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Celebration FL

The History of Celebration Florida – Up the Waterfall Episode 45

10 December 2020 by Suzannah Otis 2 Comments

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We rejoin our Up the Waterfall show podcast in full swing, with an episode near and dear to my heart, the history of Celebration, Florida. As you’ll see and hear in this week’s show, I followed the origins of Celebration from the start, and remember driving through the town as it was being built, and always wishing to one day call it home. I actually did, from 2011 – 2013, and enjoyed having a first-hand view of “The Town that Disney Built.”

This week we go over exactly how the town of Celebration came to be, what went into the planning, and what’s been going on since ground breaking in 1994. Celebration was born during a time of great progress in the Eisner-Wells era of the Walt Disney Company. The early 90’s saw the inception of the Disney Vacation Club, EuroDisney (now Disneyland Paris), hit movies and more. It seemed only natural that it would also see the first Disney designed and built town in America.

Here’s some of the Celebration Sales Center preview homes, from 1995 that I mentioned this on the show, see how it’s just a front facade?

Celebration preview center 1995

Whether you’ve visited, lived in, or just driven through Celebration, Florida, we think you’ll enjoy this show and the facts and tid bits we learn along the way. As mentioned on the show, we wanted to share the books we referenced on the show, in case you’d like to add them to your collection or brush up on your Celebration history. All links below are affiliate links, which means if you purchase, a small commission comes back to Zannaland to support our costs. Just click on the book cover below to see the book:

 

 

Celebration The Story of a Town by Michael Lassell
Celebration – The Story of a Town by Michael Lassell
Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture by Beth Dunlop
Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture by Beth Dunlop
CELEBRATION JOURNAL - Inaugural Issue by Carole Engle
CELEBRATION JOURNAL – Inaugural Issue by Carole Engle
The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney's Brave New Town by Andrew Ross
The Celebration Chronicles: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Property Value in Disney’s New Town by Andrew Ross
Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney's Brave New Town by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins
Celebration, U.S.A.: Living in Disney’s Brave New Town by Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins
WALT DISNEY WORLD Architecture By Disney
WALT DISNEY WORLD Architecture by Disney
Work in Progress by Michael Eisner with Tony Schwartz
Work in Progress by Michael Eisner with Tony Schwartz
Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas
Walt Disney: An American Original by Bob Thomas
Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture by Beth Dunlop
Building a Dream: The Art of Disney Architecture (earlier edition we discussed on the show) by Beth Dunlop

Be sure to check out my other posts on Celebration Florida, including the famous Pirate House and some of the holiday events mentioned on the show! Have you visited or even lived in Celebration, Florida? What did you like (or not like) about the town? Let us know!

 


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Filed Under: Disney Past, Up the Waterfall Podcast Tagged With: celebration, Celebration FL, Celebration Florida, Disney history, Disney history podcast, History of Celebration, michael eisner, Up the Waterfall, Up the Waterfall podcast

First SNOW and Tree-lighting in Celebration Florida This Saturday!

25 November 2011 by Suzannah Otis Leave a Comment

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Celebration ChristmasUPDATE: This post is from 2011, but I have updated it with the 2012 dates and event info below where noted. Enjoy the snow!

 

 

This will be our first Christmas as Celebration residents and I couldn’t be more excited. Last year, as we visited friends, the holidays were what convinced us to make this move happen and set things in motion. Now, a year later, we’re here and it’s all real. Continuing the Thanksgiving gratitude for a moment, I couldn’t be more thankful.

 

Last year, crowded as it was on the first night, seeing the horse-drawn carriages, hearing the bells from the church as we walked with our friends downtown, it was truly magical. I’m so happy we’ll be experiencing it in a different way this year, heading back to our home a mile from downtown at the end of the night. I thought maybe some out-of-town visitors or locals would like to have info on tonight’s festivities, so here’s the schedule from CelebrationTownCenter.com:

Help Kick off Now Snowing with the first snowfall of the season, a special arrival by the big man himself-Santa Claus, strolling Carolers, and a whole lot more.

Snow in Celebration
Snow at last year’s Celebration First Snow event

 

Here is the run-down for the nightly snowfall activities:

Snowfall and Events EVERY Night through December 31st (including Christmas Eve and Christmas Day) Nightly Snowfall 6, 7, 8 and 9 PM November 24th through December 31st, 2012.

Join Celebration Town Center as they kick off 14th  Annual Now Snowing event with a Tree Lighting Ceremony on November 34th from 5:30-9 PM.  This special tree lighting event will feature live music, a special entrance by Santa Claus himself, and family fun for everyone.

