The critically acclaimed Chef’s Table at the Edgewater Hotel occupies a circa-1920s building in downtown Winter Garden. Nearby, Centennial Plaza hosts free Friday-night concerts.
through the broad median of Plant Street, where locals gather in conversational clusters beneath bucolic cupolas. But these days you’re just as likely to encounter either the theater crowd or the film devotees drawn to the annual Starlight Film Festival, which celebrates inventive, microbudget productions. And all the while, the future is knocking at the door, most recently in the form of a planned $2 million microbrewery and artisan market, to be built further up Plant Street.
TOWN SQUARE, CELEBRATION Photographs by Rafael Tongol
Masterfully Planned. There’s no telling how many cracks about The Stepford Wives the town of Celebration has been subjected to, particularly during its early years of development by the Disney Company. A 5,000-acre, $2.5 billion dollar masterplanned community of faux traditional homes makes an easy target. But 20 years later, CelORLANDO-LIFE.COM
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ebration has its own quirky but genuine personality, a bit of a lived-in look and a few attractions you’d be foolish to overlook. One of them is the 20-plus miles of broad walking and cycling paths that wind through the woods and around its lakes. The trail network alone is worth a visit. By day, turtles and small gators sun on the
banks of the lakes. At dusk, deer emerge from the fringes of the woods. On moonlit nights, owls call out across the treetops, marking their territories. You might need a map. Try mapmywalk. com/us/celebration-fl. Over the years, residents have imbued some of the town’s neighborhoods with the ORLANDO LIFE
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