>>This program is brought to you in part by the Paul B. Hunter and Constance D. Hunter Charitable Foundation, a proud partner of WUCF and the Central Florida community.

>>On this edition of Florida Road Trip, we're headed to Mount Dora, a lakefront city where rolling hills shaped one of Central Florida's most charming communities.

>>They came over a rise in a hill, and they saw Lake Dora, and it was like, that's it.

>>And where a small town art scene turned into a national festival.

>>They are not funded by some huge corporate organization.

It's all about community spirit.

>>Plus, along the shores of Lake Dora, one historic inn has grown right along with the city itself.

>>If the hotel's doing well, the city seems to really be doing well.

>>From early settlers to artists.

This is a growing community that hasn't lost its charm.

Buckle up.

Florida Roa Trip is taking the scenic route through Mount Dora.

♪♪ Hi there, and welcome to Florida Road Trip.

I'm Scott Fais.

When folks think of Mount Dora, Florida, images of the city's renowned art festival may come to mind.

Along with its postcard perfect downtown.

But like much of Florida, Mount Dora's history is rooted in citrus.

>>Earliest settlers in the area.

If you go way back, you're going back to the indigenous people.

Later on, you had local homesteaders in the area.

There was a Homestead Act in 1840s that was unique to Florida.

It had to do with the Seminole Wars.

So that brought some homesteaders to the area as well because they could get 160 acres if they were going to be ready to defend those acres.

>>The earliest settler was a guy named David Simpson.

His father, Milton, had a plantation up in North Florida.

But after the Civil War, h pretty much lost the plantation.

He had to fre all the enslaved people he had.

And his son, David, when he's about 22 years old in 1874, it's like, I need to make my own way.

And dad's business is now out of business.

I don't want to be a hired hand to dad anymore.

So he and his wife came down to Sanford, and so he's looking around central Florida.

He and a buddy from Sanford, they started working their way in this direction and they came over a rise in the hill, and they saw Lake Dora.

And it was like, that's it.

So he was able to buy 160 acres for about $300.

>>Like many Florida towns, Mount Dora's name comes with a story and a little mystery.

The story that everybody hears is that the town drew its name from an early settler named Dora Drawdy.

She came here in the 1850s sometime.

When the surveyors came up after Florida became a state, they spent time in her place.

She helped feed them.

And with all that support, they named the lake after her.

It's a great story and it makes a lot of sense.

But she's on the Georgia census in 1850.

>>What we do know is the town took its name from the lak and the rolling hills around it.

>>How the lake got its name?

We're not entirely sure.

There's a lot of local legends about that.

>>Early industries included citrus and timber.

Yet what really defined Mount Dora was the determination to stay, even when the economy an the weather made it difficult.

The freezes impacted many of the families growing citrus in the area.

>>I think it was perseverance.

These people came here to start a new life.

They were used to working hard, they're pretty smart folk.

They knew how to take care of business.

They kne how to take care of themselves.

So I think they just went through.

>>By the late 1800s, local leaders began thinking beyond agriculture and looked for ways to bring people here and to shape a community.

>>They heard of something called Chautauqua, which, Chautauqua, New York.

They were these social, spiritual, educational camps that would roam around the country.

>>It's not an official Chautauqua, but it was founded to bring people in from Central Florida and surrounding areas, and it brought people from much further.

>>They set it all up and within, I think about 9 or 10 months, they were able to attract 10,000 people to this town.

>>We had a lot of great lectures, activities.

There were some phenomenal plays and music played.

>>In the following season, they built a hotel on the shores of Lake Gertrude and they had more plays, they had more theatricals, they had more symposiums and speeches and breakout sessions.

And so the people who were starting to come down here, it's like this is a place where I can go and get really smart.

I can get educated.

>>The lake connected Mount Dora to the rest of Florida and helped make a town a destination long before highways existed.

>>Lake Dora is connected vi Dora Canal to a connecting lake all the way to Saint Augustine, via the Saint Johns River.

People would travel down the Saint Johns River to Lake Dora Canal, into Lake Dora an the other lakes in Lake County.

>>As the years passed and the historic buildings across the regio gave way to modern development, this city chose a different path.

Caretakers and decision maker chose to preserve Mount Dora's historic downtown, effectivel creating a living time capsule.

Today, visitors can experience the same charm that defined the community when it was first incorporated.

>>The things that I think is just especially special, especially unique, is the fact that the town really values its history.

>>Most o those buildings in the downtown corridor between Fourth and Fifth on Donnelly Street, are original to the founding of the city.

