- [Announcer] This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota.

- [Woman] Festive lights, great food, local shopping.

If you're on the hunt for an extra special gift, or just need a little getaway this holiday season, we may have just the place for you.

Visit Mount Dora a small town with huge charm coming up next.

(upbeat music) - West Central Florida boast a variety of lifestyles and settings, whether you're drawn to the historic charm of downtown Brooksville, the vibrant culture of the Warehouse Arts District in St. Petersburg, the bustling city vibe of Tampa, the cultural scene in Sarasota, we could go on and on.

There really is something for everyone.

On this episode of Up Close we explore a smaller, lesser known spot that could make a great travel destination this holiday season or all year long.

Mount Dora is located in Central Florida, nestled against the beautiful Lake Dora and packed with boutiques and restaurants.

With the uncertainty of online shopping, shipping delays, the stress of holiday travel, Mountain Dora offers a quick getaway and a chance to support local Florida businesses.

Welcome to Up Close.

I'm Cathy Unruh.

We're joined today by Rachel O'Ryan.

She is president of the Mount Dora Area Chamber of Commerce.

Also with us is artists PJ Svejda.

Thank you both for joining us here.

We appreciate it.

- Thanks for having us.

How did you enjoy your drive from Mount Dora?

- Was wonderful.

- Quickly, neither of you are originally from Mount Dora, but what brought you there, Rachel?

- I came because I started to work for an organization back in 1990 and literally every day I drove up back and forth to Mount Dora to Orlando.

And just said after about a couple of years of the stress was crazy, driving into Orlando, and I always felt calm.

So I eventually bought a house there and have never looked back.

- [Cathy] PJ?

- Similar story.

I was living in Altamont, which is right outside of Orlando and the traffic was killing me.

And it was about the time for me to start looking to buy a home.

I wanted a place with land and just kind of broadening my search I just ended up in Mount Dora.

It was a happy accident.

- Oh, Rachel, how big is the town in terms of population?

- So we're at a little over 16,000, like 16,688 people at this moment.

- And give me an idea of the demographics, the age range of people.

- So primarily it used to be 65, 70 plus, and now we're getting a little closer to that 57 plus we are seeing younger families worse now with some of the interstates coming closer to from Orlando and around town.

We're seeing more families who are moving into the area so that they can raise their kids in a wonderful little community.

- [Cathy] So it's the primary means of occupation there, the businesses and the tourism, the boutiques, and so on and so forth.

- Yes.

- Okay.

And tell me what all sorts of shops we're gonna find there.

- So Mount Dora is more than just downtown Mount Dora.

Although it is a big part of our charm is the downtown historic district, which is about seven blocks wide.

And it's got everything from amazing jewelry stores to galleries, clothing stores, women clothing, men clothing, shoes stores.

There's a variety of things.

You're not going to find those typical franchise or name brand stores.

It's things that people have collectively put together to showcase their product line or their feature.

We have flagged stores and great entertainment stores, amazing eateries.

I mean, we are right now, we have over 35 different types of restaurants, bars, cafes, ice cream stores.

So you'll never go hungry when you're in Mount Dora.

- Good to know.

And PJ, you decided you wanted to live there.

So describe the culture, not just the art scene, but the overall culture of what it's like to live there.

- Basically like a Hallmark movie.

I'm not even kidding.

I lived in Atlanta for 13 years and it was fun.

And then I moved to Orlando busy and I have a small child and it couldn't be better.

It's a perfect dream.

It's safe, walkable.

It feels really good to be able to walk from my house to my gallery, beautiful old homes.

Everything's still has character, mature trees, friendly, people know each other.

That's the biggest one, what people know each other?

So yeah, that's it.

- And in keeping with the Hallmark movie, the town gets a little bit dressed up for the holidays.

Quickly tell us Rachel you love those holiday decorations.

- I do.

Well, it starts the weekend of Thanksgiving.

The light, this town is completely lit up and it goes from our downtown park to our 40 foot Christmas tree if you case, you're wondering why I'm wearing this huge necklace and all the way down to the marina.

The marina owner does an amazing job.

It's a private business.

We even have four foot by eight foot greeting cards that people can stroll down through the lake.

The business themselves dress up their windows, and we have a lot of Christmas activities.

