Calendar contest highlights Orlando’s varied architecture
The end of May means we’re also at the end of national Historic Preservation Month, which the National Trust for Historic Preservation created almost 50 years ago to promote the value of historic architecture.
The celebration reminds me of a tour of Orlando neighborhoods during May a few years ago, when the Florida Trust for Historic Preservation’s annual conference met in the City Beautiful.
Driving through Thornton Park and other areas, preservation experts from around the state gaped with surprise at the wealth of historic architecture lining the streets of a city many of them had never really seen.
Orlando’s Historic Preservation Board has chosen the range of the city’s historic architectural styles as the topic of the board’s 2021 calendar.
So it’s time to get snapping, to enter your photos in the annual contest for the popular black-and-white calendar the board has produced since 1991. The deadline is 5 p.m. July 30.
Victorian to Modern
The 2021 calendar will celebrate historic architectural styles popular throughout Orlando, from the earliest Victorian houses built in the 1880s to Mid-Century Modern designs built in the 1960s.
That includes a great many styles, including not only Victorian and Mid-Century but “Greek Revival, Gothic Revival, Italianate, Colonial Revival, Dutch-Colonial Revival, Craftsman, Bungalow, Prairie, Mediterranean Revival, Four-Square, Tudor Revival, Art Deco, Art Moderne, International, and Minimum Traditional,” notes Heather Bonds, Orlando’s historic preservation officer.
I need to study up on some of them. I do know that the English word “bungalow” originated in India, where it was applied to a small house with a wide veranda. The bungalow style became one of the most popular architectural styles throughout Orlando’s historic districts.
The earliest homes and commercial buildings in those districts date from the 1880s and 1890s, when Orlando was a small citrus town. Many sprang up “during the city’s several building booms,” Bonds notes, “particularly during the 1920s, mid-1940s after World War II and in the 1960s.”
“These bursts of new construction brought new styles, influences and materials to Orlando. The area also attracted notable architects such as James Gamble Rogers II, Murry S. King, Samuel Stoltz, Ida Ryan, Isabel Roberts, Howard Reynolds and Richard Boone Rogers.”
Artist and architect
One of the most distinctive builders in that list, Sam Stoltz, left a legacy of charming homes and artwork in Central Florida, often in homes he created in association with developer Carl Dann, founder of Dubsdread Golf Club in Orlando.
The beamed ceiling and large stone fireplace in the banquet hall at Dubsdread’s Tap Room are Stoltz’s work. His designs of ibises and flamingos once adorned Orlando’s Angebilt Hotel lobby. Storybook houses designed by Stoltz are tucked away in
Orlando areas.
The city’s historic areas also include “Lake Cherokee, Lake Copeland, Lake Lawsona, Lake Adair-Lake Concord, Colonialtown South and Lake Davis,” Bonds notes, “which developed between the 1910s and 1960s, with homes that serve as fine examples of the wide range of architectural styles. The Downtown Historic District also serves as a visual evolution of Orlando’s architectural styles.
If you enter
To be eligible for the calendar, subject matter should represent structures at least 50 years old and within Orlando’s city limits. Historic preservation staff members will help with labeling the architectural style.
A $100 honorarium will be awarded to each photographer whose picture is selected for the calendar, sponsored by McCoy Federal Credit Union. For questions, contact Heather Bonds at 407-246-3416 or heather.bonds@orlando.gov.