Now Snowing, Central Florida’s original and premier “Snowing” event, offers an all new ice rink  and a schedule filled with surprises. Now Snowing is a month long Winter Wonderland Spectacular featuring strolling Charles Dickens Carolers, photos with Santa, horse drawn carriage rides: Wagon Rides- $5.00 per person Horse and Carriage Rides- $25 for the first 2 passengers, $10 each additional, the Celebration Express train, and nightly snowfall at 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00 PM.

The ice rink will be open daily from 4:00-10:00 PM through January 2nd  – If you are a resident, make sure to ask about Resident Skate Passes or multiple-day skate passes for guests. Endless Ice-Ice Skating Rink $10.00 for a 1/2 hour minimum skate (skate rental included) 4:00-10:00 p.m. daily

In addition to the everyday fun at Now Snowing Nightly, join us for the Orlando Sentinel Celebration of Voices on December 1st and you can catch a special Radio Disney Holiday concert  and filled with surprise performances on December 8th.

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Filed Under: Disney Holidays, Disney Special Events, Florida Theme Parks & Attractions Tagged With: Celebration FL, Celebration hoilidays, Celebration snowfall, Holiday events in Orlando, Life in Celebration, living in Celebration, Snow in Florida

Arrrr, it’s The Pirate House of Celebration, Florida!

31 October 2011 by Suzannah Otis 2 Comments

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I have driven by this house for a month now, watching Neil Motti with Tri County Maintenance turn the home of Kim Hawk into this spooky pirate-filled masterpiece.  This is an annual tradition here in Celebration and just one of the many homes that go all out for holiday decor. If you are able to drive through the neighborhood (preferably before the trick-or-treating starts because traffic will be insane once 5pm hits!) be sure you check out all the neighborhoods. I’ve heard there is a house that does music synched to lights like the Halloween light show videos I posted last week, and I know of quite a few spooky residences I’ve driven by. One street got together and did themed scarecrow-like characters all paying homage to spooky or horror movies throughout the years. I thought that was brilliant and such a show of neighborly spirit around Celebration. I know I consider myself extremely lucky to count myself among Celebration’s residents and wanted to share a bit of the experience here: (click to enlarge)

Pirate House of Celebration
From crows nest to poop deck, no detail is left out!

 

Pirate House of Celebration
Is it a house, or a ship?
Pirate House of Celebration
I love the figurehead details!

 

Pirate House of Celebration
Some of the skeleton crew...

 

Pirate House of Celebration
Ye Be Warn!

 

Pirate House of Celebration
Spanish Moss makes for a perfect Halloween decoration - we used it at our own house too!

 

Pirate House of Celebration
Love this cannonball damage!

 

 

Pirate House of Celebration
The edge of the ship has some stowaways!

 

Pirate House of Celebration
I think these lanterns are my favorite detail, they look so authentic at night!

 

Happy Halloween

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Filed Under: Florida Theme Parks & Attractions, Orlando Area Attractions Tagged With: Amazing Halloween house, Celebration FL, Halloween decorations, Life in Celebration, Neil Motti, pirate halloween, Pirate House, Pirate House of Celebration, spooky house

It’s a Celebration!

9 July 2011 by Suzannah Otis 3 Comments

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Celebration AveFor many of you, this entry is not news, as I’ve talked gushed about our big move to Celebration, FL for a while now on facebook and twitter. We have been Celebration residents for exactly one week and as of yesterday, have the resident ID’s and parking stickers to prove it. I thought it would be a good time to reflect on why we wanted to move here before I explored what it’s been like to live in “The Town That Disney Built.”

Two of my favorite movies are Pleasantville and The Truman Show. Both offer a wonderful commentary on how we make our own reality and ignorance may not always be bliss, but a balance can be struck between the simple pleasures in life and our hectic day-to-day reality. I always likened Celebration to Pleasantville, while in reality it IS very similar to The Truman Show since that movie was filmed in Seaside, FL. Everything seemed perfect at first glance, but what was it really like to live there? Common sense tells us there are still mortgages and bills to pay, jobs to go to, sometimes unruly kids to manage. Add to that the fact that Celebration has from the start been a bit of its own tourist attraction since it was initially developed and owned by the Walt Disney Company, and many people chose to paint it in a bad light. The land is actually part of Kissimmee/Osceola County now (and has been for quite some time) and the downtown area buildings were sold to the Lexin Capital back in 2004. Still, tourists and locals alike flock to the downtown area for special events and festivals that take place throughout the year and sometimes just to drive around and look. Like we did for 17 years.