So from the Christmas walk to we have elf walk.

We even have an amazing new year's Eve special.

So it's Christmas is yes.

I don't wanna say that Hallmark, but yes, it is an amazing place at the holidays.

- And I don't know if you said this, but the lights stay up until January nine is it?

- January ninth most everything's lit up.

And then the city itself has the park that just goes on weekends until the first weekend in February.

- Do you track how many out-of-towners, how many tourists come to visit or do you have some sense and not just at the holidays, but all the time?

- Well every year I do report for the city to let them know and we try to break it down and it varies of course, during COVID it was a lot less.

I've just been with the chamber since August of 19.

So I'm still getting my handle around the tourism data as far as thousands of tourists that come in.

But we see people all the way from European come in.

A lot of people from America.

It's funny how I get the conversation all the time with, I don't know where I heard about Mount Dora, but somebody in a party one night told me I should come and we're here.

Can we get a map?

So we're always handing out things like that.

So we hear that story often.

- And PJ Mount Dora was described by Business Buzz in the article that introduced your studio as an enclave for creative types, agreed?

- Agreed.

So we always introduce ourselves as a multifunctional space because both myself and my partner, we are working artists.

And so we use the common area as a studio and we have other artists in there that do the same.

And then we use the wall spaces gallery.

We teach classes and workshops and we have events and we just use the space however, we feel for creative purposes and for kind of philanthropic purposes as well.

So yeah, we just welcome all types of creatives to come in there and just get creative with us.

- Let's briefly mention your partner.

Who's in the control room right now.

He's your partner in life?

- In life.

- And in business.

- Yes, my other half.

Yes.

His name is German Lemus.

And so he and I were in the same art collective in Orlando.

We've worked together for a long time.

And then we joined forces about a year ago.

We're about to sign our second year's lease on the studio.

So he's my right hand man, who makes all the stuff happened behind the scenes.

- And you're staying, you must've had a fairly successful year.

- We did.

It's kind of like, we got that boulder moving, it's starting to roll, so we don't wanna stop it now.

We're just now getting people to start kind of return and come back and tell people about it.

Word of mouth is starting to spread and we're getting repeat customers.

It's hard because we have a lot of people that are just day trippers.

But it's interesting because we're seeing repeat day trippers, which is really nice.

People that don't live there, but they'll come back and they'll visit us multiple times.

- So it's a pretty good sign that you did as well as you did during the height of the pandemic.

- Right.

- [Cathy] Yeah.

So how did that affect the town overall Rachel?

- We were very fortunate.

I think a lot of people felt they could still come safely.

We did have mask requirements, but people came from all over respecting the mask requirements.

Most of our stores stayed open and I can say, knock on wood I don't think in the downtown district, we actually lost any business that closed because of the pandemic.

We kept doing marketing and PR and trying to let people know that we're open.

So I think we did fairly well.

- PJ, give me a sense of how many artists are actively working in Mount Dora.

- In Mount Dora.

I'm not exactly sure to put a number on it, but the community is growing.

There's more artists coming in town.

We started up the art walk again.

So that's another way to kind of get everyone working together.

At our studio we're really community-based.

So we really wanna bring all the artists together.

We're stronger together than we are separated.

- [Cathy] How many do you usually have displaying in your space?

- In our space, so we kind of operate like a co-op.

So currently, currently we have six artists working in our space where they show and they work in the studio and they spend time in there.

- And I love the name.

Tell us the name and why you named it that.

- So it's kind of a manifestation of my huge dream, which is also what brought me to Mount Dora.

I always wanted to have a farm so that I could have a animal sanctuary.

I do dog and cat rescue just independently.

I have for years fostering adoptions, spay and neutering, vetting.

And so my goal was to have land so I could have my own rescue and incorporate larger animals, horses, goats, cows, but baby steps.

So we're starting off with the domestic dog and cat.

And so we've actually teamed up with a local shelter from our neighboring town into various it's called a forever home animal rescue.

And so we raised money.

We do donations.

I give a class where the funds for that class directly go to that.

- But we haven't said the name of the studio.

- Of what studio?

My studio.

Oh, it's called Studio Art Farm.

- Right.

- Sorry.

I thought you said that.

- No, I said, tell us the name of about it.

