Winter Park Magazine Fall 15

SPECIAL ISSUE: WINTER PARK’S FIRST HALL OF FAME

CHARLES CLAYTON CONSTRUCTION

CHARLES CLAYTON CONSTRUCTION

Superior C R A F T S M A N S H I P

31

TIME

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©Cucciaioni Photography 2015

CONTENTS FALL 2015

FEATURES 28 | THE PHILOSOPHER Rollins President Grant Cornwell inherits a thriving college that faces some fundamental questions. By Randy Noles, photographs by Rafael Tongol

36 | THE WINTER PARK HALL OF FAME Meet the inaugural class of citizens who made history. By Randy Noles, digital portraits by Chip Weston

58 | FALL FASHION ONSTAGE At “The Annie,” a dramatic display of fall fashion.

Photographs by Rafael Tongol, styling by Marianne Ilunga, makeup and hair by Elsie Knab

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WIN T E R P A R K M A G A ZI N E | FALL 2015

DEPARTMENTS ARTS 12 | MAKING A STATEMENT Art isn’t just for decoration. The provocative pieces at the Alfond Inn will make you think as well as look. And that’s the whole idea behind this word-class contemporary collection.

By Randy Noles and Karen LeBlanc

PROFILE 18 | FROM NOTES TO NUMBERS Philanthropist Steve Goldman’s eclectic genius and generous spirit benefits those stymied by STEM and compelled to compose. And he only applies his talent — and money — to the hard stuff. By Michael McLeod, photographs by Rafael Tongol

DINING 86 | A COMMUNITY CORNERSTONE Inspired by great urban eateries nationwide, Osprey Tavern brings upscale cuisine and a

homey ambiance to Baldwin Park. And it reflects the travels of its adventurous owner.

By Rona Gindin, photographs by Rafael Tongol

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IN EVERY ISSUE 6 | FIRST WORD 8 | COVER ARTIST 84 | BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT 90 | EVENTS 100 | ARTSBEAT

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FIRST WORD

WHEN ONLY THE DIRT IS REALLY HISTORIC

F

or a place that bills itself as “the city of culture and heritage,” Winter Park does little to protect the “heritage” part.

The most recent example is the battle over a proposed new historic preservation ordinance.

The most controversial component of the ordinance would allow neighborhoods to request — not be granted, but to request — historic designation with a simple majority of homeowner votes.

The current threshold is a 67 percent of all homeowners, not just those who choose to vote.

In other words, it’s darned near impossible to get a historic district designated in Winter Park — with predictable results.

Preservationists point out that only two other Florida cities — Ocala and Tallahassee — require a two-thirds vote. And in those cities, it’s 67 percent of votes received.

As appealing as portions of Ocala and Tallahassee are, neither city promotes itself, as Winter Park does, as a historic destination.

Full disclosure: Whatever Winter Park decides won’t really impact me and my family. We live just outside the city limits, in a small unincorporated enclave between lakes Sue and Rowena.

But we do live in a historic neighborhood, although it isn’t designated as such. (Orange County has no provision for establishing historic districts.)

Or perhaps I should say our neighborhood would have been considered historic 28 years ago, when we bought our 1925 Florida vernacular cottage.

At the time, we were surrounded by endearingly quirky but meticulously maintained old homes in an array of styles. That, in fact, was what made the neighborhood so appealing.

Many of those homes are now gone, including a vintage bungalow next door, which was replaced by a massive faux Colonial mansion that encompasses every square inch of lot space.

Also bulldozed: A wonderful Spanish-revival monastery and a picture-postcard Cracker classic with a tin roof and sprawling front porch.

Perhaps it would have been impractical to renovate those creaky structures. Indeed, for the amount

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we’ve spent preserving and improving our old home, we could have built a pretty spiffy new one. But we were attracted to our neighborhood because of its old homes, not in spite of them.

Today our home is among a dwindling handful of genuine oldies-but-goodies still standing. And I harbor no illusions about what will happen to our home, sturdy and charming though it may be, if we ever sell.

Perhaps, then, the way in which our neighborhood has changed might serve as a cautionary tale for Winter Park. Left purely to market forces, in desirable locations where land values are high, vintage homes tend to vanish.

Let’s be honest. Some old homes simply aren’t worth saving, for a variety of perfectly valid reasons. And not every old home that’s been lost in Winter Park was a gem, by any means. In some cases, the state-of-the-art new homes that replaced them will be considered iconic decades from now, as Casa Feliz and the Capen House are now.

But none of that means local governments — especially in places such as Winter Park — shouldn’t make preservation a priority.

By the time this issue of Winter Park Magazine appears, the City Commission will be considering the new ordinance, in some form. Currently the newly comprised Historic Preservation Board is giving it the once-over and may well make changes.

My advice, not knowing what the final proposal will be, is to strengthen historic protections through a combination of incentives for individual homeowners and adoption of an easier path for neighborhoods to apply for historic district status — all voluntarily, of course.

If you want to see what happens in the absence of such policies, drop by my place and we’ll take a stroll around the block.

Randy Noles EDITOR AND PUBLISHER Lorna Osborn SENIOR ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Kathy Byrd ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Theresa Swanson GROUP PUBLISHER/NEW-HOME PUBLICATIONS Jenna Carberg GRAPHIC DESIGNER Michael McLeod CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jay Boyar ARTS EDITOR Rona Gindin DINING EDITOR Marianne Ilunga FASHION EDITOR Harry Wessel CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Karen LeBlanc CONTRIBUTING WRITER Rafael Tongol CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHER

Rick Walsh, Jim DeSimone FOUNDING PARTNERS

GULFSHORE MEDIA Daniel Denton PRESIDENT Randy Noles CONSULTING PUBLISHER Pam Flanagan GENERAL MANAGER Pam Daniel EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Norma Machado PRODUCTION MANAGER

Copyright 2015 by Florida Home Media LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Gulfshore Media LLC. All rights reserved.

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

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

Randy Noles Editor/Publisher randyn@floridahomemedia.com

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COVER ARTIST

OLD IMAGES, NEW LIFE WINTER PARK’S ICONS ARE ILLUMINATED BY ARTIST CHIP WESTON.

A

ging sepia-toned images of Winter Park’s most historically significant citizens were given new life by artist Chip Weston, an accomplished painter and one of the nation’s leading digital artists.

Weston, 67, created the stunning digital portraits that appear in this issue. He also created a nostalgic digital painting of the Winter Park train station, circa 1880s, for this special issue’s cover.

The artist has deep Winter Park roots. He graduated from Rollins College in 1970 with a degree in behavioral science and has maintained close ties with his alma mater. In fact, he credits former President Hugh McKean with encouraging his artistic aspirations.

“I met Hugh when I first started at Rollins, and he asked me what I really liked to do,” recalls Weston, who recently retired as a teacher of new media at Full Sail University and is a former member of the Florida Council on Arts and Culture.

He told McKean, who was an art professor before assuming the presidency, that he enjoyed painting. So McKean sent Chip Weston is a digital-art Weston to the art department and “told them to keep me busy.” pioneer with deep Winter McKean later asked Weston to work at the Morse Museum Park roots.

of American Art, founded by his wife, Jeannette, when the facility was located in smaller quarters on Welbourne Avenue.

Weston is a pioneer in digital art. In fact, he beta tested Photoshop, Illustrator and other image-altering software programs when they were in their infancy. He maintains a workspace at McRae Art Studios and his work is on display at several locations, including the Crummer Graduate School of Business at Rollins.

Previously director of economic and cultural development for the City of Winter Park, Weston also serves on the boards of Enzian Theater, the Winter Park Public Library and is a past board member of the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival. He is current chairperson of the Walt Disney World Festival of the Masters.

Winter Park Magazine Publisher Randy Noles said Weston first came to mind when he was assembling photographs for the Winter Park Hall of Fame story, which begins on page 36. “I knew Chip’s work, and I knew he could take these images and make them beautiful, but also maintain the look of the period,” Noles says.

To see more of Weston’s work, visit mcraeartstudios.com.

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BEFORE

ARTS

Matt Keegan and James Richards’ Don’t Worry (A Sculpture by Matt Keegan, from a Poster

by James Richards, of a Poem by Joseph Albers) demonstrates that sometimes words, not images, best convey the message in a piece of art. The stainless steel work was done in 2012.

MAKING A STATEMENT Art isn’t just for decoration. The provocative pieces at the Alfond Inn will make you think as well as look. And that’s the whole idea behind this word-class contemporary collection.

BY RANDY NOLES AND KAREN LEBLANC

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IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTISTS AND SIMONE SUBAL GALLERY, NEW YORK

H

otel art usually isn’t thought-provoking. In fact, it’s typically selected less for its aesthetic value and more for its compatibility with the surrounding décor.

Not so at the Alfond Inn, where the art displayed in public spaces — even in the restrooms — often challenges and frequently confounds hotel guests.

Which is precisely the idea.

The 112-room boutique hotel, owned by Rollins College and completed in 2013, serves two purposes. It provides upscale lodging and meeting space in a market where both had been lacking. Plus, for all practical purposes, it’s a high-profile satellite location for the eclectic Cornell Fine Arts Museum.

The Cornell, tucked on the campus overlooking Lake Virginia, was for years an under-the-radar cultural treasure. But its undeserved obscurity began to change in 2012 with the arrival of Ena Heller, a Romanian emigrant with a Ph.D. in art history who was previously founding director of the Museum of Biblical Art in New York.

“The Alfond was a game changer for the Cornell,” says Heller, now entering her fourth year as the museum’s director.

“It’s made us part of the broader community in a way we never were before. Now we’re really almost a two-venue museum.”

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

The operation now generates about $3 million annually in net income, all of which goes to the Harold Alfond Scholarship Fund. That arrangement will continue for 25 years, or until the fund’s endowment reaches $50 million.

(The elder Alfond, founder of the Dexter Shoe Co., was a generous Rollins donor, particularly to the athletic department. Alfond Stadium at Harper Shepherd Field, where the Tars play baseball, is named for him. The family name is also on the Harold & Ted Alfond Sports Center, which encompasses the gymnasium, as well as the Alfond Boathouse and the Alfond Swimmng Pool.)

In addition to providing startup capital for the hotel, the Alfonds, with the assistance of private curator Abigail Ross Goodman, assembled a world-class collection of contemporary art and donated it to the college.

The Alfond acquisitions then became part of the Cornell’s permanent collection.Thus far, the couple has given the college more than 260 pieces, about 140 of which adorn the hotel’s walls at any given time.

“Adorn,” though, is almost certainly not the right word.

Unquestionably much of the collection is visually pleasing, even to the untrained eye. None of it, however, was meant to be merely decorative. Some of the pieces are decidedly puz-

ARTS

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Alfredo Jaar’s A Logo for America is a series of five black-and-white prints of an “intervention” the artist staged in Times Square using an electronic billboard behind a U.S. Armed Forces recruiting station.

Jaar, a native of Chile, wanted to make the point that “America” encompasses more than just the United States. A Logo for America was staged in 1987 and 2014.

gan acquiring art, they concentrated on 19th-century American works. Now they’re buying more contemporary pieces specifically for the college. “This has become a passion for us,” Alfond says.

Some works are in storage and others are displayed at the on-campus facility. Most, at some point, will ultimately wind up at the hotel, since each spring many of the pieces are rotated out and replaced.

“We felt that contemporary art is what young people relate to today,” says Alfond, who wrote the foreword for the first of two hardbound books, Art for Rollins Volume I and Art for Rollins Volume II, ded- Ena Heller icated to documenting the art and profiling the artists. “Contemporary art was a deficiency in the Cornell collection. So that was an area where we thought we could help.”

Even prior to the Alfond infusion, the Cornell

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

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

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

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

Still, Heller notes that the museum has enjoyed

© ALFREDO JAAR; IMAGE COURTESY GALERIE LELONG, NEW YORK

zling, while others are downright provocative.

“These works were intentionally acquired to have a teaching purpose,” says Heller. “It’s a collection with a point of view. It’s about issues our students will be confronted with.”

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

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

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

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

Subtle nods to the peacock, Winter Park’s official bird, are also in evidence, including teal accents and plumage motifs. “Inspiration for the color palette draws from peacock feathers with elements used strategically to warm and enhance the palette,” Olinger explains.

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.

The Alfonds have been voracious but discerning collectors since 1976. However, when they first be-

© CARMEN HERRERA; IMAGE COURTESY LISSON GALLERY; © 2013 BY DEBORAH KAAS/ARTIST RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK

Deborah Kaas’ 1997 Triple Ghost Yentl (My Elvis) lurks just beyond an Alfond archway. Kass, drawing on pop culture themes, created an homage to Andy Warhol’s Elvis paintings and substituted images of Barbra Streisand in the guise of a young male Talmudic scholar from the movie Yentel.

In a trio of 2013 paintings, all dubbed Untitled, Cuban-born artist Carmen Herrera uses geometric shapes and vivid swatches of color. Herrera is considered one of the most important artists working in the genre of geometric abstraction.

a 50 percent increase in visitors, in part because admission is free, subsidized by Dale Montgomery, a 1960 Rollins graduate who majored in studio art. (Montgomery, a frequent visitor to the campus, retired after a long career at New York-based McMillen Inc., the oldest continuously operated interior design firm in the U.S.) Museum attendance has also been bolstered by guests of the hotel. Each room has a rack card featuring directions to the museum, as well as instructions on how to take an audio tour of the hotel’s art using a mobile device.

In addition, guided group tours of the Alfond collection are offered every Friday at 1 p.m., and “Happy Hour” tours are offered the first

Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. The tours — which are usually conducted by the Cornell’s in-house curator, Amy Galpin — are free of charge and no reservations are required.

Many Happy Hour-tour attendees choose to remain at the hotel for a glass of wine or dinner at Hamilton’s Kitchen, its award-winning restaurant. Many others, their curiosity piqued, eventually make their way to the Cornell to see what’s on display there.

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

“This partnership has allowed us to do both.”

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | W INT ER PARK MAGAZ IN E

15

ARTS

© SHIMON ATTIE; IMAGE COURTESY OF THE ARTIST AND JACK SHAINMAN GALLERY, NEW YORK

Shimon Attie’s photograph of a 2014 installation the artist staged in Jerusalem may be the most politically charged work in the Alfond’s collection. In Finders, Keepers, he placed two light boxes on a wall in East Jerusalem with the Dome of the Rock mosque on the horizon. The full title of the work uses both the Palestinian name (Noble Sanctuary) and the Israeli name (Temple Mount) for the ancient hilltop.

IN BRIEF: THE ALFOND COLLECTION OF CONTEMPORARY ART WHERE: The Alfond Inn, 300 E. New England Ave., Winter Park HOW TO SEE IT: Take self-guided audio tours any time using a mobile device. Guided tours are offered every Friday at 1 p.m. and Happy Hour tours are offered the first Wednesday of every month at 5 p.m.

COST: Free, no reservations required

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W I N T E R P A R K M A G AZI N E | FALL 2015

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PROFILE

S

Goldman’s interests range from contemporary art to gourmet food to great music. He’s even come up with creative ways to teach science and technology.

FROM NOTES TO NUMBERS Philanthropist Steve Goldman’s eclectic genius and generous spirit benefits those stymied by STEM and compelled to compose. And he only applies his talent — and money — to the hard stuff.

BY MICHAEL MCLEOD PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAFAEL TONGOL

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ure, if you’re trying to describe Steve Goldman, “Renaissance man” is a good place to start. That’s how I summed up the Winter Park philanthropist in a profile four years ago, and that’s how he was pegged in a recent issue of Winter Park Magazine, when he was rightfully included on a list of the city’s Most Influential People.

Goldman is indeed a bona fide polymath, a person who has cultivated an expertise in multiple fields: in his case, art, science, economics, education, haute cuisine, physics and even motorcycles.

Yet, although Renaissance man fits, the more I get to know Goldman, the more inclined I am to favor a more humble descriptor: He’s a high-end do-it-yourselfer, a regular DIY King.

No, that doesn’t sound nearly as illustrious as Renaissance man. Yes, now that you mention it, “DIY King” does sound like the name of a new burger joint. And “do it yourselfer” brings to mind people who install their own garbage disposals.

But I’m sticking with the characterization. Goldman is a blue-sky DYI guy with global reach, an imaginative do-ityourselfer who has spent a lifetime picking his own battles and finding imaginative ways to win them.

He doesn’t even think of himself as a philanthropist.

“What that word means to me is just writing checks,” Goldman says. “I do that, too. But what I’m most effective at is finding a need for a resource and addressing that need with my own talents. And I only take on the hard stuff.”

The hard stuff that he tackled in 1977, when he formed Digital Processing Technology, was the need to speed up the flow of information through computer circuitry. The system pioneered at his company came to be called RAID: Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks.

The world as we know it now revolves around such disks: People who understand how computers work and what RAID did to enhance them have been known to ask Goldman for his autograph.

In 2000 Goldman sold Digital Processing Technology in order to devote himself to philanthropy. His version of philanthropy, that is. Following in the footsteps of his father, Sig Goldman, he became a patron of the arts.

The elder Goldman was a World War II veteran who had built up a mechanical contracting business. His most notable contribution was as an early supporter of the Orlando Shakespeare Theater, where one of the theaters at the Loch Haven complex is named for him and his wife, Marilyn.

The younger Goldman’s interest was in music, and he became a key backer of the now-defunct Orlando Symphony Orchestra. But he soon broke away to begin working on an annual event now known as the National Young Composers Challenge.

Its inspiration goes back to Goldman’s teenage years, when he was a student at Maitland Middle School and

PROFILE

Why U, an Internet-based tutorial that has reached millions, is written by Goldman and animated by Tampa-based artist Mark Rodriguez. The whimsical cartoons teach science, technology, engineering and math in the K-12 and college levels.

Winter Park High School, where he played clarinet in the marching band.

One of his hobbies was composing music for a full orchestra — an activity that didn’t do much to enhance his social status. “I was pretty much of a lone ranger,” he recalls.

Goldman would go on to graduate from the University of Florida with a degree in physics.

(While in Gainesville, he also played in a rock and roll band during an era when an up-andcomer, a long-haired guitarist named Tom Petty, was also making the rounds of local clubs.)

Although Goldman’s career led him to computers, he never forgot the pleasure of composing music — or the loneliness that accompanied it. He wondered if there was a way he could help young people who, like himself, were musically inclined and in need of encouragement and feedback.