I can’t comment on what life was like in Celebration back when the first residents moved in, but I do recall when the announcement and groundbreaking took place. During a Walt Disney World vacation from Massachusetts back in 1994, we saw the billboards and drove over to tour the model area. Back then, the ‘houses’ were two-dimensional life-sized cutouts of homes, in the different styles Celebration neighborhoods would be offering. We dreamed and wished we could live in such a place but it ended there, after hearing how the first lots were being awarded by lottery. We (we being my mother and I at the time – I was still in college) weren’t really in any position to move to Florida…or were we? It was around that time that I decided I wanted to work for Disney and we packed up our lives, I dragged my boyfriend with me and the three of us moved to Orlando in 1995. Building was still going on then and when the home my mom bought in Orlando was under $100,000 and she put a pool in, the thought of homes starting at $200,000+ was a little intimidating at the time. But we kept dreaming and visiting the model homes, and the downtown area. We still have a postcard that was sent to us after visiting the model center, and we still have an original green “Celebration, Florida” license plate that we bought in the store back when it was on Bloom Street, secretly hoping we’d one day be residents.

Celebration FL license plate

Real life happened, my boyfriend became my fiance and then my husband, our first home was bought, our first child was born and a second one was on the way when we moved back to Massachusetts. We played “musical states” for a while before settling back in Florida in 2003. And we *still* would drive over and visit the models of North Village being built and later Artisan Park. It still seemed so out of reach, but the dream never vanished.

Fast forward to 2009, when I first began my adventures here on ZannaLand and at year’s end, was chosen for the Walt Disney World Moms Panel. My life changed completely by the end of 2009, in only good ways. Well, one bad way, the once ‘no big deal’ one-hour commute from our home north of Tampa to Walt Disney World had now become a gas-guzzling, time-burning ordeal that caused cries of “Do we HAVE to?” from my previously Disney-fied children. I know, this is completely a ‘first world problem’ and not something I am truthfully complaining about. But over time, I was making the commute more and more frequently and as my colleagues and friends expanded, the wheels began to turn with the thought, “Can we move back to Orlando? Should we?”.

When we moved to the Tampa area in 2005, it was for a job transfer my husband had received. Originally, he was put up in an executive-stay hotel and would come home on the weekends. We visited him during spring break of my oldest son’s first year in school, and decided we actually really liked the area. As much as the Metro-Orlando area had SO.MUCH.STUFF.TO.DO. the area we were looking in was much more laid back, and rural. The town we moved to was pretty much one big cow pasture that was slowly getting developed into subdivisions and businesses. Then the bottom dropped out of the market and development came to a screeching halt – including the promised amenities of our own subdivision, which were the major reason we bought the home we did. It became increasingly easier to look for a new path. And 17 years after that first ‘if only…’ that path led right down Celebration Avenue.

Market Street Celebration
Market Street in the heart of downtown Celebration

Now of course, we still thought it was impossible. But I’d always said, as we left Orlando in 2005 that if we came back, I’d be very picky about where we lived. It’s especially hard with kids in school…we didn’t want to move someplace temporarily and then have the kids transfer if we changed school zones. In addition, my husband had to secure a job in this area, or risk an even longer commute than he currently had. We just sort of put the idea “out there” into the Universe and decided to see if things could come together. If they could, great, if not, we would stay put. In the meantime, we had friends that lived in Celebration (lots of friends actually) so we knew it was more than just a tourist attraction and the fears I had of living so close to Kissimmee’s 192 were assuaged when we’d stay at our friends’ house and realize how secluded and insulated the town really was.

The stars aligned for the home we found. The realtor told us about it 4 months before it was really going to be available, but the people leaving had a newly built house to go to and were able to leave early. It fit every criteria we had and it also had every item I’d ever wanted in a ‘dream home’. The icing on the cake – it was less than a mile to my husband’s new job. He could walk to work if he wanted to! So while I’ve been saying for 2 years now that dreams do come true and people might be sick of that…I’m living proof that they really do.

We’ve already experienced quite a bit in the short time we’ve been living here and I’ll go into some of my impressions in the next update.

 

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Filed Under: Family Memories, Florida Theme Parks & Attractions Tagged With: Celebration FL, living in Celebration, moving, planned communities, Pleasantville, the town that disney built, The Truman Show

Celebrating the 4th in Celebration!

6 July 2011 by Suzannah Otis 2 Comments

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I’ve got some catching up to do with writing on ZannaLand but I’ve been busy packing up and moving a whole hour away from our former home outside of Tampa, FL to our new home in Celebration, FL. It’s been a dream of my husband and I to live here since ground was broken in Celebration back in 1994. I’ll be writing about our experiences soon, but until then, enjoy these two photos from our first Fourth of July celebration in Celebration!

Celebration FL 4th
Market Street in Celebration, FL

 

Celebration FL 4th
Over-looking the lake in downtown Celebration
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Filed Under: Family Memories, Walt Disney World Tagged With: 4th of July, Celebration FL, Family Memories, family photos, Fourth of July, moving

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