And you're so passionate about your farm and that's great.

I just think the name is adorable because you're actually farming art and fertilizing the culture and seeding the population with art, right?

So it has a lot of meanings to it.

And just very quickly, describe your style of art.

What do you create?

- So I'm a painter, I'm a portrait painter, figurative painter with a little bit of a surreal aspect.

- [Cathy] And your partner?

- [PJ] He is a painter as well, mixed media, very surreal.

- And now a little pitch for artwork as a gift.

If anybody's not done shopping yet, or just will be shopping going forward, why give art?

That's kind of a personal thing, isn't it?

- Right.

So first of all, there's nothing like having original art in your house.

If you don't have original art in your house, you should really try it.

It's a much different feel than buying something, just at Target or something like that.

Actually being able to feel the energy of the creator's hand and it is really special.

The uniqueness is really special.

And also knowing that it's a pay it forward, you're giving directly to an artist who's gonna go then and pay it forward and pay it forward and pay it forward.

I've actually worked on the commercial side and there's nothing like having the special like original piece done created where you can study it.

You can see the brush work, you can see the meaning and the content, and then you have it forever.

- And as you know, we visited the Studio Art Farm to talk to some folks there.

Here we go.

(gentle chumming bells) - So I came in here one day and I saw all these big paintings on the wall.

And I was like, man, look at all these paintings, like what in the world?

Like, what is this place?

I'm like do you guys need volunteers?

And they're like, yeah, sure.

Like ever since then, I've just been coming here every single day like the first summer I graduated.

So I was like from June up to now, but coming here every day, working and just like, they gave me like a wall space over there where I have a couple of original paintings.

I feel like the best way to start as an artist is kind of start locally and grow from there.

So if you can get established local and people can know who you are locally, you can grow and expand from there.

- What drew me to Mount Dora is it's very similar to the little area I grew up in the mountains of North Carolina, small town charm, people wave at you that you've never met before, but yet everyone here is from somewhere else.

That's a lot of Florida, but it's really true here.

It's not just pet friendly.

It's people friendly.

During the holidays everywhere has things that they're either hand-crafted right here or they're local.

And the people are very supportive of each other.

We all pulled together.

It's not competitive, it's very networking here in Mount Dora and that's part of our charm I think.

The reason you wanna shop local it's things you're not gonna find online.

You're not gonna go find the local shop here that has handmade and milk soap or that kind of thing.

It's just, we're all about charm individuality here.

(murmurs) One of the things Mount Dora is hugely popular for.

We have a thriving, vibrant, artistic community, several art galleries, and no it's not just a going in browse for trinkets.

These are local artists.

And when you see what they do, it's unique.

It's very quality.

- What I love about Mount Dora is definitely a fun creative town.

You're gonna meet a lot of interesting people.

- I tell everyone that one of the things that we noticed about the holiday season here in Mount Dora, we live in it's a wonderful life except in color.

And everybody here has the homie.

I'm your friend, before you even met me feel.

(gentle chumming bells) - So Rachel, everyone's saying we love Mount Dora.

We love Mount Dora.

So besides the art scene, what is there to love?

- Well, outdoors, our festivals, we are known as a festival city.

We have our festivals, we have craft festivals, we have seafood festivals.

We have a taste festival and they go all year round, depending on what organizations putting them on.

We have a lot of outdoor activities.

So a lot of times we'll have families that will come to town with younger individuals and they don't just wanna go shopping.

They wanna do other cool things.

So we've got, you can go on out on boats.

You can go out on tours.

If you were at Christmas time, you'd go the lighted boat tour.

Again, it's a culture, it's relaxed We've got sports, recreation, outdoor, indoor.

We have some beautiful sunsets.

I know you do here on the coast as well, but on lake Dora is amazing how gorgeous the sunsets are.

And so people always can have the opportunity to do indoor and outdoor things.

- And with all those things to do.

It's interesting the housing there for visitors, there's a lot of mom and pops in places with really unique personalities also.

- As far as bed and breakfast, we have a lot of bed and breakfast.

We have more and more BnBs that are popping up, Airbnbs as far as those, but we have some beautiful, we have our oldest historic Lakeside inn that was created in 1883 and other organizations like that who have either rebuilt old historic homes or have started old ones looking new, or now they're starting the older ones and actually moving into that historic, if they have more than three or four rooms, they're beautiful, beautiful.