In 2005 he devised and financed something to do that: a competitive, educational event for young, would-be composers.

“What I realized is that there’s a lot of attention in the educational system that goes out to kids that are struggling, and that’s important, no question,” Goldman says.

“But no one was addressing the need at the other end of the spectrum, with these high-func-

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tioning but isolated kids. It’s a national resource that should be cultivated. This is the next generation of great composers.”

The Young Composers Challenge, funded by the Goldman Charitable Foundation, has reached hundreds of bright young overachievers. But in terms of numbers it’s not Goldman’s most successful educational outreach endeavor.

That distinction is reserved for Why U, an Internet-based tutorial program that has reached millions. Through the program, whimsical but informative videos — written by Goldman and animated by Tampa-based artist Mark Rodriguez — augment STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math) in the K-12 and college levels.

Why U, a non-profit educational organization funded by Goldman’s foundation, offers free access to its videos through its website, whyu.org, or its You Tube channel.

The genesis for Why U (which has the phrase “Branius Maximus” emblazoned on its logo) can be traced to 2002, when Goldman volunteered to serve as interim president of the Orlando Science Center.

While there, Goldman commissioned Rodriguez to create a series of oddball but engaging animated vignettes that explained key scientific ad­ vances such as the Tesla coil. The videos were in­stalled in

kiosks throughout the center.

“I realized that a science center is really a lousy place to teach kids about science,” he says.

“There are just too many distractions, too many things going on, and the exhibits are limited in what they can get across.”

In 2003 the kiosk program, dubbed Wired Science, won the Communication Arts Magazine Award of Excellence, the HOW Magazine Design Merit Award and the American Advertising Federation Gold ADDY Award.

Goldman gifted Wired Science to the center.

But its success inspired him to create a much more ambitious educational program in Why U. “What students have tended to get are exercises, problems to solve,” says Goldman. “It’s much better for them to understand the principles underlying those theories. That’s what Why U does.”

The animation makes those principles easier to visualize — literally and figuratively — and the lectures are delivered by a kooky cast of characters from Goldman’s fertile imagination.

“I visualized them as a sort of demented version of the characters in Archie comic books,” he says.

“Ditzy jocks and nerds, that sort of thing.”

Of course, Archie and Jughead rarely if ever discussed, say, the commutative law of addition

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PROFILE Goldman, an aficionado of art glass, displays a transparent, 600-pound egg-shaped sculpture in his second-floor office. The creator, Christopher Ries, is one of his favorites.

or the geometrical properties of various types of curvatures, nor did Betty and Veronica ever get around to the issue of working out linear systems in three variables.

People all over the world — at least 4 million, according to the analytics — have used Why U, which is why Goldman and Rodriguez continue to stay busy creating others.

We generally think that humanitarians, spiritual leaders and shoulder-to-shoul­der celebrities singing We Are the World are the primary orchestrators of global goodwill.

What Goldman has discovered is how loveydovey people around the world can be when you help them figure out how to distribute infinite solution sets parametrically or understand commutative, associative and distributive laws of math.

“We get messages from very grateful people, teachers and students, from everywhere, including places that don’t necessarily like the United States,” he says. “Saudi Arabia. Iran. The Middle East. Actually I can’t think of any place in the world we haven’t heard from.”

The orchestrator of it all is a laid-back, jovial soul, a 64-year-old free spirit with a full gray beard and an evident weakness for fine foods. (If

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he weren’t such a genius he’d make a first-class department-store Santa.)

Goldman and his longtime companion, Melanie Love, live in a sleek, 10,000-square-foot, modern minimalist home on Lake Maitland.

They spend several months of the year in Marin County, California, in a second home near the peak of Mount Tamalpais. From there they enjoy a view of San Francisco, the Farallon Islands and, on clear days, the Sierra Nevada.

Goldman is an admirer of Albuquerque architect Antoine Predock, a master of the simple lines and open spaces synonymous with Southwest Modernism. You can see that influence on his home’s exterior, which is dominated in front by a castle-like, milk-glass façade that rises two stories.

Created for Goldman by architect John Hackler, the sprawling structure has the feel of an extremely elegant treehouse.

At its heart is a circular, second-story office, which serves as the headquarters for both Why U and the National Young Composers Challenge.

The only furniture in evidence is a chair and a desk made of glass with a computer terminal poised atop it. Oh, and there’s also a transparent, 600-pound egg-shaped sculpture by Christopher

Ries, one of Goldman’s favorite artists.

Thirty speakers perched on a high ledge encircle the room. Curved, floor-to-ceiling glass walls on one side provide a lush view of the surrounding cypress trees.

Goldman spends much of his time in this office, alone, coming up with scripts for Why U. He also still composes music; the Orlando Ballet once performed to one of his symphonies, Acadian Dance.

Throughout the home, Goldman’s passion for art glass is on display. The most impressive piece is a massive Chihuly sculpture suspended in the middle of a winding, freestanding staircase just inside the front entrance.

Shimmering Chihuly “Persians” — the artist’s term for these eccentrically shaped objets d’art — decorate one wall, giving the appearance of a vertical array of multicolored lily pads floating in space.

The Chihuly designers were momentarily stumped when trying to figure out how to complete the installation. In the end, though, a solution emerged in the form of an ingenious system of moveable armatures.

You can probably guess the name of the veteran do-it-yourselfer who came up with that idea.

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Goldman and his judging team listened to 117 compositions and recorded feedback for each composer.

WHEN KIDS STRIKE THE RIGHT CHORD

the audience and ask: ‘What do you think?’ ” Wilkins and the musicians rehearse the winning compositions, while Wilkins discusses the finer points of the music with the composers.

Each work is then performed and recorded before a live audience.

For the rookie composers, it’s the musical equivalent of a fantasy baseball camp.

Its official name is the National Young Composers Challenge. But They sit on stage during rehearsal and have the opportunity to beSteve Goldman likes to call it “a dragnet for talent.” He can call it come critics themselves, making technical suggestions about how whatever he wants. He is, after all, the man who invented it. their music should be played. One year, during a particularly meticuThe competition, created by Goldman in 2007, is held annually for lous critique, a droll Wilkins turned to the audience and noted: “This is teenage composers from all over the country. It culminates with the problem working with living composers.” the National Young Composers Challenge Composium, Another year, Goldman remembers, “There was a held in Orlando. winner who really got carried away as his piece was This year’s composium is slated for Sunday, Oct. 18 at performed. I guess it put him into a trance of some the 2,700-seat Walt Disney Theater, the main venue at sort. When the conductor turned to him and asked him the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts. how he liked it at the end, he just sat there in a daze.”

That’s where the young winners will hear their comOne of this year’s winners is Sterling Maffi, an 18-yearpositions discussed, rehearsed and played by a full old college freshman and a budding composer who lives complement of professional musicians led by a worldin Artesia, Calif. Maffi hopes, someday, to write film class conductor. The event is free and open to the pubscores. lic. No tickets or reservations are required.

“I love the sweeping melodies and frantic action moHere’s how the competition works: Every year, novice tifs I can use in this genre,” he says. “There’s such a composers are invited to create a composition of five minlushness of texture in this type of music.” utes or less and submit a score and an electronically created Maffi, who plans on studying composition and film sound file. Four judges, including Goldman, listen to every scoring at a California conservatory next year, has Sterling Maffi of Artesia, piece and send every entrant a recorded critique. been composing music on his own in the meantime, Composers of the top three orchestral pieces get California, is one of the sometimes humming the melodies that come to mind, $1,000 each, while composers of the top three chamber winners of this year's Young sometimes using a software program that simulates Composers Challenge. ensembles get $500 each. This year, due to the generalthe sound of musical instruments. ly high caliber of the record-shattering 117 entries — more than twice “I’ve never had a professional orchestra play my music,” says Maffi, as many as last year — five ensemble winners were selected. whose winning submission, The Water Phoenix, is a full-orchestra score The winners are invited to Orlando, where they’ll work individuwritten to accompany a story he envisioned about a creature that rises ally with conductor Christopher Wilkins, previously musical director from the sea to save a harbor town from a tempest. of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and currently musical direc“Most of my time writing is spent locked alone in my room,” he tor of the Boston Landmarks Orchestra and the Akron Symphony. says. “The outside world has a habit of disappearing on me.”

“It takes somebody with the right personality to do this,” says In addition to Goldman, judges included Jeff Rupert, director Goldman. “Chris is very engaging. Now and then he’ll turn around to of jazz studies at the University of Central Florida; Keith Lay, de-

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partment chair of music technology at Full Sail University; and Dan Crozier, associate professor of music theory and composition at Rollins College.

The four met earlier this year over the course of several evenings to listen to the submissions in a glass-walled, second-story office in Goldman’s home on Lake Maitland.

There, surrounded by Goldman’s collection of luminous Chihuly Persians and other priceless art-glass sculptures, judges squinted at printed scores and took notes while listening intently to each piece, weighing everything from modern abstract compositions to traditional waltzes.

Then they passed a microphone back and forth to record feedback — meticulous and technical, but always encouraging — for each bedroom-based novice. As they listened, reactions from the judges ran the gamut, from bemused to inspired.

From Goldman: “You really made full use of the orchestra, but you wander around a bit. Pick out one or two themes and stay with them.”

“I really like how you’re out-of-the-box with your melodic lines.”

“Think about the articulations, especially the woodwinds.”

“You should listen to Mozart, to Hayden. Listen to the base lines, the chords.”

“Nice accumulation of tension at the end.”

“Beautiful use of tubular bells. But a little overused. You don’t want to put too much spice in the dish.”

“Just one thing: You don’t have that many cellos in the orchestra.”

Despite the sheer number of submissions, the judges only seemed to gather momentum as their late-afternoon sessions stretched later and later.

“Wow,” said Rupert one evening, after listening to a 13-year-old’s vertigo-inducing entry, entitled Multi-Rotor Drones, “I’d like to meet this kid.”

On another occasion, after listening to an uneven but wildly inventive whirlwind of a composition, Lay grabbed the microphone to provide feedback for its creator. The first words out of his mouth were both high praise and, appropriately, a challenge: “You have to be a composer!”

IN BRIEF:

THE NATIONAL YOUNG COMPOSERS CHALLENGE COMPOSIUM DATE/TIME: Sunday, Oct. 18. Ensemble performances, from 1 - 2:15 p.m.; full-orchestra performances, from 2:30 - 5 p.m.

VENUE: Walt Disney Theater at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts NOTES: Winning works by student composers are rehearsed and performed. The composium is supported by grants and in-kind donations from the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the University of Central Florida, Rollins College, Full Sail University and the Goldman Charitable Foundation.

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Grant H. Cornwell has spent his entire academic and professional career at small but well-regarded liberal arts institutions.

He has definite — even passionate — opinions about the intrinsic value of a liberal arts education.

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THE

Philosopher Rollins President Grant Cornwell inherits a thriving college that faces some fundamental questions.

T

BY RANDY NOLES PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAFAEL TONGOL

he 14 individuals who served as president of Rollins College, from Edward P. Hooker (1885-1892) to Lewis M. Duncan (2004-2014), were certainly an eclectic bunch. Some were much beloved, some were merely tolerated, and one, Paul Wagner in 1951, was literally run out of town accompanied by a police escort.

Some were innovators, some were fundraisers and some were placeholders. A few, however, were so revered professionally and personally that they became legendary figures on campus and throughout the broader community.

Grant H. Cornwell, 58, was named the college’s 15th president in February. He assumed the post in July and has been on campus since mid-August. He had, since 2007, been president of the College of Wooster in Wooster, Ohio, outside Cleveland.

Where Cornwell will ultimately rank in the pantheon of Rollins presidents is obviously yet to be determined. But there’s a palpable sense that the lanky 6-foot-4 philosopher — an affable, articulate intellectual with proven administrative prowess — is precisely the type of leader Rollins needs at this point in its 130-year history.

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There were originally 162 applicants for the position, and all four finalists were sitting college presidents, says Allan Keen, a Winter Park developer and board of trustees member who headed the search committee.

Cornwell, Keen adds, was ultimately a unanimous pick. “It was a very tough decision because of the quality of the candidates,” he adds. “After we had our finalists, it took four days to reach a strong consensus. But once we did, we felt like it was a great choice for the college.”

FUNDAMENTAL CHALLENGES “This is going to be a busy place soon,” Cornwell says, surveying the vast emptiness of the firstfloor reception area at the Barker House. The second floor of the Spanish Mediterranean-style structure on Lake Virginia serves as the college president’s official residence.

“A place like this is really a community center,” Cornwell continues. “It’s a place to build networks and share our common vision.” He noted that during his last year at Wooster, he and his wife, Peg, hosted more than 2,200 people at the president’s house.

Later in the day, at a series of on-campus introductory events, Cornwell told students, staffers and faculty that “I hope to welcome you all through our doors as soon as possible. It’ll take a while to get you all there, but in time I’ll bet

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you’ll all get there for one reason or another.”

Cornwell takes the helm of a highly regarded, financially solid institution boasting a rich history and a charming campus recently dubbed the most beautiful in the U.S. by the Princeton Review. But Rollins hasn’t been without its share of drama lately.

On paper, the presidency of Cornwell’s predecessor, Lewis Duncan, appeared extraordinarily successful. The “Duncan Decade” saw the launch of two wildly popular community outreach programs: the Winter Park Institute and the Center for Lifelong Learning. The Archibald Granville Bush Science Center was built, and numerous campus buildings were renovated.

Rollins maintained its impressive regional and national rankings among liberal arts colleges and MBA programs, while its endowment and capital assets tripled to more than $430 million. Undergraduate enrollment surged, and the number of international students soared by 72 percent.

Yet Duncan, a brilliant physicist who had once led Dartmouth College’s engineering school, was never embraced by many faculty members, some of whom found him to be autocratic and suspected that he never truly embraced the purity of the college’s liberal arts mission.

In late 2011 the College of Arts & Sciences faculty voted to censure Duncan after he failed to consult with them prior to launching a College of Professional Studies, through which students

could earn an undergraduate degree in business.

(Although the Crummer Graduate School of Business had offered MBAs since 1957, Rollins had dropped its undergraduate business major in 1980, under President Thaddeus Seymour.)

In 2013 the Arts & Sciences faculty — many of whom complained that Duncan not only failed to involve them in decision making but also disrespected them personally and professionally — issued a vote of no confidence in his leadership. He stepped down in May of 2014.

So Duncan’s issues with the faculty encompassed both his leadership style and his vision of what a liberal arts college ought to be. “The Arts & Sciences faculty liked neither the way the [College of Professional Studies] was formed nor the idea of the college,” says Carol Lauer, a professor of anthropology and president of the faculty organization.

It’s into that hornet’s nest — albeit a lovely and seemingly serene hornet’s nest — that Cornwell has stepped. However, he seems to understand, in ways that perhaps Duncan didn’t, how to avoid getting stung.

“Of all the great things [Duncan] did, his communication wasn’t the best, especially near the end,” says Keen. “So, high on our list was someone who had a passion for the liberal arts and was also collegial and communicative.”

With the charismatic Cornwell, the committee

PHOTO COURTESY OF ROLLINS COLLEGE

While introducing himself to students and faculty members, Cornwell did a live interview with WPRK, the college’s famously quirky radio station. The new president has made a positive initial impression with his accessibility.

“Of all the great things [Duncan] did, his communication wasn’t the best, especially near the end. So, high on our list was someone who had a passion for the liberal arts and was also collegial and communicative.”

—Allan Keen, trustee and chair of the presidential search committee was able to check all those boxes. He has spent his entire career at small liberal arts colleges, and has very definite — even passionate — opinions about the value of a liberal arts education. He has spoken and written extensively on the topic and, in the world of academia, is considered a national thought leader.

“Since around 2008 there’s been a drift toward thinking of college as being just for job training,” he says. “That’s tremendously shortsighted.

I lament it.”

In his final convocation address at Wooster, an excerpt of which was published in the Huffington Post, Cornwell argued that a liberal arts education has intrinsic value because it fosters independent thinking and encourages social responsibility.

“A liberal education is an expansion of consciousness,” he said. “With every book read, every natural or social system grasped, every theory put to the test and employed, we become persons with greater scope and agency. Every book or poem, film or equation, image or idea that we struggle to grasp expands and complicates our souls and enlarges our capacities to make meaning of the world and effect change.”

But none of that necessarily means that the College of Professional Studies is going anywhere. Cornwell says there is “absolutely” a place for a professionally oriented curriculum — and even an undergraduate business degree — at a liberal arts college.

“How we organize ourselves is fluid and might change,” he says. “But we do need to come to a consensus on one mission, one set of goals.”

Lauer, who served with Keen on the search committee, says that she and other faculty members have already raised the contentious issue in face-to-face meetings with their new boss. ”[Cornwell] started joking that we couldn’t speak to him for more than 10 minutes without this topic coming up,” she says. “My sense is that the new college is here to stay. But I hope we can do a better job of coordinating activities among the colleges and move toward a cohesive ‘one Rollins.’”

Cornwell, as it happens, is a savvy consensus builder. When he was hired at Wooster, he was eager to change certain aspects of the curriculum and the culture. But he chose to do so in a delib-

erate fashion — and only after achieving buy-in from the college’s various constituencies.

During a 2011 interview with Smart Business, a magazine covering Akron’s corporate community, Cornwell described his early challenges at Wooster using language that a new­ly hired corporate CEO would have appreciated: “[Colleges] are very traditional, tradition-bound places, and that pretty much creates a kind of stability that protects the integrity of the mission through time,” he told a reporter. “For the most part, that’s a very good thing. At the same time … when there’s a leadership transition, it’s a time when nearly everything needs to be rethought.”

He added: “One critical element of success is the ability to articulate and communicate a vision in a way that’s inspiring to others, because it doesn’t do any good to have a brilliant vision for a place if nobody else is inspired by that vision.

Communication is critical.”

Lauer’s impression of Cornwell is that, whatever he chooses to do, it will be well thought out, carefully vetted and openly discussed.

“I think Dr. Cornwell brings a breath of fresh air to the college,” she says. “The more time I spend with him, the more I’m impressed with his openness, his humor and his collaborative style.”

Those familiar with the colorful history of Rollins know that its most successful presidents — such as Seymour, now a beloved president emeritus — have been extraverted sorts who embrace the college’s quirks and solicit input from the sometimesfractious faculty before launching major initiatives.

