White Gate Court is what you’d call a “human-friendly resort” — as in, it’s really a place for dogs and they tolerate humans. I wrote about it a few years ago for the summer guide, because I figure any place that loves worships dogs like I do is a place CL readers may want to visit.
They’re our next stop down US 1 as we head towards Ground Zero (Cudjoe Key, around MM 20) and I’m nervous about what I’ll find. Things have been more positive than I expected, rehab-wise, thus far, but when we tried to schedule a vacation at White Gate in late October, they still hadn’t reopened after Irma. As we motor towards the end of Islamorada, I notice more and more fences blown over and not yet put right; more land cleared where you sort of assume, after two or 20 of such lots, ill-advised landscaping may have blown over and taken out a few things. I almost don’t want to see how one of my favorite places in the Keys has fared, but I need to know.
As we pull in the (long, long) drive, the first thing I notice is a pile of rubble, but the cottages themselves remain. And — this is a bright spot, I think — many actually look better. We let the dogs out of the car (totally what you do here) and Calypso bounds towards the office, where Fred rushes out to greet her (I’d like to think it’s her animal magnetism, but in reality, it’s probably Fred’s little wiener talking). Jane, the manager, greets me warmly and shows me the property. Yes, she says, the cottages had damage, but they took the opportunity to upgrade and fix things, which is why they remained closed as long as they did (and, also, for a great deal of it, the Keys had unreliable internet and phone service).
Post-Irma: New floors, new paint, a new kitchen and bathroom repairs. Not ideal why it happened, but clearly it’s a big upgrade. Photo by Cathy Salustri.
She’d told me two years ago their biggest challenge was finding time to make upgrades, because they only have seven cottages and they remain full most of the year. Closing for the aftermath of Irma have them the chance to make repairs and upgrade.
After a tour of the property and Calypso and Fred have enough time to buddy around, I bid Jane goodbye and continue south.
I’m hoping everything I find next has a similar happy ending, but I’m concerned it will not.
Six months after Hurricane Irma ravaged the Florida Keys in 2017, Cathy Salustri explored the chain of islands to see what damage remained. This piece originally appeared at Creative Loafing. Read the next in the series here, or, if you haven’t yet, go back and start at the beginning.
The Alfond is big on art — and on helping fund Rollins students’ educations.
When I lived in Winter Park 24 years ago, I didn’t appreciate the history of the place — I was too caught up in its charm. It’s still charming, but, after doing some research on Henry Plant, I have a new appreciation for why Winter Park exists. As with many things in Florida — especially in the middle of the state — the reason goes back to the railroad.
“No,” says our boat captain as we putter around Lake Osceola and Lake Virginia, “Plant never had a hotel here.” The Winter Park Scenic Boat Tours offer great views of the small town’s stately lakeside homes, but historians their captains aren’t: Not only did Henry Plant build a hotel on Lake Osceola, he built it pretty much where they launch their boats. Seems like the kind of history a tour boat captain should know.
Rachel Simmons, the archivist at the Winter Park Public Library, did some digging and told me that Plant’s Seminole Hotel was a stone’s throw from the present-day Alfond Inn, where E. New England Ave. dead-ends on Lake Virginia. The Seminole was so large it stretched from Lake Virginia to Lake Osceola — ending, she tells me, at the Scenic Boat Tours’ current dock.
The Seminole was one of a string of hotels built across Florida as part of Henry Plant and Henry Flagler’s frenemie-ship. These two men had significant wealth, and they used it to build rival empires in Florida. The stakes were high for the burgeoning state, but for the men, Florida was their playground, a place where they could continuously one-up each other. For example: The Seminole, built in 1885, had 200 rooms. Flagler opened St. Augustine’s Ponce de Leon Hotel three years later with 400 rooms. In 1888, Plant started work on the Tampa Bay Hotel, which would have 500 rooms, with new features: a horse-racing track and 70-foot-long pool. Flagler responded in St. Augustine by opening the Alcazar with a full gymnasium, a 120-foot-long pool, a bowling alley and an archery range. Both men wanted to build the largest wooden structure in the world, and Flagler earned that honor with the 1894 Hotel Royal Poinciana in Palm Beach — but Plant came in second with the 1896 Belleview Biltmore.
The Seminole hotel, built by Henry Plant. COURTESY THE WINTER PARK PUBLIC LIBRARY — ARCHIVE.WPPL.ORG
Winter Park was part of this playing field. In 1880, the census didn’t count Winter Park as a separate entity, simply as part of the larger Precinct 2, perhaps because of the lack of people. By 1890, thanks in large part to the Plant railroad, Winter Park had a population of 270. In 2010, the census counted 27,852 people — an increase of 10,000 percent. The Seminole had 250 rooms, launches, billiard rooms, a bowling alley, stables, private bathrooms and panoramic views of the wilderness from which this magnificent hotel insulated the guests. People would arrive in Winter Park courtesy of the Plant railroad, and mule-driven cars would take them to the hotel’s front door. It was an oasis of luxury at the edge of the Florida frontier, visited by the elite.