- And there's a notable lack of chains and franchises.

And that's not in code anywhere.

That's not this is the way it has to be.

It's the way it is for a variety of reasons.

But it seems that it contributes to the charm.

Yeah?

- I agree.

I think that again, we would certainly welcome entertaining some folks from the franchise world, but I think the charm of the individual businesses all the way from the small studio artists, the jewelry maker, the oil maker, the tea company, we have so many unique little businesses there.

You won't find that in just every place.

- So as we all know we are becoming addicted to online shopping, many of us, and that was especially acute during the height of the pandemic.

Talk to me PJ, about online shopping versus the virtues of supporting local.

- I mean, I think a lot of local shops have had to adapt and offer an online option.

Something for artists of social media it's been really impactful for us.

It has been for a while, but there's nothing like coming in and feeling the peace and seeing what we have.

And at our studio at Studio Art Farm, it's always changing always.

We're always just rearranging the walls.

And I mean, I create new art every week, so does Lemus.

So if you just wanna see what's going on new things, be the first one to see it.

I can't post everything.

So coming in, you get a different feel than just seeing it online for sure.

- Rachel have you seen that, that a lot of your merchants have?

- Absolutely we have.

And I think it's a great thing.

Cause a lot of times, a lot of our artists, a lot of our businesses have created their let me touch and feel through video.

So you find a lot more doing video to explain what their gift is, what their oil is, what their pottery is.

Again, we have a lot of different artists in there that all have different kinds of mediums.

So it's a cool, we have an amazing museum in town that again, spacious people can come and they're doing more online thing.

So it's been a huge impact.

- And shopping local is a nice catch phrase, but really it's the sustainability of certain communities.

Whether you shop local, that's got to be true for Mount Dora.

- It is absolutely is.

And I think it's important that most of the people who live there work there as well.

There's a few that go outside of the downtown area or go off Mount Dora to go home.

But for the most part, people are invested in their town and they show up every day and that's really an awesome thing.

- So most of the residents try to shop there first before they?

- Well, they do, we encourage them.

And I think sometimes residents forget, but we're doing what we can remind them that we do have a large population of businesses and no one wants your downtown to turn into a ghost town.

So I think that's really important that locals do support our growing community.

- And do you actively market Mount Dora to entrepreneurs and?

- The city does, yes.

We don't do economic development at the chamber.

That is a department of the chamber, the city, I'm sorry.

And they're actively looking for some larger corporations that may go on the outskirts of the historic downtown area.

- So tell us some of you've mentioned the festivals and things you can do there routinely, but just give me a feel for what's coming up in the first couple of months of the new year.

- So we've got the arts festival, which is a huge art festival.

It's one of the oldest, it's probably almost 40 years old, if not at 40 years old, that will be in February.

We have the taste of Mount Dora.

That'll come up in the end of April.

We've got the seafood festival that's in the spring fall.

It varies on when the seafood's the best.

And then we've gotten a world top-notch craft festival.

That's in October.

And again, a lot of smaller festivals, Renninger's does their extravaganzas.

So if you're into antiques, that is an amazing place to go for antiques.

And there still are.

I mean, once Mount Dora was known years ago, just for antique stores.

And again, as the antique start to go away a little bit, now they're very concentrated in various areas.

So that's always, and Renninger's is open year round.

That's fabulous as well.

- So PJ, you describe it as the dream place to live the Hallmark movie.

- That's right.

- Is that what you want visitors to take away after they've come and spent a little time in Mount Dora?

- I just think there's so much value in historic preservation because we tend to just knock things down and build them new again.

And there's so much beauty in the history.

I think that's why people like antiques.

So even just walking around the neighborhoods and seeing the old homes, even the old homes that have been added onto you, you get to see the generational changes, same thing with the stores, walking through the stores.

My gallery used to be an old shoe store and there's just so much history.

It's so fun to kind of like really feel that energy.

So yeah, I mean, there's a sweetness, there's a community vibe for sure that I think overall the more developed we become with shopping centers and chains and all that, I think we lose track of that neighbor to neighbor and Mount Dora just kind of seems like this hidden gem that doesn't exist anymore.