As the Duncan episode demonstrates, Cornwell will need his considerable interpersonal skills to achieve consensus on the central questions facing the college: How does a liberal arts institution continue to thrive in an environment where return on investment seems to have become the only metric that matters? What should a Rollins degree really mean?

“That’s the work in front of me,” Cornwell says.

“That’s what I’ve been brought here to do. We’re a team, and we need to work together to build a common purpose.”

There’s at least one simmering concern that

Cornwell may need to address sooner rather than later. Earlier this summer, the community was surprised and dismayed when the contract of two-time U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins wasn’t renewed.

Collins was senior distinguished fellow at the Winter Park Institute, a Rollins program that brings internationally known artists, authors, performers, politicians and others to Winter Park for free public presentations.

The poet’s abrupt departure, apparently a result of budgetary considerations, left legions of supporters wondering if the institute itself might also be in danger.

“I wasn’t making that call,” says Cornwell of the decision to let Collins go, leaving open the possibility that a renewed relationship might still be possible. “The Winter Park Institute is a great cultural and intellectual asset. I’m a fan. I imagine it will continue.”

Gail Sinclair, the institute’s executive director and scholar in residence, is cautiously optimistic that a resolution with Collins can be reached.

“Billy Collins was [the institute’s] inaugural scholar, and has been an integral part of our programming since then,” Sinclair says. “Our hope is that we will in some way be able to continue this valued relationship.”

(At press time Collins’ currently non-existent affiliation with the institute was still being promoted on the college’s website.)

Keen, a past chair of the institute’s advisory board, left little doubt that the program was safe, even if Collins’ affiliation with it was in flux.

“Things like the Winter Park Institute are part of what attracted Grant here,” he says. “I can tell you that the institute means a lot to me. It also means a lot to Grant.” Collins, who lives in Winter Park, couldn’t be reached for comment but is said to be open to discussions.

Obviously, with so much still to learn, the new president is choosing to err on the side of caution when making public pronouncements.

“I sense some pent-up urgency,” says Cornwell, who describes himself as a person inclined toward taking action. “But a little patience is called for.”

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The Cornwells have been an effective team wherever they’ve been. Peg Cornwell, shown with her husband relaxing on the patio of the Barker House along Lake Virginia, played a major role in community outreach at the College of Wooster.

FINDING HIS CALLING Cornwell was born in Aurora, Illinois. His family moved to New Canaan, Connecticut, when his father was transferred to IBM’s White Plains, New York, corporate headquarters. He spent summers with his grandparents, who owned a cabin in northeast Minnesota’s Iron Range.

“When you ask me where I’m from, I’m just as likely to say Minnesota as Illinois or Connecticut,” says Cornwell, who developed a lifelong love for the outdoors as a result of those childhood excursions.

He wanted to be a medical doctor, in part due to the influence of his mother, who had majored in chemistry at Skidmore College. Like his father, Cornwell enrolled at St. Lawrence University, a small liberal arts college in Canton, New York, where he took a tentative first step toward a medical career by majoring in biology.

However, in true liberal arts fashion, Cornwell explored other disciplines and found a new calling.

“I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I felt dissatisfied intellectually,” he says. “So I took an array of courses. You have to find what really moves you.

For me, I became enthralled by philosophy.”

Cornwell ended up with a bachelor’s degree in both biology and philosophy in 1979. “All disciplines are essentially different ways of approaching the analysis and resolution of important questions,” he says. “As an undergraduate, I was concerned with some questions biology was best suited to address, and others that philosophy was best equipped to grapple with.”

Following graduation, after a stint living in Germany, Cornwell enrolled at the University of Chicago, where he eventually earned both master’s and doctoral degrees in philosophy.

In 1980, having just started graduate school, Cornwell married Marguerite “Peg” Kelsey, whom he had met when both were students at St. Lawrence. Peg had moved to the Windy City and land-

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ed a job with Chemical Bank, eventually becoming assistant vice president.

In 1992 the couple returned to St. Lawrence, where Cornwell’s academic career began as associate dean of the college’s first-year program. He then became a philosophy professor and chair of the philosophy department before moving up to vice president and dean of academic affairs.

At St. Lawrence, Peg served as director of career planning and later as director of the Leadership Academy, a program devoted to developing leadership skills in students.

“I figured we’d be lifers at St. Lawrence,” says Cornwell, who felt at home on the familiar campus. “I was a peer with people who had been my mentors.” He and his family — including sons Tosh, now 22, and Kelsey, now 26 — also cherished time spent at their cabin in the Adirondacks, where they enjoyed snowshoeing and sailing.

Then the opportunity at Wooster presented itself, and Cornwell found the institution’s mission “too compelling” to ignore. He was named president of the college — founded shortly after the Civil War by the Presbyterian Church — in 2007.

There he was credited with advancing Wooster’s diversity and global engagement and strengthening student recruitment efforts, which led to new records for admission applications during each of his last three years at the helm.

“As much as I loved teaching, I found that I also loved to start programs,” Cornwell says. And at Wooster he did just that, launching the Center for Diversity and Global Engagement, which encompassed multi-ethnic and international student affairs as well as interfaith campus ministries.

Martha Nussbaum, the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, praised the center in her book, Cultivating Humanity: A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education,

calling it “a model of responsible teaching in several areas of human diversity.”

Cornwell also started the Collaborative Research Environment, to bolster mentored undergraduate research, and APEX (Advising, Planning and Experiential Learning), an integrated model that combined teaching with academic and career guidance.

While at Wooster, Peg — always a professional partner with her husband — served as associate to the president for community, trustee and parent relations, creating a 250-member Parents Leadership Council and playing an active role in promoting the college. (She will have comparable responsibilities at Rollins.)

In addition to demonstrating a knack for starting innovative programs, Cornwell proved himself to be a prodigious fundraiser.

On May 29, months after the announcement that he was leaving for Rollins, Wooster raised a record-setting $40 million in one day, more than half of which went toward construction of an integrated life sciences center. One donor kicked in an unexpected $5 million, $1 million of which was specifically for the establishment of a scholarship honoring the Cornwells.

Such affection — and generosity — toward a president who had just announced his resignation must surely have resonated with the Rollins trustees, who had undoubtedly grown weary over the growing turmoil surrounding Duncan.

In addition to his achievements at St. Lawrence and Wooster, Cornwell has served with an array of important organizations and produced some serious scholarship.

He’s a member of the Global Literacy Advisory Board, a joint venture between the Indianapolisbased Lumina Foundation and the New Yorkbased Council on Foreign Relations. He also serves on the board of directors of the American Association of Colleges & Universities.

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Florida Hospital Breast Cancer Care Fund was created to help save the lives of women who cannot afford clinical breast cancer exams and annual mammograms.

“I think Dr. Cornwell brings a breath of fresh air to the college,” Lauer says.

“The more time I spend with him, the more I’m impressed with his openness, his humor and his collaborative style.”

—Carol Lauer, president of the College of Arts & Sciences faculty Cornwell’s publications include books and journal articles on such topics as multiculturalism, global citizenship and the future of the liberal arts. He even produced a CD-ROM called Sugar Estates of St. Kitts: An Interpretive Essay of Plantation Heritage Sites, which primarily uses photographs and voices to tell the story of the sugar industry on the small Caribbean island.

An educator at heart, Cornwell labels himself as both a college president and a professor of philosophy on his CV. That small gesture made a big impression on Keen and others, who sought a leader who would nurture the college’s historic commitment to great teaching.

“At Wooster, I would mentor philosophy majors in their senior research projects,” Cornwell says. “I love to teach; it keeps me grounded in our core mission. Will I teach at Rollins? I hope so, but for the foreseeable future I’m too busy learning.”

TRADITION VS. INNOVATION Clearly, Cornwell is energized by Rollins and impressed by how closely the college and the community are intertwined. “At St. Lawrence,” he says, “the college is the town.”

Winter Park, Cornwell notes, is a vibrant place with a diversified economy in which the college plays an integral role. “Part of what attracted me to Rollins is its relationship to Winter Park,” he says.

Plus, Cornwell believes that the college’s Central Florida location will facilitate attracting a more multicultural student body. That’s a priority, he says, along with bolstering financial aid programs.

In addition to the Winter Park Institute, he cites the Bach Festival Society of Winter Park — a separate organization housed at Rollins and headed by John Sinclair, chairman of the college’s music department — as the kind of high-profile program that binds the community and the institution.

Cornwell is also excited by the Rollins athletic program. Although Wooster fielded 23 highly competitive varsity teams, including football, the Fighting Scots competed at the NCAA Division III level,

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meaning no athletic scholarships were offered.

Rollins, which doesn’t play football, also has 23 varsity teams. But the Tars compete at the NCAA Division II level, where scholarships are allowed and recruiting is fierce. The college has won 23 national championships —12 of those for women’s golf — and 67 Sunshine State Conference titles.

“I’m a believer that student athletes learn things that are part of a liberal education,” says Cornwell, who spent one season as a power forward at St. Lawrence. “These students make dual commitments and the demands are very rigorous. They learn work ethic, problem-solving and self-discipline.”

When asked by an interviewer at WPRK, the campus radio station, if he’d be attending any basketball games, Cornwell was unequivocal: “You’re going to see us at all the games; Peg and I will be at every game.”

Cornwell thinks a college president needs seven or eight years to make his or her mark. “So I’m here for a while,” he says. For now he’s getting accustomed to his new surroundings. And he’s planning to unwind by joining in noontime faculty-staff basketball games.

So will the new president be an innovator, a fundraiser or a placeholder? It seems a safe bet to rule out placeholder and expect a combination of innovator and fundraiser.

But as change-oriented as Cornwell is, he’s also steeped in academia and respects the importance of collegiate traditions — as long as they aren’t so hidebound that they hinder progress.

He may have expressed his stance best in that revealing 2011 Smart Business interview. He was talking about Wooster, but could just as easily have been referring to Rollins: “Tradition is not something that needs a lot of care and feeding. If anything, you have to always say, ‘Listen, we value these traditions, but we have to have them be dynamic traditions.’ Tradition doesn’t mean you do things the way you’ve always done them; it means that you hold on to a sense of yourself while you continually innovate.”

SCOTS VS. TARS Founded Full-time faculty Undergraduate students 2013 endowment 2014-15 tuition and fees Students receiving financial aid Studentfaculty ratio Classes with fewer than 20 students Acceptance rate Freshman retention rate 4-year graduation rate Clubs and organizations

COLLEGE OF WOOSTER 1866

ROLLINS COLLEGE 1885

**

171

211

**

2,116

2,608

$247,092,897

$349,818,000

$43,350

$43,080

99%

86%

12:1

10:1

71%

69%

56%

59%

89%

82%

70%

61%

*

145

110

*

*

STUDENT DEMOGRAPHICS Male Female White Black Hispanic Other

44% 56% 71% 8% 4% 17%

40% 60% 63% 6% 16% 15%

RANKINGS U.S. News & World Report

69

2

*

Editor’s note: This comparison is so disparate because U.S. News & World Report ranks the College of Wooster in its National Liberal Arts Colleges category. However, it ranks Rollins College in its Regional Universities (South) category, against a considerately smaller universe of competitors.

Forbes (overall) Forbes (private colleges) Forbes (regional)

140

252

112

187

24

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All information from Forbes America’s Top Colleges list unless otherwise noted. For visual clarity, some percentages have been rounded. * U.S. News & World Report ** College website

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Park Avenue in the 1890s was a tidy thoroughfare that encompassed a general store, an ice house, a sawmill, a bakery, a watchmaker, a meat and fish market, and a livery stable.

W I N T E R P A R K M A G AZI N E | FALL 2015

The (Unofficial) Winter Park

HALL FAME OF

Meet the inaugural class of citizens who made history.

BY RANDY NOLES DIGITAL PORTRAITS BY CHIP WESTON

David Mizell Jr.

Loring A. Chase and Oliver Chapman

W

inter Park residents, from those who originally settled the area to those who recently relocated, have always been passionate about their community and involved in making it an even better place to live, work and raise families.

Throughout the city’s 128-year history, talented and resourceful people have stepped up and made a difference — some profoundly so. That’s why Winter Park Magazine’s editors thought it was time to launch a Winter Park Hall of Fame, which would recognize those whose impact has spanned generations.

As of now, the Winter Park Hall of Fame is a concept only, unaffiliated with any organization other than the magazine.

Hopefully, though, the idea will catch on, and eventually there’ll be a permanent display and a formal process for selecting inductees. In the meantime, this particular Hall of Fame, informal though it may be, will exist in the pages of Winter Park Magazine and online at winterparkmag.com.

Caveats aside, here’s how our Winter Park Hall of Fame came together. In selecting the inaugural class, Winter Park Magazine used scholarly papers, books by local historians and consultations with longtime residents familiar with Winter Park history.

Only those who were still living were automatically excluded from consideration. Otherwise, there were no restrictions — and plenty of contenders.

Several iconic Winter Parkers were obvious choices, and their inclusion was assured. Some were slightly less obvious, but equally worthy. Even so, there were dozens upon dozens of others who could easily have been chosen, assuring that there’ll be no shortage of worthy candidates in years to come.

In the magazine’s judgment, these people were essential Winter Parkers — people without whom the community might have become a very different sort of place.

So, until there’s an actual, official Hall of Fame, let’s use the following pages to salute the inaugural class.

David Mizell Jr.

(1808-1884) Homesteader –————————— Mizell and his family moved to the area in 1858 from Alachua County, making them the first nonNative American residents in what was to become Winter Park. He built a cabin on a homestead between present-day lakes Osceola, Mizell, Berry and Virginia, and called the area Lake View (basically where the Genius Preserve and the Wind-

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song subdivision are now). The Mizells grew cotton and raised horses, cattle, hogs, turkeys and goats. Mizell became politically influential, serving on the Orange County Commission and in the state Legislature. His eldest son, David W. Mizell, became the first sheriff of Orange County and was killed in the line of duty. Another son, John, became the first judge in Orange County and was elected to the first board of aldermen for the Town of Winter Park in 1887.

Edward P. Hooker

Wilson Phelps

(1821-Unknown) Grower, Promoter –————‑——— Phelps, a Chicago businessman-turned-citrusgrower who toured the area in 1874, purchased most of the land where the Mizells had lived and much more east of Lake Osceola. In addition to his citrus ventures, Phelps sold lots to fellow Chicagoans and played a key role in encouraging Loring Chase and Oliver Chapman to move forward when they sought his advice regarding the wisdom of turning the largely unsettled area into a posh winter resort. Phelps, acting as a one-man chamber of commerce, provided a strong letter of endorsement and all the data he could compile in a four-page, handwritten letter that is arguably the “big bang” of Winter Park’s creation.

Certainly, it provided the basis for Chapman and Chase’s subsequent promotional materials.

There is no known photograph of Phelps.

Lucy Cross

Loring A. Chase (1839-1906)

Oliver Chapman

(1851-1936) Developers –———————‑‑‑—— Chase, a real-estate broker from Chicago, moved to the area for his health in 1881. Enchanted by the lakes and woods, he believed he had found an ideal place to develop a winter resort catering to wealthy Northerners. He shared his idea with Chapman, a Massachusetts importer of luxury goods, and the two bought about 600 acres of what would become Winter Park. They commissioned a well-conceived town plan and soon began advertising heavily and selling lots to “Northern men of means.” In 1885 Chase bought out Chapman’s interest for $40,000 and the partnership was dissolved. Chapman, who feared his health was failing, returned to Massachusetts and enjoyed another 51 years of life, outlasting his former partner by decades. Although the ChaseChapman team was short-lived, its significance is incalculable for Winter Park.

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | W INT ER PARK MAGAZ IN E

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Alonzo W. Rollins

Edward P. Hooker

(1834-1904) Clergyman; President, Rollins College — Hooker, a Congregationalist minister, came to Winter Park from Massachusetts in 1882 to oversee the establishment of a local church, now the First Congregational Church of Winter Park. Following Daytona Beach educator Lucy Cross’ 1884 challenge to the Florida Congregational Association proposing to build a college in the state, Hooker was asked to prepare a paper on the subject to be delivered at the association’s 1885 annual meeting. Hooker’s presentation was, according to contemporary accounts, stirring and effective. When the association decided that a college was indeed needed, Hooker, despite an obvious vested interest, was selected as one of five committee members receiving proposals from competing communities. When Winter Park was selected, Hooker was named Rollins College’s first president.

Lucy Cross

(1839-1927) Educator ———————————

William C. Comstock

Cross had already founded the Daytona Institute for Young Women when she proposed that a liberal arts college be built in Florida “for the education of the South, in the South” at the 1884 meeting of the Florida Congregational Association. Her proposal, presented on her behalf by a minister from Daytona, was a major factor in the association’s decision in 1885 to hold a competition, and to build such an institution in the city offering the most generous inducements. Today Cross is known as “The Mother of Rollins College,” which is ironic since she pushed for a Daytona location. However, when the decision was made to choose Winter Park, Cross supported it strongly — and clearly deserves credit for bringing the issue of higher education in Florida to the forefront.

Alonzo W. Rollins

(1832-1887) Industrialist, Benefactor —————— Rollins, a Chicago industrialist and seasonal resident of Winter Park, never attended college. But he was instrumental in founding one. He contributed $50,000 — a huge sum at the time — to the local effort to win a competition sponsored by the Florida Congregational Association, which had decided in 1885 that it would build a college somewhere in the state. That generous gift pushed Winter Park’s inducement to $114,180, far more than was offered

by Jacksonville, Daytona, Mount Dora or Orange

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

Gus C. Henderson

William C. Comstock

(1847-1924) Civic Leader —————————— Comstock, a grain merchant from Chicago, moved to the area in 1872 and 10 years later built a home, which he dubbed Eastbank, on the eastern shore of Lake Osceola, where Wilson Phelps’ home had stood. Today, Eastbank is the oldest home in Winter Park. A former president of the Chicago Board of Trade, Comstock encouraged other wealthy Chicagoans to join him in Central Florida. He was a director of the Winter Park Land Company and, in 1923, was elected first president of the newly organized Winter Park Chamber of Commerce. Comstock was involved in virtually every community cause, donating heavily to Rollins College and serving as a charter member of its board of trustees. Comstock’s enthusiasm and commitment, in fact, kept trustees from closing the college during hard times. Less laudably, in 1893 Comstock led a successful effort to de-annex Hannibal Square, populated exclusively

by African-Americans. (The neighborhood was reannexed in 1925, when the city changed its status from “town” (fewer than 300 registered voters) to “city” (more than 300 registered voters.)

