Highland Manor: When worlds, eras collide
As the story goes, a lovers’ quarrel once erupted into gunfire on the landing between the first and second floors of Apopka’s Highland Manor.
At least, so Steve Gunter has heard. The details of the fight that played out in the historic city-owned Victorian mansion at U.S. Highway 441 and State Road 436 have long since faded. But over the years the turreted mansion has certainly accumulated its share of romantic secrets in its varied uses as a restaurant and wedding venue. It’s the perfect place to tie the knot, he said.
“It’s a bride’s dream,” said Gunter, founder of Dubsdread Catering. “People want a place that’s interesting.”
Under his watch, the number of weddings has more than tripled, from 27 in 2012 to 91 in 2015, according to a spokeswoman for Gunter’s company. However, looming over this success is a massive development project that promises to reshape the venerable home and the city whose history it represents.
While the manor now sits next to Martin’s Pond amid clusters of trees, city leaders have visions of transforming the tranquil spot into a city center crammed with shoppers, diners and dog-walkers.
As a wedding venue it doesn’t
generate much in the way of jobs and commerce, Mayor Joe Kilsheimer said. The city bought the property in 2006.
“A more intensive use of that very high-profile and very pretty piece of ground is going to benefit the residents of Apopka,” Kilsheimer said.
Plans for a city center have been under negotiation for months between Apopka officials and Taurus Southern Investments, the potential developers. One lingering question is what to do with Highland Manor, said Jeff McFadden, managing director at Taurus.
As is, the manor grounds eat up too much of the future city center site, McFadden said. Destroying the home is out of the question to city leaders, City Administrator Glenn Irby said.
But it could be relocated to another part of the city or moved a short distance to remain within the shopping and recreation complex, McFadden said.
“I think it could fit into the character of the project,” he said.
The home framed in cypress and hard pine in the early 20th century has already been picked up and moved once in its lifetime.
Former City Commissioner Bill Arrowsmith remembers the home getting cut into sections in the 1980s and hauled late at night through Apopka’s streets “like a parade,” residents camped out in chairs along the route.
In its second location near the confluence of U.S. 441 and State Road 436, several efforts have been made to transform it into a longlasting restaurant. After Townsend’s Plantation closed in 1997, it sat dormant for years. Since the city purchased it, an eccentric surf-and-turf establishment called The Captain and the Cowboy and later Arrowsmith’s restaurant (not named after the city commissioner) folded after struggling to fill dining tables.
In 2011, the second of two restaurant-catering businesses evicted by the city left behind $300,000 in back rent and dozens of weddings on the calendar. With no one to run the ceremonies, the city considered canceling them and returning tens of thousands of dollars in deposits to disappointed lovebirds, Arrowsmith said.
Amid the turmoil, Gunter stepped in as interim caterer so the booked weddings could happen as planned. The manor’s awkward entrance onto U.S. 441 made him unwilling to run a restaurant from the building, although transportation improvements for the town center could change the game, he said.
But the manor could provide the city center project with the flavor developers are hoping to capture.
“If I was going to build a town center, I would want something with atmosphere,” Gunter said. “To me, you’ve got a perfectly good start here.”
In the meantime, prospective brides and grooms are flocking to the rambling venue. Since Gunter took over, past deficits have turned into a small profit for Apopka, which pockets about $15,000 each month in rental fees. The city pays $3,000 to $5,000 a month for utilities and takes care of major maintenance. Irby said the operation is now running in the black.
Ashley Santiago-Lyle is one of the brides who has exchanged vows beneath the ancient oak that spreads its branches a few steps away from the home’s wraparound porch. At the manor, she was able to plan a refined ceremony followed by a beer-themed reception with hop plants decorating the tables, kegs of craft brew and dancing into the night.
“At Highland, you can keep it classy and upscale at the ceremony part, but when you’re ready to have fun and let loose, you can let your personality show,” the Orlando resident said.