I just feel so blessed to live there.

- Okay.

We don't wanna advertise it so much that everybody moves in.

- Right.

(laughs) - History, we're talking about history.

So it was first named for the three children of a mayor.

- [Rachel] Yes, Roy, Ella, and Louis.

- So it went to Roy, Louis.

(mumbles) - Originally named.

- And then in the 1800s, legend has it that.

- Dora Ann Drawdy, which was one of the first homesteaders came and made friends with the surveyors .

And before we knew it, they called it Lake Dora, Mount Dora.

- So we don't know for sure that it was named for Dora, but it's sort of widely believed.

- Yes it is.

- And the question is, where does the Mount come from?

- So most people in Florida live at zero, right?

We're at 184 feet above sea level and it varies.

I mean, it's funny, not if you're in from in Ohio or Pennsylvania or North Carolina, but in Florida, when you get to downtown Mount Dora and you start walking up, you better believe there are some hills there.

- That's quite.

- Then bring your inhalers.

(laughs) - Just getting shaped before you go, does it Mount Dora.

And so it's kind of like the holidays are coming up, but everything that we see and say is that every day is a holiday in Mount Dora.

Is that a little bit too a chamber of commerce there.

- I don't think it's to chamber of commerce.

I think, it's interesting when you get there and you find the local ice cream store guy has been there for 32 years.

And you find a lot of businesses who have planted their seeds and aren't going anywhere, which is awesome.

So you see that over and over again.

- And staycations have become increasingly popular and not going too far from home.

Give us the pitch for a staycation.

Is there enough to do to keep us busy for a few days.

- Absolutely.

We have three, four or five days, depending on if you like...

I mean, again, we have other neighboring towns where things can happen, but if you like being outside, if you're a cyclist, we've got places you can rent bikes and go traveling on, we have trails that will take you along the waterfront.

We've got cat boats.

You can go out for tours and pontoon boats.

And again, shopping, dining, you literally could go to a restaurant.

I mean, how many restaurants between lunch, breakfast, and dinner and never have the same kind of food kind of, we have German, we have Italian, we have American fair.

We have, I mean, it just goes on.

So yes, there's plenty to do for a nice staycation.

- And you could just hike all those hills to earn your calories, right?

- That's right.

- Yeah, just hike before every meal.

PJ what's in the future for you and your partner and your studio.

- I mean, we're just gonna go forward with a another year.

This was definitely a big learning curve.

We didn't know what to expect.

There's so many day trippers that we didn't, we can't like grab ahold of who our clientele is.

But with that being said, if you're gonna stay, if you're gonna do a staycation, we do weekend workshops.

So people that are just visiting can do an art class on the weekend.

So it's really just kind of catering to what we've learned this year is what kind of classes people want?

What kind of art events people are into?

What kind of art we're gonna create?

So we're always creating new things.

- A lot of people think, oh, original art.

That must be terribly expensive, not necessarily shuttle.

- Not necessarily.

And it just really depends on, we have we have upcoming artists, we have local artists and the pieces vary.

We have some as little as four by four for little spaces.

And then we have really big pieces for big statement walls of the house.

So the size and complexity definitely makes a difference, but we try to really make art inclusive for everybody and have something for everybody's tastes level and aesthetic and budget.

- And Rachel, with like a minute to go, this is your last chance pitch Mount Dora, why come?

- Come to Mount Dora.

A lot, as PJ said, a lot of businesses have classes and that you can entertain yourself with.

So if you're not really into going shopping or going out into the water, you can do that.

Mount Dora is the kind of place that a lot of people say they wish they grew up in and they definitely wanna come back again and again, and they always seem to find someone or someplace they think is special, whether it's a park, whether it's the water, whether it's downtown district.

So I hope that you, anybody would like to come join us in Mount Dora, whether it's for the day or a weekend.

- Okay.

Thank you very much.

Thank you both for being here.

And thank you for joining us.

You can learn more about this little town with huge personality at mountdora.com To learn more about artwork that PJ talks about and creates with her partner, visit studioartfarm.com.

This episode of Up Close may be viewed in its entirety at wedu.org.

Thanks for watching.

I'm Cathy Unruh and I'll see you next time on Up Close.

(upbeat music)