Hamilton Holt

Gus C. Henderson

(1865-1917) Editor, Activist ————————— Henderson, a charismatic African-American traveling salesman, moved from Lake City to Hannibal Square in 1886. He founded a printing company and, two years later, a weekly newspaper, the Winter Park Advocate. The Advocate, one of only two black-owned papers in the state, was read by both black and white residents. Henderson was also a politically active Republican, writing that “all we ever received came from the Republicans, and if that party never does any more special good for me, I shall die a Republican.” He quickly became involved in local issues and was a strong supporter of incorporation. In 1887, when an incorporation vote was scheduled at Ergood’s Hall, he rallied west side registered voters to violate curfew and attend. Without Henderson’s efforts, it’s no sure bet that incorporation would have passed, at least not then. And it’s a virtual certainty that if it had passed, Hannibal Square would not have been included in the town limits. Two years after incorporation, Henderson moved to Orlando where he published The Christian Recorder and later The Recorder.

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | W INT ER PARK MAGAZ IN E

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James Gamble Rogers II

Hamilton Holt

(1872-1951) President, Rollins College —————— Holt, previously a progressive journalist and social activist, arguably did more than any previous Rol­ lins College president to shape the institution’s image and hone its mission. His innovative ideas on class­room learning were embodied in his “conference plan,” which eschewed traditional lectures in favor of one-on-one interaction between instructors and students. Holt’s innovative approach and personal charisma attracted a faculty of (sometimes quirky) academic superstars who, above all else, loved teaching. “I had no special qualification for the position,” recalled Holt, who came to the college after losing a U.S. Senate race in Connecticut.

“But from observation in many colleges and from my own experiences, I had acquired definite ideas about teaching which I longed to put into practice.” In 1926 he created the Animated Magazine, a live program that hosted speakers ranging from actors to scientists to politicians. Three presidents of the United States — Calvin Coolidge, Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman — also spoke at Rollins at Holt’s behest. During Holt’s tenure, which lasted from 1925 to 1949, Rollins became a cultural center for musical and theatrical performances.

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

Hugh F. McKean and Jeannette Genius McKean

James Gamble Rogers II

(1900-1990) Architect ———————————

In a career spanning nearly 70 years, Rogers’ commercial, educational and residential designs enriched Winter Park’s distinctive aura of charm, culture and sophistication. Indeed, it could be argued that Rogers was as architecturally important to Winter Park as Addison Mizner was to Palm Beach and Frank Lloyd Wright was to Oak Park, Illinois. Stylistically, Rogers insisted that “architectural designs should be in harmony and should correlate with the general terrain and type of foliage that form the background for a town.” In Winter Park, he believed the subtropical environment lent itself to the kind of Spanish-style architecture that became his signature. But in addition to the large commissions for which he earned renown, Rogers also designed modest homes for businesspeople, artists and professors, demonstrating his ability to work within a restricted budget and still deliver a satisfying product. The highlight of Rogers’ final years of practice was the Mediterranean-style Olin Library at Rollins College, which he designed in 1985. Over the years, he was involved

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John M. Tiedtke

in the construction or the remodeling of more than 20 buildings on the Rollins campus. Today his remaining homes are prized by architecture aficionados. A prime example, Casa Feliz, was saved from the wrecking ball, moved and is now a community center and museum.

Hugh F. McKean

(1908-1995) Educator, Artist, Philanthropist ———

Jeannette Genius McKean

(1909-1989) Businesswoman, Artist, Philanthropist — Hugh and Jeannette McKean must surely be regarded as Winter Park’s first power couple.

Hugh, artist, educator, collector and writer, was the 10th president of Rollins College, serving from 1951 through 1969. He then became the college’s chancellor and chairman of its board of trustees. In 1945, while still an art professor at the college, he married Jeannette Morse Genius, granddaughter of Charles Hosmer Morse, the Chicago industrialist and philanthropist who helped to shape modern Winter Park. In 1942, Jeannette built and donated the Morse Gallery of Art on the Rollins campus. Hugh became the gallery’s director, a position he held until his death, just months prior to the opening of the new Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of Ameri-

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can Art, the facility’s spectacular showplace on Park Avenue North. The museum displays the world’s most important collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany’s works, many of which the McKeans salvaged from the artist’s ruined Long Island estate, Laurelton Hall. Hugh also served as trustee of the Ringling Museum of Art in Sarasota and of the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation in New York. Jeannette, an acclaimed artist in her own right, was also a successful businesswoman, working as an interior designer, owning and operating the Center Street Gallery on Park Avenue and managing her grandfather’s properties as president of the Winter Park Land Company. Both McKeans were lovers of nature, and cultivated a preserve filled with peacocks around Wind Song, the lakefront estate built by Jeannette’s father, Richard Genius. (Her mother, Elizabeth Morse Genius, died in 1928.) Genius Drive, the dirt road leading through the preserve and to the estate, was open to the public until the 1990s. The property, now known as the Genius Preserve and owned by the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation, is part of a restoration project by the Department of Environmental Studies at Rollins. It includes the largest remaining orange grove within Winter Park and several structures, including the estate. Jeannette was named Winter Park’s Citizen of the Year in 1987, while Hugh was posthumously named the Orlando Sentinel’s Floridian of the Year in 1996.

John M. Tiedtke

(1907-2004) Businessman, Philanthropist ———— Tiedtke played a little piano, but mostly he enjoyed listening to classical music, performed live. Thanks to him, thousands of other Central Floridians can do the same. He was a founding member of the Florida Symphony Orchestra, which played its last note in 1993. But Tiedtke’s most lasting legacy is the world-renowned Bach Festival Society of Winter Park. The organization’s viability was in doubt before Tiedtke — at the behest of boyhood friend Hugh McK­ean — assumed control in 1950. It not only survived but thrived, thanks in large part to Tiedtke’s 45 years of hands-on leadership and generous financial support. Tiedtke, who made his fortune cultivating sugar in the Florida Everglades, was a professor, treasurer, second vice president and dean of graduate programs at Rollins College before becoming a member of the institution’s board of trustees. In 2003, on his 96th birthday, Rollins established the John M. Tiedtke Endowed Chair of Music. Later, the John M. Tiedtke Concert Hall was named in his memory. Although Tiedtke’s legacy is strongly associated with the Bach Festival and Rollins, he also funded Maitland’s Enzian Theater “to inspire, educate, and connect the community through film.” Elizabeth Tiedtke Mukherjee, his granddaughter, still serves as Enzian’s executive vice president.

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Edwin Osgood Grover

(1870-1965) Professor, Civic Activist —————— Edwin Osgood Grover is barely remembered today. There is one small street named for him — Grover Avenue, appropriately near Mead Garden — and a commemorative stone along the Rollins College Walk of Fame.

But he’s ubiquitous in Winter Park history as a dreamer and a doer; a writer and a poet who frequently descended from his ivory tower to make a practical difference in the community. Surely his most enduring gift was his pivotal role in the founding of Mead Garden, an extraordinary 48acre urban oasis unlike anywhere else in Central Florida.

Grover was born in Minnesota in 1870, but was raised in Maine and New Hampshire, where he wandered in the thick woods and developed a love for nature.

While attending Dartmouth College he worked as a reporter for the Boston Globe and edited the Dartmouth Literary Monthly. After graduating in 1894 with a degree in literature, he enrolled in graduate school at Harvard. However, instead of earning an advanced degree he chose to visit Europe and the Middle East — an adventure he managed despite having only $300 to his name.

Upon his return to the U.S. in 1900, Grover worked as a textbook salesman in the Midwest and shortly thereafter became chief editor of Rand McNally in Chicago. He formed his own publishing company in 1906, but sold his interest six years later and became president of the Prang Company, a manufacturer of crayons and watercolors.

After “serving a sentence of [almost] 30 years in the publishing business,” Grover was ready to retire. Then, in 1926, a call from Rollins Presi-

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A DREAMER AND A DOER

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There would be no Mead Garden without the effort of Edwin Osgood Grover, a Rollins College “professor of books” who was also a community activist.

dent Hamilton Holt prompted a change of plans.

Holt wanted Grover as the college’s “professor of books,” making him the first academic in the U.S. to hold such a title. Intrigued, he accepted.

At Rollins, Grover helped students publish the college’s first literary magazine, Flamingo, in 1927, and for the next two decades was “editor” of the Animated Magazine, which was not a published work but a series of lectures featuring national figures from politics, literature, the arts and even show business.

Grover was also a charter member of the University Club of Winter Park and helped found Winter Park’s first bookstore, The Bookery. He encouraged his wife, Mertie, to spearhead the opening of a day nursery for the children of African-American working mothers. The Welbourne Day Nursery is still in operation today.

When Mertie was killed in an automobile accident, Grover asked that funds in her name be donated for the establishment of a children’s library on the predominantly black west side. The Hannibal Square Library operated until 1979.

He also raised money for the DePugh Nursing Home, now the Gardens at DePugh.

His biggest project, however, was Mead Garden. He didn’t donate the land, but through sheer force of will and dogged determination, he got it donated. And through ingenuity and persuasiveness, he got the massive undertaking organized and funded A man of varied interests, Grover was a friend of Oviedo-based horticulturist Theodore L. Mead and a follower of Mead’s work. Coincidentally, one of Grover’s students at Rollins was John “Jack”

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Connery, who had been a Boy Scout in a troop led

by Mead. While attending college, Connery had continued to assist his aging former scoutmaster, who was best known for his pioneering work on the growing and cross-breeding of orchids.

Upon Mead’s death in 1936, Connery inherited his grateful mentor’s collection of amaryllis, hemerocallis, fancy-leaf caladiums and more than 1,000 orchids. Mead’s young protégé had been a student curator of the Rollins Museum of Natural History, so he knew horticulture. And he had been faithfully caring for the plants at Mead’s now-unoccupied estate.

Connery knew, however, that a more permanent solution was needed if the collection was to be saved. He and Grover hoped to establish some sort of memorial garden that would pay homage to a man they both admired while providing students a place to study plants and nature.

But where? Grover had considered pushing Rollins to buy Mead’s Oviedo property. Connery, however, thought he had a better idea. Would Grover be willing to join him for an expedition?

The duo explored the untamed site of what would become Mead Garden. Excited by the possibilities, they hurried to the office of real-estate developer Walter Rose, who owned 20 acres buffering his subdivision, Beverly Shores. After hearing out Grover and Connery, Rose agreed to donate his property to the city.

James A. Treat, a former Winter Park mayor, gave another six acres that included an egret rookery and a heretofore hidden lake that Grover and Connery had discovered. The diplomatic

Grover promptly named it “Lake Lillian,” for one of Treat’s granddaughters.

R.F. Leedy, a Park Avenue clothing merchant, was persuaded to kick in a tract bordering Pennsylvania Avenue, and a Jacksonville woman, Mary Bartell, turned over 20 acres of high ground where today’s entrance greets visitors.

Orange County owned a quarter-acre encompassing a clay pit. But the county agreed to give it up, and the clay was eventually used to bolster the garden’s meandering nature trails.

On May 11, 1937, Theodore L. Mead Botanical Garden Inc., a nonprofit organization that would operate the garden, was formed. At its helm were Grover as president and Holt as honorary president. Connery was named director and executive secretary.

Mead Garden officially opened on Jan. 15, 1940, in a formal ceremony that included local dignitaries and elected officials. Grover, who presided over the proceedings, laid out a grand vision of a garden encompassing unspoiled natural areas, greenhouses for exotic plants and even aquariums, which were never built.

Today Mead Garden, owned by the city and maintained by the Friends of Mead Botanical Garden Inc., remains an ecological jewel, and is undergoing a major renovation and restoration.

Tucked away at the end of South Denning Drive, across the railroad tracks and bounded by Pennsylvania Avenue and Howell Creek, it has enchanted casual visitors and serious naturalists for decades. Few know that a professor of books is largely to thank.

Winter Park

42nd Annual

Autumn Art Festival

FLORIDA ARTIST ARTISTS | LIVE MUSIC | BEER GARDEN | PARK AVE SIDEWALK SALE | CHILDREN’S ART

Saturday, October 10 & Sunday, October 11, 2015

9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., Central Park, Winter Park PRESENTED PRESENTE ED BY:

Participating artists, entertainment schedule and more at AutumnArtFestival.org or call 407-644-8281.

PLATINUM M SPONS SPONSOR

SUPPORTED BY

WINTER PARK VILLAGE

A DIVIS IO N O F VS ME DIA GR O U P, IN C.

FA L L 2 0 1 5 | W INT ER PARK MAGAZ IN E

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CITIZEN OF THE CENTURY

Charles H. Morse

(1833-1921) Industrialist, Philanthropist ———— Charles Hosmer Morse was a very wealthy man.

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

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

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

(Winter Park’s Fairbanks Avenue is named for Franklin Fairbanks, whose father, Erastus, and uncle, Thaddeus, founded E. & T. Fairbanks in 1824.

Franklin also worked in the family business and, in 1888, became its president. He shared Morse’s enthusiasm for Winter Park, and joined his friend as both a seasonal resident and a property owner with a vested interest in seeing the city thrive.)

Morse worked his way up the ladder at E. & T. Fairbanks. In 1855 he was transferred to New York as a clerk and salesman. Two years later he was sent to help establish an affiliate company, Fairbanks & Greenleaf, in Chicago. In 1866 he founded Fairbanks, Morse & Co., which manufactured wind-

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HIS KIND OF TOWN

W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

A FINE VINTAGE AND A WEEKEND TO SAVOR. THE PERFECT PAIRING.

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Morse, probably around 1910, at work at Osceola Lodge, his Craftsman-style home in Winter Park. Morse’s permanent home was in Chicago until 1915.

mills, pumps, locomotives and other industrial equipment. (Fairbanks, Morse & Co. bought controlling interest in E. & T. Fairbanks in 1916.)

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

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

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

Sap froze inside tree trunks, splitting many of them open with pops sounding like gunshots.

The first freeze was damaging but the second was ruinous, wiping out citrus groves and devastating the local economy.

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

Morse, while certainly distressed over the misfortune that had befallen his local friends, also recognized a dual opportunity. He could make a savvy investment while ensuring that the city he had

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W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

come to love — and to which he planned to retire — would remain a congenial and cultured place.

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

by Morse to purchase the Knowles properties.

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

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

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

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

its profusion of peacocks.

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

From this cozy and comforting setting, Morse supervised development of his properties and quietly — sometimes anonymously — supported community causes.

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

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

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

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

He also personally selected who could buy lots.

He refused to sell to investors, for example, explaining in no uncertain terms that he’d do the speculating in Winter Park. Only people who planned

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W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

to build homes could buy lots. And, of course, the homes to be built had to be of acceptable quality.

Morse recruited potential residents whom he admired, among them novelist Irving Bacheller. (Eben Holden: A Tale of the North Country and D’ri and I had been among his 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 great asset to Winter Park. I want you to be sure to land him here, no matter what you have to do.”

Bacheller, though, drove a hard bargain. Morse ended up taking the 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 Irving Bacheller missed his calling,” Morse grumbled to Ward. “He should have been a horse trader.”

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

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

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

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

Today the Morse name is on Morse Boulevard and the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art, which was founded by Jeannette and Hugh. It wasn’t until 1986 that a memorial was erected in Central Park commemorating Morse’s contributions to the city he was instrumental in shaping.

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

Editor’s Note: Original black-and-white photogra‑ phy in this story is courtesy of the Rollins College Ar‑ chives and Special Collections at the Cornell Library.

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Jacquelin Hoag of Muse Models wears a beige sleeveless tunic ($248) and beige bell-bottom pants ($278), both by Trina Turk. She also wears a faux-fur vest ($210) by Heartloom and camelcolor suede mules ($232) by Vince Camuto. Her long sunstone necklace ($352), triple-stint druzzy cigar ring ($122), gold-tone cuff bracelet ($68), bead bracelets ($35 each), rhinestone wrap bracelet ($58), oversized sunglasses ($375) and stackable rings ($85 each) are all by Roberto Cavalli. All items are from Tuni on Park Avenue.

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W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

! o v a r B At ‘The Annie,’ a dramatic display of fall fashion.

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAFAEL TONGOL STYLING BY MARIANNE ILUNGA MAKEUP AND HAIR BY ELSIE KNAB

aybe it was too much to hope for that the ghost of Annie Russell would join us for our fashion shoot at her namesake theater on the campus of Rollins College. Some people swear that the English-born actress, who retired from the stage and taught at the college until her death in 1932, still takes an active interest in what happens at what locals affectionately call “The Annie.” But if Miss Russell was watching, she was doing so discreetly, according to our crew members, who enjoyed full access to the historic space where student performers present their Main Stage productions. The result? Some truly dramatic images of fall fashion, ideal for an entertaining evening at the state’s longest continually operating playhouse.

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Jacquelin wears a snake print maxi dress ($163) by Mumu from Scout & Molly’s, Park Avenue.

She also wears a beige suede belt ($48), two long-beaded necklaces ($52-$58), turquoise hoop earrings, ($34), a feather detail leather bracelet ($42) and a goldtone fringe leather cuff ($35), all from Scout & Molly’s, Park Avenue. Her suede fringed jacket ($398) by BCBG is from Tuni, Park Avenue, and her embellished beige suede booties ($298) are by Donald J Pliner from The Mall at Millenia.

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W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

Jacquelin wears a multicolor dot and tweed blouse ($328) by DVF, flare-bottom jeans ($179) by Paige and a black fur vest ($995) by DKNY. She also wears burgundy oversized sunglasses ($276) and a burgundy chain clutch ($695), both by Salvatore Ferragamo, all from Bloomingdale’s, The Mall at Millenia. Her white tassel long necklace ($46) and blue agate long necklace ($82) are both from Scout & Molly’s, Park Avenue, while her navy suede platforms with stud details ($328) are by Donald J Pliner from The Mall at Millenia.

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Jacquelin wears a black button-down vest ($338), a black sleeveless sheer tunic ($218), black ankle pants ($278) and black leather booties ($275), all from Eileen Fisher, Winter Park. She also wears gold-tone geometric drop earrings ($185), a blue Lucite and sapphire cuff ($325) and a gold-tone bangle ($195), all by Stephanie Kantis. Her crystal and Lucite cuffs ($125$170) are by Alexis Bittar. All jewelry exclusively provided by Neiman Marcus, The Mall at Millenia.

