Celebration, Florida: Disney's Pattern Book Town, Soap Snow and Mold

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

Celebration is a town in Osceola County, Florida, built by the Disney Development Company on roughly 4,900 acres at an estimated cost of $2.5 billion. CEO Michael Eisner saw it as a nod to Walt Disney's unbuilt vision of EPCOT as a real city, but planners Jaquelin T. Robertson and Robert A.M. Stern looked backward, using New Urbanism and New Classical architecture. Houses sat close to the street with mandatory front porches and hidden garages, linked by 23 miles of trails. A pattern book limited buyers to styles such as Classical, Victorian and Colonial Revival. Michael Graves designed the post office, Philip Johnson the welcome center, and Michael Bierut the street signs and manhole covers.

A lottery decided who could buy the first 350 homes and 123 apartments in 1996. Disney advertised to Black and Hispanic buyers, but the 2000 census found Celebration 88 percent white against 59 percent for Osceola County, with no subsidized housing in town; Disney instead gave the county $900,000. Celebration is a census-designated place run through community development districts and homeowner associations. Disney sold off its control, and by 2004 Lexin Capital held the town center. In 2016 the Wall Street Journal reported condo owners suing over $15 to $20 million in deferred repairs, with leaking roofs, mold and balconies propped up with two-by-fours.

• Winter events feature soap flakes pumped from hidden machines to imitate snow.
• By the 2020 census the town had over 11,000 residents, about 74 percent white and 15 percent Hispanic.
• The resort-style AdventHealth hospital is adding a five-story tower that will bring it to 427 beds.
• The Great American Pie Festival held in the town was televised on Food Network.
• Crashes into retention ponds along World Drive forced new barriers after the fact.