8208 Cane Garden Country Club 1726 Bailey Trail 352.750.0627 Evans Prairie Country Club 1825 Evan’s Prairie Trail 352.750.2225 Glenview County Club 3914 Glenview Rd. 352.753.0077 Hemingway’s at Havana Country Club 2484 Odell Circle 352.430.3200 Legacy Restaurant Nancy Lopez Country Club 17135 Buena Vista Blvd.

352.753.1475 Orange Blossom Country Club 1542 Water Tower Circle 352.751.4501 Palmer Legends Country Club 1635 Palmer Way 352.750.4499 Tierra Del Sol Country Club 806 San Marino Dr. 352.753.8005 Wildwood Continental Country Club 50 Continental Blvd.

352.748.3293

November 2018

127

You spoke. We listened.

Introducing the new emergency department at Leesburg Regional Medical Center—now doubled in size with a total of 48 patient beds, including a fast track unit that can accommodate pediatric patients. Our modern facility also features trauma-sized rooms for critical care, a spacious waiting room and a two-story lobby complete with a glass atrium. But what truly elevates our emergency care to a higher level is the team of dedicated professionals who treat each patient like family.

Learn more about how Leesburg Regional Medical Center is transforming emergency medicine with the community in mind at LeesburgRegional.org/Emergency.

Lake County’s Most Advanced Emergency Medicine Facility

Photos © by Attic Fire Photography

YOUR NEW EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT

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Along with world-class golf on two championship courses, you can take in the vistas along our hiking paths, lounge poolside, play tennis and volleyball, or L]LU [Y` IHZZ Ä ZOPUN HUK [YHW ZRLL[ ZOVV[PUN ;OLYL HYL JV\U[SLZZ ^H`Z [V LUQV` a memorable stay with us.

Howey-in-the-Hills, FL 34737

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MissionInnResort.com

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800.874.9053

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