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W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

Jacquelin wears a multiprint silk button-down blouse ($675) by Etro, an eggplant color suede short-sleeve dress ($268) by BCBG and a red tweed jacket ($1,490)

by Alex Punto. She also wears a pair of brown suede fringe ankle boots ($1,075) by Giuseppe Zanotti, a statement ring ($275), a long layered necklace ($155) and a gold-tone multicolor stone necklace ($395), all by Alexis Bittar. Her brown suede hobo handbag ($2,200) is by Prada, and her electric blue crossbody chain bag ($1,690) is by YSL. All items are from Neiman Marcus, The Mall at Millenia.

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A SIGNATURE EVENT FOR FASHION LOVERS

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PAFW presented by harriett lake

PHOTO: WINTER PARK PHOTOGRAPHY

his year marks the 9th Annual Park Avenue Fashion Week, and my second year as the coordinator. In 2014 I was given the fantastic opportunity to take on this amazing fashion event.

The Shel Marks PR & Events team, along with Cox Media, have partnered to really propel what had been a neighborhood fashion show into a signature event attended by hundreds of fashion lovers.

Looking at the photo above, I feel proud and honored that our presenting sponsor, Harriett Lake, the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and Dan Leaphart of Cox Media believed in me and my team. To them and all the local supporters who have stood behind us — we couldn’t have done it without you.

To me, Park Avenue Fashion Week means showcasing not only fashion but also our amazing community. My goal is to create a destination event encouraging outsiders to come shop at our boutiques, eat at our restaurants, drink at our bars, stay at our hotels and enjoy the beauty of Winter Park.

For more information, visit parkavenuefashionweek.com. If you’re seeing this publication in advance and would like to volunteer, email pafw@shelmarkspr.com or visit parkavenuefashionweek.com/volunteers.

It’s my distinct pleasure to officially welcome you to Park Avenue Fashion Week 2015. I hope you enjoy the show!

Michelle Marks Shel Marks PR & Events Park Avenue Fashion Week Coordinator FALL 2015

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PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

PHOTO: WINTER PARK PHOTOGRAPHY

COUTURE SPONSOR

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FALL 2015

TICKETS

VIP EXPERIENCE: ($250-$300)  Priority seating in rows 1-3  5 p.m. tent access for VIP reception day of the show  Private VIP Lounge access at the Runway Show  VIP Runway Show Official After-Party  VIP gift bag

 Invitation to all official Park Avenue Fashion Week VIP parties  Complimentary hors d’ oeuvres from 4Rivers and The Coop  Complimentary champagne, wine, beer and signature drink  Invitation to all Park Avenue Fashion Week trunk shows, boutique events and parties

GENERAL ADMISSION: ($55-$70)  Seating in rows 4-10

PHOTO: WINTER PARK PHOTOGRAPHY

 Invitation to all Park Avenue Fashion Week trunk shows, boutique events and parties Note: This year, all seating at Park Avenue Fashion Week is assigned.

Tickets available at parkavenuefashionweek.com FALL 2015

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PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

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PAFW

EVENTS

presented by harriett lake

SCOUT AND MOLLY’S 346 N. Park Ave. • 407-790-4916 parkave.scoutandmollys.com THE COLLECTION BRIDAL 301 N. Park Ave. • 407-740-6003 thecollectionbridal.com EILEEN FISHER 112 N. Park Ave. • 407-628-9262 eileenfisher.com/eileenfisher.jsp FOREMA BOUTIQUE 300 N. Park Ave. • 407-790-4987 shopforema.com RED CARPET COUTURE 180 E. Morse Blvd. • 855-674-0412 redcarpetcoutureandgems.com JOHN CRAIG CLOTHIERS/CURRENT 132 S. Park Ave. • 407-629-7944 johncraigclothier.com LABELLA INTIMATES & BOUTIQUE 510 S. Park Ave. • 407-790-7820 labellaintimates.com TUNI 301 S. Park Ave. • 407-790-7820 facebook.com/tunifashionwinterpark GLORIOUS BEAUTIFUL HAIR SUPPLY & BOUTIQUE 228 N. Park Ave. • 407-450-8667 gloriousbeautifulhair.blogspot.com 6

PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

Tuni Winter Park Meet Yoana Baraschi Attention Yoana fans! Big news! Meet designer Yoana Baraschi at Tuni today. Yes, she’s coming to Winter Park! Yoana’s passion for hand-loomed textiles, quality of fabric and eye for design — a result of her excursions around the world — leave an unforgettable impression in your wardrobe. Yoana now has showrooms representing her collection in New York, Los Angeles, Dallas and Atlanta, and her clothes are sold by high-end retailers worldwide. Yoana Baraschi is an empowering designer brand created for women who do not want to be defined by their work or age, but who use clothes to tell the story of their individuality. During her 10 years in business, Yoana has continued to amass an impressive roster of young and stylish Hollywood fans: Halle Berry, Sienna Miller, Olivia Wilde, Blake Lively, Heidi Klum and Lauren Conrad, to name a few.

Eyes & Optics Tag Heuer Trunk Show |11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Join Eyes & Optics for an eyewear-fitting event featuring the complete collection by Tag Heuer. Our fitting specialists will be available to suggest the perfect frame and lenses for you. Enjoy complimentary appetizers and refreshments while you shop.

SUNDAY, OCT. 11

The Alfond Inn Courtyard Inaugural Kickoff Brunch |11 a.m.-2 p.m.

Pop! Pour! Clink! This year the Park Avenue Fashion Week team will introduce the first-ever Kickoff Brunch.

Enjoy the inaugural event in a lush oasis surrounded by Florida greenery and hardscape walkways. What’s a brunch without mimosas and bloody marys? Sip a delicious beverage and pair it with a plateful of delectable cuisine. You won’t want to miss this new and chic way to start off the most anticipated week in Central Florida. Make sure to wear your favorite hat from Harriett’s warehouse sale, or your own fashion find. Ticket includes two drink vouchers, food and valet parking.

Visit parkavenuefashionweek.com to purchase your ticket today!

Lululemon Athletica Run Club | 6:30 a.m.

Every Sunday morning, we gather as a community and hit the pavement before the sun comes up for our complimentary run club. There are two mileage options.

(Right now it’s 3 and 5 miles, but will increase as the OUC Orlando Half Marathon gets closer.) There are also multiple groups from which to choose based on your pace. Our leaders, Jess, Erin and Kevin, will guide you along the routes. But if you get lost, don’t worry — you’ll have the directions printed on a hand-held cheat

sheet. Meet in front of the store at 200 N. Park Ave. around 6:20 a.m. to warm up. Check out the Facebook group, #runtheave, for more information.

Lululemon Athletica In-Store Yoga | 9-10 a.m.

On Sundays, join us in the store and on your mat for a complimentary yoga class. During this hour, studios of the month are highlighted so you can get to know all of the amazing yogis and yoginis in the community. We recommend bringing a mat and water bottle — but we have mats you can use if needed.

MONDAY, OCT. 12

Park Social Fashion of Cocktails | 6-9 p.m.

Experience the 2nd Annual Fashion of Cocktails bartending competition at Winter Park’s retro cocktail lounge, Park Social! This official Park Avenue Fashion Week event, produced by Shel Marks PR & Events in partnership with Infinium Spirits, brings together bartenders from various local venues to demonstrate their stylish mixology skills. Guests and judges get to vote on their favorite cocktail, and the winning bartender will receive a grand prize. The event starts at 6 p.m., competition starts at 7 p.m. and a winner will be announced by 9 p.m. Dress in your favorite Park Avenue style! VIP tickets to the runway show already include entry to this event. Visit parkavenuefashionweek.com to purchase your ticket today!

Tuni Winter Park Meet Sam Spade Meet designer Sam Spade at Tuni! Sam, a Winter Park-based designer, attended Full Sail University and is the founder and owner of Badspade Eyewear. “Hodiernum Vive Diem” (live for today) is inscribed inside each pair of bamboo-based Badspade shades. As a Badspade sporter, you can truly “live for today” when wearing an eco-friendly, designer set of sunnies. The line boast a variety of sizes, shapes and color shades — and when that Sunday Funday cocktail takes over, the waves won’t. Never lose your shades in the waves — they float! Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Tuni Winter Park Cimber Jewelry Kelly Cimber, a lifelong artist, founded her eponymous jewelry line by combining her interest in natural earth elements and her background in metal smithing. Each one-of-a-kind piece is handcrafted and selected using the naturally found, raw form of each rock or stone. Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

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FALL 2015

PHOTO: WINTER PARK PHOTOGRAPHY

RUNWAY SHOW PARTICIPANTS

SATURDAY, OCT. 10

Glorious Beautiful Hair Supply & Boutique Showroom Caring Hair Collection |1-4 p.m.

In partnership with Base Camp Children’s Cancer Foundation, Winter Park, we’re showcasing our first Caring Hair collection for children and women. Everyone is welcome. For more information, visit masterbraids@gmail.com.

TUESDAY. OCT. 13

PHOTO: WINTER PARK PHOTOGRAPHY

Tuni Winter Park Karen Walker Sunglasses If you don’t know who Karen Walker is, we highly suggest you make it to Tuni to view her stellar sunglasses.

Karen Walker is currently dominating the eyewear industry by steady rockin’ the recurring theme of juxtaposition of opposites: masculine-femme, tailoredstreet, luxury-but-not, and darkly-adorbs! Throw on a pair of Karen’s utility chic sunnies and go on with your bad self! Celebs participating in Karen’s shady behavior include Scarlett Johansson, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Carey Mulligan and Charlize Theron. Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Glorious Beautiful Hair Supply & Boutique Showroom Caring Hair Collection |1-4 p.m.

In partnership with Base Camp Children’s Cancer Foundation, Winter Park, we’re showcasing our first Caring Hair collection for children and women. Everyone is welcome. For more information, visit masterbraids@gmail.com.

WEDNESDAY, OCT. 14

LaBella Intimates & Boutique Bras for a Cause Donate your old bras and receive complimentary bra fittings and 20 percent off your new bras.

FALL 2015

Alex and Ani Charmed by Charity | 6-8 p.m.

Shop, support, shine! Join us as we host “Charmed

by Charity,” an event to benefit Winter Park Memorial Hospital’s Pink Out! There’ll be complimentary refreshments, appetizers and door prizes. Plus, 15 percent of all proceeds will be donated to the hospital. RSVP to rsvp@alexandani.com.

The Bar Method Mini-Class with a Sassy Pants Trunk Show | 5-8 p.m.

Join us for an evening of fitness and fashion. There’ll be a Sassy Pants Trunk Show featuring the most fashionable exercise clothing on the market! Don’t forget to bring a friend and meet the Park Avenue Fashion Week Brand Ambassadors. Enjoy a complimentary mini-class (30 minutes) at 6 p.m. Please bring socks.

Healthy lite bites will be served alongside a juice- and H20-infusion bar. Class size is limited, so you must RSVP to karen@barmethod.com.

LaBella Intimates & Boutique Sophisticated Peacock Trunk Show Come meet local Winter Park designer Diane Meltz and preview her blouse line.

Tuni Winter Park Diane von Furstenberg DVF is, and will always be, the “It Girl.” She paved the way back in 1970 for women eager to join the workforce without the dowdy pant suits. DVF created the iconic “wrap dress,” which was respected and very well accepted with power women everywhere. A cultural phenomenon, the wrap dress is symbolic; simplistic in design yet synonymous with embracing the female form and celebrating its beauty. Although she started designing “back in the day,” DVF remains the go-to designer and is still steaming through the fashion industry. New

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designers are replicating her look today. Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Tuni Winter Park Alice McCALL Alice McCALL is an eclectic brand with a playful sensibility. Using unique detailing and charming craftsmanship, McCALL creates charismatic, modern keepsake collections. She started as a stylist in London, where she began designing and selling one-off silk pieces at markets. Her fan base quickly expanded. Celebs that covet McCALL include Kylie Jenner, Iggy Azalea, Isabelle Cornish and Sarah Ellen. Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Glorious Beautiful Hair Supply & Boutique Showroom Caring Hair Collection |1-4 p.m.

In partnership with Base Camp Children’s Cancer Foundation, Winter Park, we’re showcasing our first Caring Hair collection for children and women. Everyone is welcome. For more information, visit masterbraids@gmail.com.

Sugar Shoe Lounge The Art of Footwear | 5-8 p.m.

Sugar Shoe Lounge, the go-to boutique for Winter Park fashionistas, offers exclusive, private-label shoes, handbags and other accessories for ladies who want to set themselves apart at any event. Join us and experience our collaboration with SEE Eyewear in a fashion showcase that features the latest fall accessories. Enjoy 10 percent off your purchase and raffle prizes, including custom Sugar Shoe Lounge T-shirts and official Park Avenue Fashion Week posters signed by artist Derek Gores (presented by Snap! Orlando).

There’ll be live music, lite bites and drinks served.

PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

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THURSDAY, OCT. 15

Tuni Winter Park Virgins, Saints & Angels (VSA) VSA is a fashionista’s favorite across the globe. These collectible pieces are timeless and on-trend. If you’re looking for a key piece that goes with everything, VSA is your jam! Designer Cheryl Finnegan has recently curated new collections to add to her hit list. Symbolic of the 12 saints, each piece has a special meaning. Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Luma on Park Luma Fashion Fete | 8:30 p.m.

Enjoy an exclusive experience showcasing fall fashion trends, brand activations, live entertainment and runway presentations as well as food and custom cocktails. Tickets are available at lumafashionfete.com.

Eileen Fisher Party and Sale | 6-8 p.m.

You’re invited! In honor of EILEEN FISHER’s return to the Park Avenue Fashion Week Runway Show, we’re having a party. We’ll have style experts on hand to help you plan your entire fall wardrobe. And in case you miss the Runway Show, we’ll have the same models showcasing our best looks of the season. Sparkling wine and lite bites will be served. Get $25 off all purchases of $50 or more — and 10 percent of the event’s proceeds will benefit Pink Out. Scout and Molly’s Blouses, Blushes and Bubbles | 5-8 p.m.

Fashionistas will gather at Scout & Molly’s of Park Av-

enue for an evening of shopping specials, bubbly and makeup tips and tricks before we take the runway on Saturday! Check in on Instagram or Facebook, show the screen to one of our sales associates and instantly pick a winning card from our basket. You’re guaranteed a gift card valued from $5 to $50. Cards are good until Oct. 31.

John Craig and Current Cocktail Party | 6-8 p.m.

Join us for a Cocktail Party at John Craig and Current.

A $10 donation at the door goes toward “Making the Difference,” a charitable organization that bridges the gap between the community and organizations that need volunteers. Beer, wine and hors d’oeurves will be served.

Glorious Beautiful Hair Supply & Boutique Showroom Caring Hair Collection |1-4 p.m.

In partnership with Base Camp Children’s Cancer Foundation, Winter Park, we’re showcasing our first Caring Hair collection for children and women. Everyone is welcome.

For more information, visit masterbraids@gmail.com.

FRIDAY, OCT. 16

Tuni Winter Park Rebecca Taylor Rebecca Taylor is feminine, refined and modern. Artistically driven yet sophisticated, Rebecca’s line incorporates playful prints, dynamic textures, form-flattering silhouettes and detail-oriented embroidery. Rebecca Taylor is a staple that you’ll will never give up. The brand has garnered a dedicated following of chic celebrities, including Reese Witherspoon, Rashida

Jones, Camilla Belle, Emmy Rossum and Kate Middleton It has been featured in Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Elle, Glamour and W. Ladies, keep in mind that each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Red Carpet Couture and Gems A Taste of Couture | 2-6 p.m.

Red Carpet Couture and Gems will be offering hors d’oeuvres and cocktails and holding an in-store sale offering up to 70 percent off.

SATURDAY, OCT. 17

Tuni Winter Park Black Halo Black Halo is for the sexy and sophisticated. The wildly popular brand made a name for itself with designer Laurel Berman’s “Jackie-O” dress, which has dramatically transformed the way women dress with the simplicity of a single piece. Laurel incorporates flawless construction, impeccable tailoring and an aesthetic that both references and reinvents classic glamour.

Perfect for the runway! Ladies, keep in mind each Tuni-featured “Designer of the Day” will be available to view all week long.

Central Park’s West Meadow Runway Show See details in the box on page 9.

Official VIP After-Party Jewels by Peter B |10:30 p.m.-midnight VIP ticket holders can expect lite bites, complimentary beer and bubbles and a live DJ.

Find that

special little something at

Blouses, Blushes & Bubbles* October 15th 5-8 pm

*Read about our upcoming event in this year’s 2015 event schedule!

346 N. PARK AVE.

407.790.4916

parkave.scoutandmollys.com ®2015 FranLogic Scout Development LLC. Franchises Available.

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PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

FALL 2015

RUNWAY SHOW Central Park’s West Meadow VIP Early Entry at 5 p.m.; General Admission Entry at 6 p.m.; Show Begins at 7 p.m. • All seating is assigned.

Park Avenue Fashion week is the last stop for Central Florida’s event circuit, providing an unparalleled series of annual fashion events including the renowned Runway Show in Central Park’s West Meadow along Park Avenue. The park is completely transformed with a 20,000-square-foot, air-conditioned tent, full runway and lounge area for VIP guests.

Modeled after New York Fashion Week’s Bryant Park, Park Avenue Fashion Week always hosts the region’s most influential socialites and trendsetters. And this year’s show will be an incredible experience you won’t want to miss. n Interactive Red Carpet. This “who are you wearing” feature encourages attendees to purchase their outfits from Winter Park boutiques. n Emerging Designer Award. The winner will be chosen and announced live on stage. n Check Presentation. Michelle Marks, Park Avenue Fashion Week coordinator, will present Pink Out!, the event’s charity partner, with a check on the runway.

GET YOUR TICKETS AT PARKAVENUEFASHIONWEEK.COM FALL 2015

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

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PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

FALL 2015

WORK OF ART YOU CAN TAKE HOME AN OFFICIAL POSTER AS A FASHION WEEK SOUVENIR.

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rtist Derek Gores, presented by Snap! Orlando, says he likes his pictures “to barely come together with teasing details.” His use of recycled items such as magazines, data and digital materials to create collages results in truly distinctive and dynamic work.

The New York native takes his viewers on a journey, allowing their minds to roam freely. “I create depending on elements such as randomness, and what may be considered conflicting styles in order to form wholeness,” says Gores, who lives in Melbourne.