The Seminole burned down in 1902, and a second, smaller one took its place in 1912, lasting until 1970. And that, it might seem, would be the end of grand hotels built with great wealth in Winter Park.
Except it isn’t. A stone’s throw from the original Seminole, Rollins College built and owns a hotel with modern luxuries — not quite the equivalent of The Seminole, but certainly luxurious enough. The hotel’s amenities aren’t the reason we write about it, though; it’s the way the hotel operates that make this a destination in Winter Park. A $12.5 million-dollar grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation (Harold Alfond’s daughter-in-law, Barbara Lawrence Alfond, met Harold Alfond’s son, Ted, when they both attended Rollins in the 1960s) made provisions for building the 112-room hotel, with all the profit going to scholarships for Rollins students (a four-year education at Rollins costs $230,000, slightly higher than Eckerd College and slightly lower than Harvard). To date, the Alfond Inn has funded $4.9 million in scholarships for 35 students.
While Plant decorated his hotels with art and sculpture he collected in Europe (trying, one might assume, to outdo Flagler, who hired Louis Tiffany to design the interior of the Ponce de Leon hotel), the Alfond takes another tactic: The hotel is, literally, an art museum. Paintings, mixed media, photographs and sculpture adorn every floor, and not typical hotel art either. Ted and Barbara Alfond, with their curator, Abigail Ross Goodman, bought 240 pieces and donated it to the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College. From this collection — the Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art — the Alfond rotates pieces throughout its public spaces. Jaume Plensa’s steel-and-stone “The Hermit XI” adorns the outdoor area, lit at night to showcase the steel alphabet letters that comprise the human form. The collection also includes “Sharbat Gula, Afghan Girl, Pakistan,” the stunning Steve McCurry photo that graced the cover of National Geographic. As the Alfond notes in its promotional materials, the variety within the collection is intended as a “visual syllabus” for a liberal arts education. The hotel is a grand gallery in intimate places; while waiting for the elevator, Rachel Perry’s 2010 “Lost in My Life (Wrapped Books)” enchanted me.
As with Henry Plant’s grand hotel, the Alfond welcomes the public — to eat, drink or browse.
After all, it’s a Winter Park tradition.
If you go The Alfond Inn 300 E. New England Ave., Winter Park. $229-$389. 407-439-0820. thealfondinn.com.
Also in Winter Park Albin Polasek Museum & Sculpture Gardens 633 Osceola Ave., Winter Park. $5. 407-647-6294. polasek.org.
Bosphorous Turkish Cuisine 108 S. Park Ave., Winter Park. 407-644-8609. bosphorousrestaurant.com.
Calypso and I tour the Sunshine State every chance we get. Here’s how I keep her cool.
Since Calypso came home with me, she’s been my constant companion in all sorts of endeavors; her stubby wiener legs have seen more excitement than most. She’s better at paddleboarding than most dogs, “works” as CL’s Barketing Director, and has her own Twitter and Facebook pages.
“She’s so calm!” people exclaim when they see her. “How did you do that?”
She’s not calm, I joke with people; she’s exhausted. While it’s tempting to think of her as a human companion, she isn’t — she not only has more fur (even if I am Italian), she can’t verbalize her needs. In the summer, that means I need to take extra steps to keep her healthy, safe and hydrated. Here’s what I’ve learned about keeping a hot dog chill in the summer:
• Seeing red! When we kayak, I tie a red bandana around her neck. If something should go horribly wrong, the red is highly visible from above and afar. Also, I can periodically remove it from her, dip it in the water, and wring it out over her fur.
• Along those lines, think about your pup’s fur: I had a Dalmatian once, and I had to put sunscreen on her snout and behind her ears when we went to the beach. White fur lets the skin underneath burn. Calypso has long black and tan fur, so sunburn isn’t an issue, but it gets wicked hot; I try and keep her fur wet when we’re outside so she doesn’t overheat (if you have a dark-furred dog, feel his fur after a 15-minute walk in July and you’ll see what I mean).
• Watch the paws! Fur isn’t the only thing that gets hot; your dog’s paw pads can burn, too. I learned this the hard way, and there’s nothing that breaks your heart more than a dog limping because of blisters on her paws. Here’s an easy way to tell if the pavement’s too hot: Place your palm on it. If it burns your palm, it will burn your dog’s paws.
• Pups need water. You can buy all sorts of collapsible dishes, and if you’re outside in the summer odds are you have a water bottle with you already. At a minimum, carry a water bottle with a top your dog can use for a bowl. How can you know if your pooch is dehydrated? Pull a but of her skin away from her body; if it snaps back right away, she’s fine. If it takes a second or longer to go back into place, she needs water.
• Give them pupsicles. If you have a dog that won’t drink when he’s warm, look into pupsicles — doggy popsicles. They keep pups hydrated but your dog feels like he’s getting a food treat. Win/win.
• Lifejackets are a (sometimes uncomfortable) necessity on a boat, especially for a dog. It didn’t take our dogs too long to get used to theirs, but they do get hot inside all that lifesaving gear. Keep your dogs’ fur wet, keep them hydrated and, every chance you get, tell them they look cute.
This article originally appeared in Creative Loafing.