For the first time ever, Park Avenue Fashion Week is offering an official poster, created by Gores specifically for this event. Posters are available for purchase. The original artwork from which the poster was made will also be available for purchase. You’ll be able to view it the evening of the Runway Show.

During the show, Gores will be working on a new original piece based on Fashion Week images and themes. You can watch it take shape — and even help determine what it includes.

Just visit the Snap! Orlando exhibitor space, where Gores will be busily creating, and contribute items you believe represent the event. Once the new work is complete, it will also be available for purchase.

“We are honored and excited to have Derek on board,” says Michelle Marks of Shel Marks PR & Events. “His artistic style will merge perfectly with the celebration of creativity exhibited throughout the week.”

Preorder your posters today at parkavenuefashionweek.com.

All pre-ordered posters will be signed by Gores. PAFW

Gores is shown with one of his creations.

FALL 2015

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

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Those pink flamingos are everywhere during Pink Out, and each of them bears the name of someone impacted by breast cancer.

FASHION WEEK GOES

PINK! PINK OUT RAISES FUNDS FOR THE WINTER PARK MEMORIAL HOSPITAL MAMMOGRAPHY SCHOLARSHIP FUND.

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he City of Winter Park has gone pink during September and October. Using a distinctly Florida theme in bolstering breast cancer awareness, Pink Out Winter Park seeks to educate the community about the importance of breast health and promote the prevention of breast cancer for future generations.

This year, Park Avenue Fashion Week has announced that Pink Out Winter Park will be its charitable partner. Pink Out raises funds for the Winter Park Memorial Hospital Mammography Scholarship Fund, which is available for women who can’t otherwise afford a screening.

Since 2011, 180 women have received mammograms through the fund.

Six were diagnosed with breast cancer and went on to receive treatment.

In addition to receiving a portion of ticket sales for the Runway Show, Pink Out is also funded by the sale of pink flamingos for $10. You can place a flamingo in your yard, or add another to the growing flock on Park Avenue and throughout Winter Park. Each funky plastic bird wears a name tag with a survivor or loved one impacted by breast cancer.

Those ubiquitous flamingos will also play a role at Fashion Week. On the day of the Runway Show, guests will be able to “grow the flock” before 12

PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

entering the tent by making a flamingo purchase. Organizers encourage guests to bring something distinctive to make their flamingo stand out.

If you want to buy a flamingo even sooner, they’re available now at the following locations: Crosby YMCA Wellness Center, FRi Diagnostic Imaging Oviedo, Florida Hospital for Women in Winter Park, Lilly Pulitzer, Miller’s Hardware, The Doggie Door, Tuni, Walk on Water, Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, Winter Park Public Library and the Winter Park YMCA. In addition to patronizing Park Avenue Fashion Week and buying a flamingo, you can contribute to the fund by creating or supporting a “Fund a Flock” page. On your page, you can share your story, honor a loved one or promote breast-health awareness to friends and family.

Reach your $500 goal and 50 flamingos will be flocked in your honor along with a special recognition sign.

An array of local businesses — including retailers and restaurateurs — have also become Pink Out partners. They’re showing their support in a variety of ways, including turning their store windows pink, providing educational materials, hosting seminars or donating proceeds from select items.

Merchant partners include Belicoso Cigars and Café, BurgerFi, Charyli, Cottonways, Eileen Fisher, Hutton, J. Jill, J. McLaughlin, John Craig Clothier, Lilly Pulitzer, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Peterbrooke Chocolate, Small Business Counsel, Synergy, Ten Thousand Villages, The Ancient Olive, The Bar Method, Through the Looking Glass, Toasted, Tugboat and the Bird, and Tuni.

For women over 40, according to the American Cancer Society, a yearly mammogram is the most effective method for detecting breast cancer early, when it’s most treatable and beatable. Early diagnosis significantly increases the survival rate.

Florida Hospital for Women at Winter Park Memorial Hospital and FRi Diagnostic Imaging Oviedo both offer mammograms, with next-day availability and evening hours.

Could you benefit from the Winter Park Memorial Hospital Mammography Scholarship Fund? Get an application by calling 407-646-7798 or email fundcoordinator@flhosp.org. PAFW

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

FALL 2015

Wear Your Wanderlust

Hand-beaded jewelry from Guatemala, emblems of journeys, dreamed and taken, for the wearer and the maker.

329 Park Avenue N, #102, Winter Park, 32789 winterpark.tenthousandvillages.com • (407) 644-8464 Use this logo for reductions only, do not print magenta. Do not reduce this logo

FALL 2015 SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE more than 35%. Magenta indicates the clear area, nothing should print in this space.

You may reduce the logo to 30% without the tag and strap lines.

Color of Wood Block Motif critical match to Pantone 1805.

PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

*Offer valid at participating stores until 11/15/15. Not Valid with other discounts, gift cards, Oriental rug or Traveler’s Find purchases. One coupon per store per customer.

Receive 30% off one item with this coupon *

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PARK AVENUE FASHION WEEK

SPECIAL ADVERTISING FEATURE

FALL 2015

Join the Flock Support Pink Out Winter Park.

Benefiting the Winter Park Memorial Hospital Mammography Scholarship Fund Pink Out Winter Park was created to increase breast-health awareness, encourage women to get regular mammograms and provide financial support to women who cannot afford an annual mammogram.

Pink Out Winter Park is excited to be the charitable partner of Park Avenue Fashion Week. Visit PinkOutWinterPark.com to learn more about getting involved.

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PINKOUT WINTER PARK

O F F I C I A L PA R T N E R O F PA R K AV E N U E FA S H I O N W E E K

“I’m a shopper without any resistance!”

Harriett Lake, proud 7th-year presenting sponsor of PAFW parkavenuefashionweek.com

PHOTO: SKY LAKE STUDIOS, SHELLEYLAKE.COM

Thank You, Winter Park!

WELCOME TO SINCE 1874

RIEKER SHOES

108 E. Canton Ave. l Winter Park

407-539-0425

THE PARK AVENUE MERCHANTS ASSOCIATION • EXPERIENCEPARKAVENUE.COM

BUSINESS SPOTLIGHT Hodgson with one of his hobby cars, a 1994 Porsche.

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NAME: Robert D. Hodgson AGE: 53 POSITION: Co-Founder and President of Granny Nannies Rob Hodgson was a New Hampshire-based pharmaceutical salesman when he, like many baby boomers, was faced with caring for an aging relative. In this case it was his grandmother, Esther Dowding, who lived in Maitland and had been recently widowed. Hodgson’s father, William, a Vietnam veteran, was caring for Esther — who was still sharp as a tack but hobbled by arthritis — when he called his son with an idea. The elder Hodgson had come to realize that there was a growing need for a company that provided private-duty caregiving. “We should look into this and do something,” Rob Hodgson remembers his dad saying. “We should start a company. We should call it Granny Nannies.” So Rob and his wife, Kirsten, moved to Winter Park in 1990 and founded a company meant to help people in similar situations to their own. Since then, with demographics on their side, the Hodgsons have grown Granny Nannies into a nationwide company with 35 franchisees in 10 states.

Today gross revenues are approaching $50 million. Granny Nannies (grannynannies.com), headquartered in Longwood, provides licensed private-duty caregivers who offer everything from basic assistance (errands, light housekeeping, meal preparation) to total care (bathing, toileting, range-of-motion exercising) for elderly clients who want to live independently for as long as possible. “We weren’t following anybody’s model,” Rob says. “We were doing this before it was popular.” He says the company’s financial success has been gratifying, but he gets the most satisfaction “by hearing how we’re helping families in times of need.” The Hodgsons, who live in the Vias neighborhood, have a son at Trinity Prep and a daughter at the University of Alabama. Rob enjoys restoring vintage cars, and has several projects underway at any given time. As for Esther Dowding, the woman who inspired Granny Nannies, she remained a satisfied client until her death in 2000 — at the age of 104.

— Randy Noles

W I N T E R P A R K M A GAZI N E | FALL 2015

“The Sarasota achievement in Ashton choreography ... is beyond extraordinary” Alastair Macaulay, The New York Times

MACMILLAN, WRIGHT & ASHTON Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto Sir Peter Wright’s Summertide Sir Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand

Photography Frank Atura

20 - 21 NOVEMBER 2015 Sarasota Opera House accompanied by the Sarasota Orchestra

The First American Company To PerformAshton’s Iconic Ballet Originally Choreographed on Dame Margot Fonteyn & Rudolf Nureyev

Sir Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto Choreographed by Sir Kenneth MacMillan

Victoria Hulland & Ricardo Graziano Sir Frederick Ashton’s Marguerite and Armand

The Sarasota Ballet Box Office 941.359.0099 | www.SarasotaBallet.org FA L L 2 0 1 5 | W IN T ER PARK MAGAZ IN E

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DINING

Joseph Burnett brings skills he learned at The Ravenous Pig and Norman’s to Osprey Tavern’s open kitchen.

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A COMMUNITY CORNERSTONE Inspired by great urban eateries nationwide, Osprey Tavern brings upscale cuisine and a homey ambiance to Baldwin Park. And it reflects the travels of its adventurous owner.

BY RONA GINDIN PHOTOGRAPHS BY RAFAEL TONGOL

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ason Chin was at a loss for words. The owner of Baldwin Park’s Seito Sushi knew he wanted his next restaurant to be a warm yet grand urban tavern with a familiar yet ambitious menu. Articulating that vision,

however, was a challenge.

Then Chin happened to come across the The Gramercy Tavern Cookbook (Clarkson Potter, 2013), a lavish book compiled by Michael Anthony, executive chef and partner at the cozy-but-chic Manhattan mainstay. This year Anthony won one of the most prestigious culinary honors in the U.S. — the James Beard Award as Outstanding Chef.

But it wasn’t so much Anthony’s recipes that inspired Chin. It was the introduction, written by legendary restauranteur Danny Meyer, whose über-successful Union Square Hospitality Group owns Gramercy Tavern and founded Shake Shack.

“It talked about striving for the restaurant to be a cornerstone of the community,” Chin recalls. “That struck a chord with me.”

When Osprey Tavern opened in March, Chin embraced the entire new urban tavern milieu. “I wanted guests to be able to have a nice time in a classy place that’s comfortable and feels like an extension of home,” he says.

“But I wanted a chef-driven menu.”

He didn’t see much competition. “The Orlando dining landscape has very few places that offer a unique, higherlevel culinary experience without breaking the bank,” notes Chin.

Add Osprey Tavern to that relatively short list.

At the center of the restaurant’s bustling dining room is an enormous bar. The kitchen is exposed and the space is bright, with light oak floors, a white marble bar and brass accents plus weathered wood from a century-old Midwestern barn.

The space feels like it’s been around forever. Yet it also exudes a contemporary energy, thanks to Chin’s wife, Sue, an interior designer. “If you use too many of the surface materials displayed at trade shows, the restaurant can feel commercial,” Chin says. “We were going for inviting and original. I think we nailed that.”

Complementing the colors are handpicked accessories including art, antiques and vintage luggage.

“We see the luggage as symbolic of our travels, which inspired this restaurant,” Chin adds. “We travel primarily to eat, and we were trying all these fantastic places. We were in awe of the dining scenes in places like Chicago, Atlanta and New York.”

In particular, the Chins were impressed with restaurants that offered “a kind of rustic approach to cuisine, but where the food was very well-executed.”

Examples included Chicago’s The Purple Pig and The Publican, New York’s Gramercy Tavern and Minetta

Elevated Eclectic Cuisine

Photos by Corner House Photography

Let our favorite dishes from around the world become yours.

Winter Park - 319 Park Avenue South - 407.645.2475

Find special offers, book reservations & see gift card promotion at parkplazagardens.com.

Recently named

“Best Hotel Restaurant” by the Orlando Sentinel Inspired by the Holidays: Local Cocktails and New Chef Creations, including Roasted Duck with Braised Red Cabbage and Potato Dumplings.

The “peas and carrots” dessert is a take on the savory side dish served with brown butter ice cream.

 Condé Nast Traveler’s Reader’s Choice  Award-Winning Hotel with MuseumQuality Art and Beautiful MediterraneanStyle Atmosphere  Relax on our Patio and Enjoy the Sights and Sounds of Winter Park Visit us at www.TheAlfondInn.com or on Facebook

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Located in beautiful Winter Park just steps from historic Park Avenue 300 E. New England Avenue

407-998-8090 www.TheAlfondInn.com

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Tavern, and San Francisco’s Wayfare Tavern.

For his new restaurant, Chin invited Joseph Burnett to head the kitchen. Burnett was most recently chef de cuisine at The Ravenous Pig. He also spent several years at Norman’s in the same position.

“It was time for Chef Joe to take the limelight,” Chin says, noting that Burnett’s success had previously been in support of other highprofile chefs.

Together, Burnett and Chin created a menu meant to appeal to both traditionalists and more adventurous diners. “Some people will always order the burgers or roast chicken,” Chin says.

“And we’ll cater to them and make them feel welcome. But we both want to try to steer the culinary landscape here in Orlando.”

Chin has provided Burnett with top-of-theline tools. For starters, the chef has use of a Josper grill, a European-inspired wood-fired contraption. “It allows for the ultimate expression of rustic cooking,” Chin says. Even peel-and-eat

shrimp is enhanced by a Josper charring.

Pizzas doughs, which take two days to make, are baked in a domed stone hearth oven. The pies may be topped with eggplant caponata, lamb neck tikka or ham and cheese, for starters.

That eggplant caponata, like most Osprey dishes, is far from simple. The base consists of smoked, roasted and puréed eggplant mixed with rosemary and orange zest. Topping it is sautéed eggplant braised in burnt honey, caramelized onion and tomato.

“It’s our way of using this underappreciated summer vegetable,” says Burnett.

The steak dinner for two is plenty popular.

But diners looking for a more unusual culinary experience can find an array of interesting entrées. For example, the Alaskan king salmon is dusted with a French four-spice (ginger, nutmeg, clove and white pepper) and served atop gnudi — a type of gnocchi made from butter, flour, herb purée and eggs — as well as black radish, artichokes and lobster broth.

Tagliatelle, a pasta, is a creamy concoction you’ll also want to try. The pasta, made with Seminole pumpkin, is tossed with Béarnaise sauce enriched with pumpkin juice and lemon.

Desserts are serious at Osprey Tavern, too.

Instead of serving a simple carrot cake, Pastry Chef Kristy Carlucci concocted “peas and carrots,” with cake made from rainbow carrots “that are not only aesthetically pleasing but have a more intense carrot flavor,” says Carlucci.

Sharing the plate is a sweet-pea sponge cake with fresh pea shoots, which provide a crunch.

Candied, dehydrated carrot shavings, which Carlucci calls “confetti,” add texture. Carrot curd and brown butter ice cream completes the dish.

If the crowd on a recent Friday evening was any indicator, then Osprey Tavern is becoming the culinary destination Chin had hoped for.

Some, however — usually social media “reviewers” who’ve clearly never been to the kind of places that inspired Chin — question why “tavern” is in the restaurant’s name.

The rest of us have no problem with it. We just order a craft cocktail, a burger or a Wagyu tartare with smoked mayo — and let our neighbors catch up to “tavern’s” evolved definition.

Pizzas have unusual toppings, such as eggplant caponata laced with orange zest.

OSPREY TAVERN 4899 New Broad St., Baldwin Park (407) 960-7700 • ospreytavern.com

“Award Winning Cuisine” — 2014 Silver Spoon Award

Reserve a private space for any Special Occasion

o

LIKE us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter

Dine al fresco on our Courtyard Terrace

o

W inter Park 400 South Orlando Avenue • 407-644-7770 Reservations online at www.roccositaliangrille.com FA L L 2 0 1 5 | W INT ER PARK MAGAZ IN E

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EVENTS ART, HISTORY, ENTERTAINMENT AND MORE

Brush with Greatness

Study Without Violin by Hal McIntosh

A founder of the Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival, an accomplished art instructor, an acclaimed local painter and a former director of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens all currently have work on view in a show at the Polasek. These people, incidentally, are actually the same person: Hal McIntosh. McIntosh, who maintains studios in both Winter Park and Cape Cod, is the first artist to be featured in Art Legends of Orange County, a yearlong, multi-exhibition celebration of the county’s prominent art and artists. Born in 1927, McIntosh began painting at the age of 5. In the eight decades since, his Asian-influenced work has embraced a wide variety of subjects and techniques, exploring such forms as portraiture, still life, landscape and abstraction. “If there’s a message in the body of my work,” McIntosh has said, “I hope it conveys my love for the subjects that I paint, and that each work combines line, color and form to project a sense of tranquility and respect for its subject.” The Art of Hal McIntosh continues through Nov. 29. The museum is located at 633 Osceola Ave. in Winter Park. Regular admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and $3 for students. For further information, call 407-647-6294 or visit polasek.org.

— Jay Boyar

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EVENTS VISUAL ARTS The Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens.

Although the 54-year-old museum is dedicated to preserving the works of the famed Czech sculptor, it also stages frequent exhibits from internationally renowned artists working in all mediums. Continuing through Nov. 29, Art Legends of Orange County: The Art of Hal McIntosh, celebrates the influential Winter Park artist — now in his late 80s and still prolific — whose wide artistic range includes portraits, landscapes and abstracts. (For more information, see page 80.)

Regular admission to the museum, which was Polasek’s home from 1949 until his death in 1965, is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $3 for students and free for children. 633 Osceola Ave. 407-647-6294. polasek.org.

Art & History Museums-Maitland. The Maitland Art Center at 231 W. Packwood Ave., one of five museums that anchor the city’s Cultural Corridor, was founded as an art colony in 1937 by visionary American artist and architect André Smith. The center, which offers exhibits and classes, is one of the few surviving examples of Mayan Revival architecture in the Southeast and has recently been named a National Historic Landmark, the only such landmark in the four-county region. Regular monthly events include Family Days at the Museum, held the third Saturday of each month at 1 p.m.; Artists’ Critique and Conversation, held the fourth Tuesday of each month at 6 p.m.; and Ladies’ Art Lounge, held the first Friday of each month at 7:30 p.m. Additional components of the complex include the Maitland Historical Museum and the Telephone Museum, both located at 221 W. Packwood Ave. The Historical Museum’s permanent exhibit, Maitland Legacies: Creativity and Innovation, uses archival photographs, artifacts and documents to commemorate the city’s founding families and earliest institutions. The fourth and fifth components of the complex are the Waterhouse Residence Museum and the Carpentry Shop Museum, both built in the 1880s and located at 820 Lake Lily Drive. 407-539-2181. artandhistory.org.

Art on the Green. The City of Winter Park and the Public Art Advisory Board have teamed to mount an exhibition of large-scale sculptures in Central Park featuring the works of seven noted artists with ties to Florida. The exhibition runs Nov. 1-March 1, 2016.

Begin your tour at the Central Park Rose Garden, located near the intersection of Park and New England avenues, or from anywhere in Central Park. Art on the Green is organized by guest curator Suzanne Delehanty, founding director of the Miami Art Museum (now Pérez Art Museum Miami). For more information, visit cityofwinterpark.org.

Cornell Fine Arts Museum. Located on the campus of Rollins College, the museum houses one of the oldest and most eclectic collections of fine art in Florida. Weekend tours take place at 1 p.m. every Friday, Saturday and Sunday, although not all in the same place. The Saturday and Sunday tours are at the museum on the Rollins campus, while the Friday tour is at the nearby Alfond Inn, which features dozens of works from the museum’s Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art. Happy Hour art tours of the Alfond Collection are also conducted the first Wednesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. Upcoming dates are Oct. 7, Nov. 4 and Dec. 2. The museum’s continuing exhibition, Ongoing Conversations: Selections from the Permanent Collection, aims to inspire dialogue about art created during disparate eras and among various cultures. Works are grouped under four broad thematic categories: “Religion Redefined,” “Gesture and Pose,” “A Sense of Place,” and “History and Myth.” Fall exhibitions include Jess T. Dugan: Every Breath We Drew, featuring photographic portraits that explore issues of gender,

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sexuality, identity and community; Fashionable Portraits in Europe, featuring five centuries of portraiture tracing the evolution of European fashion; and Enduring Documents: Photography from the Permanent Collection, featuring the works of such pioneering photographers as Matthew Brady, Gertrude Käsebier and F. Holland Day. All three exhibitions continue through Jan. 3, 2016. Other fall events include: a lecture by art historian Diane Wolfthal on “Foregrounding the Background: Portraits of Servants in Early Modern Europe” (Oct. 1 at 6 p.m.); a lecture by art historian Margaret Denny on “Women and NineteenthCentury Photography” (Oct. 22 at 6 p.m.); an exhibition tour led by Denny (Oct. 23 at 11 a.m.); and a lecture and exhibition tour led by artist Jess T. Dugan (Nov. 5 at 6 p.m.).

On Nov. 12 at 6 p.m. the museum’s director, Ena Heller, delivers a lecture on the history of religious art entitled “Sources, Symbols and Secrets.” Heller is an expert on the subject, having founded and for 15 years directed New York’s Museum of Biblical Art. And on Nov. 13-14, the museum holds its annual Seasonal Social and Open House, adding a kid-friendly CFAMily Day on the afternoon of Nov. 14. Admission remains free through 2015, courtesy of Dale Montgomery, Class of 1960. 407-646-2526. rollins. edu/cfam.

Crealdé School of Art. Established in 1975, this notfor-profit arts organization offers year-round visual arts classes for all ages taught by more than 40 working artists. (The first fall session has already started, but the second fall session runs from Oct. 19-Dec. 12.)

There are ongoing exhibits in the William and Alice Jenkins Gallery and the Showalter Hughes Community Gallery. Admission to the galleries is free, although there are fees for art classes. 600 St. Andrews Blvd.

407-671-1886. crealde.org.

Hannibal Square Heritage Center. Established in 2007 by the Crealdé School of Art in partnership with residents of Hannibal Square and the City of Winter Park, the center celebrates the city’s historically African-American west side with archival photographs, original artwork and oral histories from longtime residents. On Oct. 9, a life-cast sculpture of Tuskegee Airman Richard Hall Jr. will be dedicated. Hall, who grew up in the Hannibal Square neighborhood, will be on hand along with the sculptor, Rigoberto Torres, for the 7 p.m. ceremony. The center also hosts visiting exhibitions. Continuing through Dec. 30 is a traveling exhibit, The Sum of Many Parts: Quiltmakers in Contemporary America, which features the work of some of America’s top quilters.

The display will include locally created quilts curated

by UCF professor and folklorist Dr. Kristin Congdon.

Admission is free. 642 W. New England Ave. 407-5392680. hannibalsquareheritagecenter.org.

Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art. The museum, with more than 19,000 square feet of gallery and public space, houses the world’s most important collection of Louis Comfort Tiffany creations, including jewelry, pottery, paintings, art glass and the entire chapel interior originally designed and built for the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Opening Oct. 20 are two related exhibits: Focus Exhibition: Tiffany Studios’ Daffodil Reading Lamp concentrates on a single iconic work of Tiffany’s — its inspiration, creation, production and marketing — while Tiffany Lamps and Lighting from the Morse Collection features later lamp designs that helped extend Tiffany’s popularity worldwide. Continuing through Jan. 24, 2016 is Selections from the Harry C. Sigman Gift of European and American Decorative Art, an assortment of 86 objects donated to the museum in 2014. Continuing through Sept. 25, 2016 is Lifelines: Forms and Themes of Art Nouveau, with more than 100 objects

from the museum’s collection focusing on art, architecture and craftsmanship that was considered “modern art” in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And continuing through Sept. 24, 2017 is The Bride Elect: Gifts from the 1905 Wedding of Elizabeth Owens Morse, which features the original registry and some of the 250 gifts presented to the daughter of Charles Hosmer Morse and Martha Owens Morse by her wealthy friends. Among the surviving items include Tiffany art glass, Rookwood Pottery and Gorham silver. Ongoing exhibits include Revival and Reform: Eclecticism in the 19th-Century Environment, which encompasses two galleries. Its centerpiece is The Arts, a neoclassical window created by J. & R. Lamb Studios, a prominent American glasshouse of the late 19th century. It’s displayed with an array of leaded-glass windows and selections of art glass, pottery and furniture of the period. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors, $1 for students and free for children younger than 12. 445 N. Park Ave. 407-645-5311. morsemuseum.org.

PERFORMING ARTS Winter Park Playhouse. Winter Park’s only professional, not-for-profit theater has opened its 2015-16 season with the off-Broadway hit, The Marvelous Wonderettes, which features such classic pop songs as “It’s My Party” and “Lollipop.” The juke-box musical, set in 1958, continues through Oct. 10. Next up is Forever Plaid: Plaid Tidings, a holiday variation of the 1990 off-Broadway musical review Forever Plaid, the success of which spawned Forever Plaid: The Movie in 2009. Plaid Tidings, which features a ‘50s-style close-harmony guy group, has two runs, from Nov. 13-22 and Dec. 3-19. The season continues in 2016 with I Left My Heart, A Salute to the Music of Tony Bennett, from Jan. 22-Feb. 27; and I Love My Wife, a Tony Award-winning musical comedy, from March 18-19 and March 31-April 23. The season closes with The Fantasticks, the timeless off-Broadway musical that introduced such standards as “They Were You,” “Soon It’s Gonna Rain” and, of course, “Try to Remember.” There’ll be two runs, from May 13-22 and June 2-11. Tickets range from $15 (for students) up to $40 for evening performances. 711 Orange Ave. 407-6450145. winterparkplayhouse.org.

Annie Russell Theater. “The Annie,” which has been in continuous operation since 1932, has opened its 2015-16 season with Reefer Madness, a musical comedy based on the infamous 1938 anti-marijuana propaganda film. The show runs through Oct. 3. Next up is Tartuffe (Nov. 13-21), Molière’s hilarious French comedy, which has cracked up audiences since its debut in 1664. That’s followed by a more contemporary comedy, Expecting Isabel (Feb. 12-20, 2016), a tender and quirky exploration of marriage and parenthood. The season wraps up with the familiar Hello, Dolly! (Feb. 15-23, 2016), which is chock full of classic tunes such as “Before the Parade Passes By,” “Put on Your Sunday Clothes,” “Ribbons Down My Back” and, of course, the unforgettable title song. Tickets for the general public are $20. The Annie also features a Second Stage Series in its Fred Stone Theater, with student-produced and student-directed plays. Second Stage shows are free to the public, and seating is first-come, first served.

407-646-2145. rollins.edu/annie-russell-theatre.

FESTIVALS Winter Park Autumn Art Festival. The annual festival, celebrating its 42nd year, is the only juried art show to feature Florida artists exclusively. Held in Central Park, this community-oriented sidewalk show offers visual art, live entertainment, children’s activities and more.

The event is slated Oct. 10-11, from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. both days, and admission is free. Get a head start on the fun

Performers

“The Seal of Homebuilding Excellence” The Master Custom Builder Council is an organization that represents the area’s leading custom home builders who have pledged to maintain the highest professional standards in the home building industry, and dedicated themselves to using their craft to make Central Florida an even finer place to live.

CAHILL Castleworks Charles Clayton Construction Dave Brewer DeLorenzo Homes Derrick Builders Farina & Sons Goehring & Morgan Construction

Hannigan Homes Hardwick General Contracting J. Richard Watson Construction Company Kelsey Custom Homes McNally Homes

Phil Kean Design Group Posada Custom Homes Ray Coudriet Builder Regal Classic Homes Silliman Homes Speer Homes Stonebridge Homes The Einheit Company Woodruff Construction and Development

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

EVENTS Oct. 8, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at Mead Botanical Garden, where there’ll be a Festival Kickoff Party featuring hors d’oeuvres, beverages and live jazz by Just Three Guys and a Girl. Admission is $5 for Winter Park Chamber of Commerce members, $15 for nonmembers. 407-6448281. autumnartfestival.org / winterpark.org.

DogFest Orlando. A festival as much fun for dogs as it is for their owners, DogFest offers food, vendors and games for both two- and four-legged attendees. The free festival, held at Maitland’s Lake Lily Park, benefits Canine Companions for Independence and offers the chance for attendees to learn how assistance dogs are trained, as well as how much they mean to the children, adults and veterans who rely on them to live more independently. Nov. 21, 9 a.m.-2 p.m. 407-522-3323. cci.org/dogfestorlando.

horror thriller, will be shown on Oct. 8. (The film contains some all-time great campy movie quotes, including this description of the film’s alien monster: “An intellectual carrot! The mind boggles.”) Charlotte’s Web is shown on Nov. 12, while a double feature: How the Grinch Stole Christmas! followed by Home Alone, is slated for Dec. 4. 407-629-1088. enzian.org.

Screen on the Green. The City of Maitland is offering monthly free movies on the Maitland Middle School Field. Paddington, the British comedy about a mischievous-yet-adorable talking bear, will be screened Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m. On Nov. 7 at 7:30 p.m. it’s Disney’s Maleficent, starring Angelina Jolie, and on Dec. 12 at 6 p.m. it’s another Disney feature, the 2015 version of Cinderella. itsmymaitland.com.

FILM

HOLIDAYS

Enzian Film Series. This cozy alternative cinema offers a plethora of film series. The 21st annual South Asian Film Festival, titled Beyond Bollywood, runs from Oct. 3-5, and features films from India and Pakistan. The 17th annual Central Florida Jewish Film Festival runs from Nov. 14-17, while the 24th annual Brouhaha Film & Video Showcase runs from Nov. 21-24. Peanut Butter Matinee Family Films are shown on the fourth Sunday of each month at noon.

Upcoming films include Monster House (part of a Kid’s Halloween Party) on Oct. 25, Kiki’s Delivery Service on Nov. 29 and The Wizard of Oz on Dec. 27. Admission is $5, and a kids’ menu is offered. Saturday Matinee Classics, shown at noon on the second Saturday of each month, will feature The Haunting on Oct. 10, Grey Gardens on Nov. 14 and It’s a Wonderful Life on Dec. 12. Admission is $8, and $5 for Enzian Film Society members. Wednesday Night Picture Shows are shown on the first and third Wednesday of each month. Upcoming films include The Faculty on Oct. 7, A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on Oct. 21, Showgirls on Nov. 11, Planes, Trains & Automobiles on Nov. 18, Black Christmas on Dec. 2 and Bad Santa (the unrated, “Badder” version) on Dec. 23. Admission is free to the outdoor series, with valet parking available for $3 per car. Cult Classics are shown on the second and last Tuesday of each month at 9:30 p.m. Upcoming films include Shaun of the Dead on Oct. 13, Night of the Creeps on Oct. 27, Leon: The Professional on Nov. 10, Bring It On on Nov. 24, National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation on Dec. 8 and A Clockwork Orange on Dec. 29. Admission is $5. FilmSlam, a showcase for Florida-made short films held every month except for April and November, will be presented Oct. 11 and Dec. 6.

The Enzian celebrates Halloween throughout October: In addition to the horror films offered in the regular film series, there’ll be showings of Scanners at midnight on Oct. 10, Dracula: Prince of Darkness (starring Christopher Lee) at 8 p.m. on Oct. 14, The Descent at midnight on Oct. 17, The Howling at midnight on Oct. 24, Beetlejuice at 8 p.m. on Oct. 28 and Motel Hell at midnight on Oct. 31. Also on Oct. 31, Eden Bar will hold a Night of the Living Dead Halloween Party.

Other upcoming special events include National Theatre Live: Man and Superman on Oct. 17, the original 1932 version of The Mummy (starring Boris Karloff) on Nov. 1, Eden’s Elixir Mixer on Nov. 14, National Theatre Live: Hamlet on Dec. 5, a showing of Elf and a “Letters to Santa Event” on Dec. 13 and a screening of the 2010 Finnish horror-fantasy Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale on Dec. 19. 1300 S. Orlando Ave. 407-629-0054. enzian.org.

Howl-O-Ween Dog Walk-a-Thon and Canine Costume Contest. The second annual fundraising event features a dog walk, canine costume contest, music, vendors, raffles and more. It benefits Franklin’s Friends, a Maitland-based nonprofit that supports shelter/rescue, spay/neuter and community education projects. Oct. 24 from 9 a.m.-noon at Secret Lake Park in Casselberry. Tickets are $20 in advance, $25 at the door, or free for those who raise $100 or more. 260-693-7387. franklinsfriends.dojiggy.com.

Popcorn Flicks in the Park. The City of Winter Park and Enzian collaborate to offer free classic films for the whole family in Central Park. Popcorn Flicks, usually held on the second Thursday of each month, start around 8 p.m., although they move back an hour, to 7 p.m., starting in November. Bring a blanket and a snack.

The Thing from Another World, a 1951 science fiction

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Trick-or-Treat on Park Avenue Little ghouls and goblins are welcome to dress in costume to gather treats from participating Park Avenue merchants.

Saturday, Oct. 31, 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Free. 407-644-8281. experienceparkavenue.com.

Christmas at the Casa: Cookies, Cocoa and Carols.

The Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum holds its sixth annual holiday-themed open house on Dec. 2 from 6-8:30 p.m. Listen to carols by a Dickensian quartet, enjoy hot cocoa and cookies, and chat with St. Nick himself. The event is free, thanks to a grant from commerce National Bank and Trust. (However, there’s a suggested donation of $2 per person or $5 per family.)

You can even have your children professionally photographed with the area’s most authentic Santa, and buy a 5-by-7 print for $10. No reservations are required. 656 N. Park Ave. (adjacent to the Winter Park Country Club golf course). 407-628-8200. casafeliz.us.

Winter on the Avenue. The Winter Park Chamber of Commerce kicks off the holidays with the 26th annual Holiday Tree Lighting Ceremony in Central Park, which will also be broadcast live on WFTV Channel 9.

Bring the entire family to this free event for an evening of holiday cheer as Park Avenue is transformed into a Winter Wonderland. Dec. 4, 5-7:30 p.m. 407-6448281. winterpark.org 63rd Annual ‘Ye Olde Hometown’ Christmas Parade. A Winter Park tradition that dates back to the early 1950s, the parade is held on the first Saturday in December — Dec. 5 this year — and is the longest-running holiday parade in Central Florida. The route encompasses Park Avenue, from Cole to Lyman avenues, and starts at 9 a.m. More than 100 organizations will participate, including school marching bands, dance troupes and police and fire departments. Before and during the parade, Leadership Winter Park hosts its annual Pancake Breakfast at the Central Park stage from 7-10:30 a.m. Tickets, which are $6 for adults, $4 for children, include pancakes, sausage, coffee, milk and juice. Proceeds benefit adult and youth leadership development programs. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

Winter Park Boat Parade & Festival of Lights. The 11th annual nighttime parade of holiday-themed, dazzlingly illuminated boats starts at sundown on Dec. 12

near Lake Virginia’s Dinky Dock. It winds clockwise along the shores of Lake Virginia, navigates through the Palm Canal to Lake Osceola, and around 6:30 p.m. will pass by the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens, which is sponsoring the event along with the Rotary Club of Winter Park. The gardens are the official viewing area, where from 4 p.m. to sundown there’ll be music, face painting and other family activities. Admission is free but food, wine and beer will be available for purchase. 407-647-6294. polasek.org.

HISTORY Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum. The stunningly restored Spanish farmhouse-style home was designed by acclaimed architect James Gamble Rogers II and is now a community center and museum. Casa Feliz hosts free public open houses led by trained docents every Tuesday and Thursday from 10 a.m. to noon. On Sundays from noon to 3 p.m., in addition to tours of the home, live music is featured in the large downstairs parlor. 656 N. Park Ave. (adjacent to the Winter Park Country Club golf course). 407-628-8200. casafeliz.us.

Winter Park History Museum. With last year’s opening of a new SunRail station in Central Park, the museum takes a timely look at railroading history with A Whistle in the Distance: The Trains of Winter Park. This fascinating multimedia exhibit traces the role of railroads in Winter Park’s growth and development. Ongoing displays include artifacts dating from the city’s founding as a New England-style resort in the 1880s. Admission is free. 200 W. New England Ave. 407-644-2330. wphistory.org.

The Holocaust Memorial Resource & Education Center of Florida. The center is dedicated to combating antiSemitism, racism and prejudice with the goal of developing a moral and just community through educational and cultural programs. It houses permanent and temporary exhibit space, archives and a research library. Opening Oct. 5 is Myriam Brysk: Scroll of Remembrance, an exhibit of the newest works by Brysk, a Holocaust survivor, retired professor and writer whose art, in her words, “combines the starkness of photography with the graphic power of the computer to create an art form that combines narrative realism with expressionism.” Her exhibit runs through Dec. 30. Admission to the center’s exhibits, films and other programs is free. 851 N. Maitland Ave. 407628-0555. holocaustedu.org.

LECTURES Winter Park Institute. The institute, affiliated with Rollins College, presents lectures, readings and seminars by thought leaders in an array of disciplines. WPI’s eighth season began in September with Liberian peace activist — and co- winner of the 2011 Nobel Peace Prize — Leymah Gbowee. Next up is Levar Burton, award-winning actor, writer, producer and literacy advocate, who will appear on Nov. 5. His presentation — The Power of Storytelling: Written, Spoken, Lived — starts at 7:30 p.m. Bestselling author Bill Bryson (A Short History of Nearly Everything) follows on Feb. 22., Burton and Bryson appear at the Harold & Ted Alfond Sports Center. Adam Braun, an entrepreneur and activist in educational programs for underprivileged children, finishes up the season on April 5 at Bush Auditorium. All events are free and open to the public. Parking is available in the SunTrust parking garage, 166 E. Lyman Ave. 407-691-1995. winterparkinstitute.org.

MARKETS Maitland Farmers’ Market. This year-round, openair market — held each Sunday from 9 a.m.-2 p.m. — features fresh produce, seafood, breads and cheeses along with plants, all-natural skin-care products

Through January 3, 2016 Jess T. Dugan

Every breath we drew

Enduring Documents

Selected Photographs from the Permanent Collection

Conversations Selections from the Permanent Collection

FREE ADMISSION Courtesy of Dale Montgomery ‘60

rollins.edu/cfam

Find Us on Facebook facebook.com/CFAMrollins Follow us on aTwitter twitter@cfamrollins Instagram instagram@cfamrollins

Attributed to PAULUS MOREELSE (Dutch, 1571–1638), Portrait of a Lady, ca. 1620, Oil on canvas, Gift of the Myers family, Mr. and Mrs. John C. Myers, Jr. ‘42 and June Reinhold Myers ‘41, 1961.03

Sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture

EVENTS and live music provided by the Performing Arts of Maitland. The setting on Lake Lily boasts a serene boardwalk, jogging trails and a playground as well as picnic areas. 701 Lake Lily Drive. itsmymaitland.com.

Winter Park Farmers’ Market. The region’s busiest and arguably most popular farmers’ market is held every Saturday, 7 a.m.-1 p.m., at the old railroad depot that houses the Winter Park History Museum. The open-air market offers fine baked goods, produce, plants, honey, cheese, meat, flowers, crafts and other specialty items for sale. After shopping, make a morning of it with a stroll along nearby Park Avenue. Dogs are welcome to bring their people. 200 W. New England Ave. cityofwinterpark.org.

Market to Park. This mini-version of Winter Park’s Saturday Farmers’ Market is held on the first Tuesday of each month from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. and the first Thursday of each month from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in Hannibal Square’s Shady Park. It’s basically one big food truck stocked with fresh fruits and vegetables.

Upcoming dates are Oct. 6, Oct. 8, Nov. 3, Nov. 5, Dec. 1 and Dec. 3. 407-599-3334. cityofwinterpark.org.

MUSIC Music at the Casa. The Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum regularly presents Sunday afternoon acoustic performances, from noon to 3 p.m., in the home’s intimate main parlor. Upcoming performers include classical guitarist Troy Gifford on Oct. 4, flamenco guitarist Luis Alfredo Garcia on Oct. 11, cellist Mike Bloomer on Oct. 18 and flamenco guitarist Don Soledad on Oct. 25. Performers for November and December had not been announced at press time. Admission is free. 656 N. Park Ave., adjacent to the Winter Park Country Club golf course. 407-628-8200. casafeliz.us Choral Masterpiece Series. The Bach Festival Choir sings “Music of the Americas,” celebrating choral music from North and South America. The program at the Knowles Memorial Chapel includes the Cantata Criolla

by Antonio Estèvez, Antonin Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 and Aaron Copland’s Hoe-Down. There’ll be two performances on Oct. 17, at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25. 407-646-2182. bachfestivalflorida.org.

Visiting Artist Series. The Bach Festival Society of Winter Park presents French pianist Lise de la Salle, who’s making her Winter Park debut at Tiedtke Concert Hall on the Rollins College campus. Her program includes works

by Liszt, Beethoven, Ligeti and Brahms. Oct. 22, 7:30 p.m.

Tickets are $35. 407-646-2182. bachfestivalflorida.org.

Yonetani Concert Series 2015-2016. The Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens kicks off its 10th annual chamber concert series on Nov. 8 at 2 p.m. with internationally acclaimed violin/viola soloist Ayako Yonetani.

She’ll be performing with guest clarinetist Keith Koons, and has two more concerts slated for January and March of 2016. Admission is $30 for members, $35 for non-members. Tickets for all three concerts is $80 for members, $90 for non-members. 633 Osceola Ave. 407-647-6294. polasek.org.

Handel’s Messiah. For the 43rd consecutive year, the Messiah Choral Society of Winter Park will present a free performance of Handel’s best-known work.

More than 120 choir members will be joined by professional soloists and an orchestra led by Dr. John Sinclair, department chair and professor of music at Rollins College. The Nov. 29 concert at the Bob Carr Performing Arts Centre starts at 3 p.m. Donations are appreciated. 321-285-6382 messiahchoralsociety.org.

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A Classic Christmas. The Bach Festival Choir and Youth Choir, accompanied by the Bach Festival Orchestra, sing W I N T E R PA R K M A G AZI N E | FALL 2015

Vision

WINTER PARK Where have we come from?

Where are we now?

Where do we want to be?

Join us for these short, provocative discussions led by dynamic presenters who will challenge our ideas about the future, encourage us to move beyond our daily lives, and discuss how current trends and our changing demographics will help shape our future. Plan to stay after the presentations and socialize with the speakers and your neighbors as we continue this important conversation about how we can affect the vision of Winter Park.

“Keynotes in the Park�

at Mead Botanical Garden 1500 S. Denning Drive, Winter Park Tuesday, October 27 5:30 - 7 p.m.

Please RSVP using the QR code below, at keynoteswinterpark.eventbrite.com, or call 407-599-3665, Option 1

by Friday, October 23 Register online to participate in the process! Sign up to hear about exciting community events as well as opportunities for you to share your ideas and feedback.

407-599-3665 Option #1

visionwinterpark.org

#visionwinterpark

Christmas and holidays works in a free performance on the Central Park stage. Dec. 3, 6:15 p.m. 407-646-2182. bachfestivalflorida.org.

All is Bright: A Choral Christmas. Christmas works are performed by the Bach Festival Choir and Youth Choir, accompanied by the Bach Festival Orchestra, in the Knowles Memorial Chapel. There will be four performances over two days: Dec. 12 at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m., and Dec. 13 at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. Tickets are $25.

407-646-2182. bachfestivalflorida.org

EVENTS 9th Annual Peacock Ball. The Winter Park History Museum’s annual fundraiser, held Nov. 20, honors Debbie Komanski, executive director of the Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens. Held at the Rachel Murrah Civic Center, the ball begins with cocktails from 6-7:30 p.m., followed by dinner, dancing and an auction from 7:30-11 p.m. Individual tickets are $200; non-sponsored tables of eight are $1,000. Call 407-647-2330. wphistory.org.

Fall Sidewalk Sale. Get a head start on Winter Park’s annual Fashion Week by taking advantage of savings from 50 to 75 percent from participating merchants on, or in close proximity to, Park Avenue. The sale runs from Oct. 8-11. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

Park Avenue Fashion Week. Winter Park’s fashion and design community hosts a weeklong extravaganza of designer meet-and-greets, trunk shows, VIP parties and special events. It begins Oct. 11 and culminates Oct. 17 with a glamorous runway show inside a large air-conditioned tent at Central Park’s West Meadow.

Tickets for the runway show range from $55 to $300.

407-644-8281. parkavenuefashionweek.com.

Creating a Tranquil Zen Garden from Scratch. Lezlie Laws, founder of LifeArt, demonstrates how to build a zen garden with a 10 a.m. talk on Oct. 14 at Mead Botanical Garden. It’s sponsored by the Winter Park Garden Club.

407-644-5770. winterparkgardenclub.com.

Sip, Shop & Stroll. The Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and Park Avenue Merchants Association invite you to sip, shop and stroll while experiencing the charm of Park Avenue. With dozens of participating shops and restaurants, the event takes place Nov. 10 — rain or shine — from 5-8 p.m. Also sponsored by the nonprofit BritWeek Orlando and subtitled “British Invasion,” the event is open to adults 21 and up. Tickets are $25 and reservations are strongly encouraged.

407-644-8281. experienceparkavenue.com.

Thanksgiving Floral Arrangements and Beyond. Betty Moore, Master Flower Judge Show Judge, shows how to create Thanksgiving floral arrangements. Her talk, at Mead Botanical Garden, is Nov. 11 at 10 a.m. It’s sponsored by the Winter Park Garden Club. 407-644-5770. winterparkgardenclub.com.

GrowVember Fall Plant Sale. The debut plant sale fundraiser a year ago was so successful that Mead Botanical Garden is bringing it back. The focus is on fall gardening. The event is Nov. 21, from 8 a.m.-4 p.m.

407-765-6323. meadgarden.org.

Fun with Flowers. The Winter Park Garden Club presents a class on creating holiday floral arrangements at Mead Botanical Garden. The event is Dec. 11 at 10 a.m.

407-644-5770. winterparkgardenclub.com.

ISSUES CoffeeTalk. The free monthly gatherings, sponsored by the City of Winter Park, offer the opportunity to discuss issues and concerns with top city officials, with

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coffee supplied by Barnie’s Coffee Kitchen. Upcoming guests include Commissioner Tom McMacken on Oct. 8, City Manager Randy Knight on Nov. 12 and Fire Chief Jim White on Dec. 10. The hourlong event starts at 8 a.m. at the Winter Park Welcome Center. 407-6448281. cityofwinterpark.org.

BUSINESS Good Morning Winter Park. Hosted by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, these monthly gatherings attract attendees who enjoy coffee and conversation covering an array of community issues. Events are typically held the second Friday of each month.

Upcoming dates include Oct. 9, Nov. 13 and Dec. 11.

Networking begins at 7:45 a.m. and the program begins at 8:15 a.m. Admission is free, and a complimentary continental breakfast is served. Winter Park Welcome Center, 151 W. Lyman Ave. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

Winter Park Executive Women. Hosted by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, these monthly lunchtime gatherings feature networking opportunities for women business owners and guest speakers who address topics related to leadership development, business growth and local initiatives of special interest to women. Events are typically held the first Monday of most months. On Oct. 5, Casey Swann, publisher of ChART Magazine, will address cyber security; she’ll share her personal story of cyber-stalking and what women can do to protect themselves. On Nov. 2, Lambrine Macejewski, business manager and partner of Cocina 214, will focus on the challenges facing women entrepreneurs. And on Dec. 7, Marni Stahlman, president and CEO of Shepherd’s Hope, will talk about the organization she leads as well as her personal journey.

Admission is $20 for members, $25 for non-members; reservations required. Winter Park Welcome Center, 151 W. Lyman Ave. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

Small Business Education Series. Hosted by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce and the Small Business Resource Network, these free monthly seminars are tailored for small-business owners. Usually held the third Friday of each month, the seminars present individual speakers as well as panels that focus on ways to grow and sustain a small business.

Upcoming dates are Oct. 16 and Nov. 20. Admission is free for Chamber members, $10 for guests. Winter Park Welcome Center, 151 W. Lyman Ave. 407-6448281. winterpark.org.

Business After Hours. Sponsored by the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce, these gatherings offer members and prospective members a chance to network with one another and learn more about the local businesses that serve as hosts. Appetizers and beverages are served. Events are typically held the third Thursday of most months. The next gatherings are scheduled for Oct. 8 at Mead Botanical Garden and on Dec. 10 at a venue to be announced. Hours are 5:30-7:30 p.m. and admission is $5 for members, $15 for non-members.

407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

CAUSES Happy Hour for Hunger. Join the Winter Park Chamber of Commerce a week before Thanksgiving for a fallthemed happy hour at the Winter Park Village. The Nov. 19 fundraiser, which starts at 5:30 p.m., is for the Second Harvest Food Bank of Central Florida. It will feature drinks and appetizers provided by Winter Park Village restaurants, plus live entertainment and a photo booth.

Each $20 ticket purchased will provide up to $180 in food for hungry families. 407-644-8281. winterpark.org.

Poet David Whyte will appear at the annual GladdeningLight Symposium of the Spiritual Arts.

WORLD-RENOWNED POET, IRISH SINGERS HEADLINE SYMPOSIUM Oprah Winfrey’s favorite poet headlines the annual GladdeningLight Symposium of the Spiritual Arts, slated for Jan. 29-31, 2016 at various venues in Winter Park.

World-renowned poet David Whyte, author of seven books of poetry and four books of prose, is associate fellow at Oxford University’s Said Business School.

And he’s an unusual sort of poet in that he combines the esoteric worlds of poetry, theology and business leadership. The theme of this year’s symposium is “Solace: The Art of Asking the Beautiful Question.”

Joining Whyte — and returning to the GladdeningLight Symposium for the second consecutive year — are Owen and Moley Ó Súilleabháin, brothers from Western Ireland who sing ancient canticles and traditional Gaelic folk hymns.

The brothers, who have worked with actor Russell Crowe and director Steven Spielberg on War Horse, delighted attendees last year with their humor and musicality.

GladdeningLight is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to explore the relationship of art and spirituality through conferences, exhibits, performances, retreats and pilgrimages.

Cost is $225 for access to all events, including a Saturday evening performance by the Ó Súilleabháin brothers at Tiedtke Concert Hall on the Rollins campus. For a complete schedule of events and registration details, call 407-647-3963 or visit gladdeninglight.org.

PHOTOGRAPHY ©STEVEN ALLEN, © RAYMOND MARTINOT

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ARTSBEAT | BY MICHAEL MCLEOD

CENTRAL FLORIDA’S ARTS GROW FROM BIG APPLE’S SEEDS

I

’m in a New York state of mind. And no, that does not mean that I just got back from a sightseeing junket involving, say, the Manhattan skyline kayak tour, the Harlem Sunday-morning gospel tour, the Brooklyn famous pizza joints tour or the Sex and the City hotspots tour.

The gravitational influence of the Big Apple extends beyond the boundaries of its boroughs, particularly when it comes to the arts. NYC is the country’s cultural capital, and you can feel its influence right here in Central Florida.

These days, in fact, you can basically triangulate the arts scene by drawing an imaginary line from one influential new NYC transplant to another.

Several key figures helping to shape the Winter Park and Orlando cultural landscapes are freshly imported from The City That Never Sleeps.

Start with cellist-conductor Eric Jacobsen, the engaging, energetic, 33-year-old Brooklyn wunderkind who’s the new music director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra.

Landing Jacobsen here was the classical music equivalent of the NBA’s Orlando Magic drafting Shaquille O’Neal back in 1992. Soon after Jacobsen was hired last spring, one wide-eyed member of the orchestra’s search committee turned to me and said: “He’s already got the resumé of somebody in his 50s.”

Jacobsen, who’ll make his official conducting debut with the philharmonic in October, is a world-class cellist and co-founder of a small, independent orchestra, the Knights, and a progressive, widely acclaimed string ensemble, Brooklyn Rider.

He’s also closely involved with fellow cellist Yo Yo Ma and his Silk Road Foundation, a global initiative dedicated to seeking out and promoting promising new composers and musicians from all over the world.

Jacobsen has already bonded with the philharmonic’s talented corps of musicians. His ties to the national and international classical music scenes are certain to influence what they’ll be playing — and who they’ll be playing it with — for years to come.

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Eric Jacobsen is the 33-year-old Brooklyn wunderkind who’ll lead the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra. And he isn’t the only New Yorker influencing the local cultural scene.

Meanwhile, Orlando’s theatrical profile got a recent upgrade when Kenny Howard returned to town. Though he had local ties, for years Howard spent the vast majority of his time in NYC, where he enjoyed a successful career as a theatrical producer, winning a Tony for a revival of Porgy and Bess in 2012.

But Howard recently tired of tending to the business part of show business and decided to return to Orlando to direct, masterminding a string of edgy shows featuring local talent. The shows, staged at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts and The Abbey, have included The Flick and Heathers: The Musical. Running through Oct. 31 is Bat Boy: The Musical, a surreal, camp-horror parody.

In the visual arts, another NYC transplant, Ena Heller, has been making her mark in Winter Park since moving here three years ago to take over the helm of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College.

Heller had been the founding director of the Museum of Biblical Art — which the New York Times called “the little museum that could” — at 61st Street and Broadway. (Despite earning popular and critical acclaim, that museum closed recently when the building in which it was housed, provided by the American Bible Society, was sold.)

In Winter Park, Heller found herself in an opposite situation: an elegant welcome mat was being rolled out for her and the museum’s edgy and expansive Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, much of which is on display in the nearby Alfond Inn. (See the story on page 12.)

Now the Alfond has become an artistic outpost near one end of Park Avenue, with the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art providing a kind of complementary aesthetic bookend at the other.

Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Larry Ruggiero, the director of the Morse, also has NYC roots: He was assistant to William Butts Macomber Jr., a World War II vet, diplomat and CIA official who served as the first full-time president of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. As for the Alfond, let’s just say that if you had wanted to see the works of Deborah Kass, William Kentridge, Rosalyn Drexler or many of the other artists whose creations are on display there, you’d have had to book a flight north to do so.

It’s a measure of the growth of the arts in Central Florida that you can do your sightseeing closer to home these days.

Michael McLeod is a contributing editor for Winter Park Magazine and an adjunct instructor in the English Department at Rollins College.

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In retirement, Fannie Hillman still has what matters most.

Real estate icon Fannie Hillman has always focused her life around friends, family and the comforts of home. And, after moving to The Mayflower, she still does.

Here, Fannie enjoys the spacious luxury of her new customized apartment. She also cherishes being near her children and staying active around town. “At The Mayflower, I am so close to my family and the Winter Park community I love,” she says.

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Daughter Mary Greer and son Scott Hillman know their mother is well cared for in a safe, friendly environment. “The Mayflower’s location couldn’t be more convenient,” Scott says.

“And the staff and residents have gone out of their way to make her feel at home.”