>>This is what makes the town, this historic commercial district.

And then when you go down McDonald Stree or Tremaine or Baker and you see these cool little houses, you see this beautiful lake.

Basically the foundation that was here when David Simpson comes over the hill and he sees it.

>>The city's historic core became a gathering place for longtime residents, including a growing black community that found stability and built their lives in the downtown area.

>>Nancy Moss had escaped slavery three times when she walked into downtown Mount Dora, and when she saw people, black people, walking around carefree, she was amazed and she stayed because what she perceived was safety.

No fear, no confrontations.

So she stayed.

I think that was what life was like.

People were busy.

They had employment of some kind or another, and they had a place to live.

The redevelopment project was a project that John Donnelly started.

The purpose was to bring people from the North to see Mount Dora as a tourist location.

They settled on the area of Mount Dora that is now called Downtown Mount Dora.

The problem that African-Americans faced was that this was the area where they lived.

So Donnelly then uprooted the African-American who lived in downtown Mount Dora through his redevelopment project.

>>As families resettled, East Town emerged as a place where they rebuilt their lives and strengthened their community.

>>I look at East Tow as being fairly self-sufficient.

You had probably everything that they needed.

There was a grocery store, fish market, all the food supplies, the restaurants.

Because of the way that East Town is physically situated, when you look at it, it was almost like one of the countries in the European history books because there were woods.

Some people might call it a forest, but it bordered where Donnelly Street is all the way to 441, and that forest end was really like a a fortress.

It it protected people from coming in.

>>What makes Mount Dora unique is the generations of people who chose to invest in this place, keeping its charm alive.

>>People are so passionate about this town and it's been that way since the 1880s.

What are we going to do to build Mount Dora?

And you get different opinions, and you can fight and you can battle.

Ultimately, the best ideas win out and then you get something like, you see today.

♪♪ >>In the heart of Mount Dora awaits a home that looks like it stepped out of an era gone by.

Built in the late 1800s, the Donnelly House is one of Mount Dora's most recognizable landmarks.

And for more than 100 years, this home has connected the community.

>>The Donnelly House was built in 1893 by Mr.

Donnelly, who moved down here from Pennsylvania and married Anne Stone, who is a prominent real estate of interest in Lake County area.

Then he built the Donnelly House for her, which is a Queen Anne Victorian house which are pretty rare.

>>From the start the Donnelly House stood apart.

Its design choices reflected its uniqueness.

Even today, the exterior hints on what's inside is more than just ordinary.

>>It' like a gingerbread style house.

Normally there are spikes or decorative designs on the top.

Each room and those style houses have its own personality.

>>Walking through the house feels like stepping through a series of personal spaces.

>>There's stained glass windows, wood flooring.

All of it dates back to the late 1800s.

The steeple's pretty unusual.

Palmetto board was used for the majority of the house, so it's very hearty and rigorous.

And I mean, you'll see we've updated and modernized some of the house with paint and things like that.

Still holds pretty true to its original design.

Still has a knob and tube wiring, which we have since replaced with modern wiring, but that wiring attachments are still in place.

>>In the early 20th century, the Donnelly House took on a new purpose.

John Philip Donnelly wanted to ensure the dwelling connected to civic life in Mount Dora, while he served as the city's mayor.

>>Donnelly lef that Masonic home to us in 1910.

He left it to the Masonic organization.

They created a masonic lodge around that time.

He also left the park, which is across the street named after his wife.

The Masons do quite a bit in the community.

We help people who need help at the time of need, like if they financially help or we get some floods if their house gets flooded we'll come in.

We also help with the city.

>>Inside the home, there are spaces encouraging peopl to share stories and memories.

>>Everybody likes to visit the lodge room because we're a masonic lodge, so that's usually where people want to go.

But people like this room, actually, the sitting room.

My guys sitting here quite ofte and just kinda reminisce or talk or carry on.

>>The layers of history are part of the reason why the house feels so closely tied to Mount Dora today.

>>The city actually made it their emblem, so the city have that on their vehicles.

It's a very unique house.

Most people come to the area to see the house.

So we're happy that we can provide historic tours for people who can come in and see it, check it out.

It is just an unusual house.

>>For visitors, the Donnelly House is a stop o learning Mount Dora's history.

For the community, it reflects the history and how the city has grown.

♪♪ Mount Dora's arts scene is always abuzz with new creations.

The city's annual arts festiva is one big, colorful spotlight, allowing artist to shine on the national stage.

>>Art is more than just a visual or something that somebody does on the street.

It's not just an expression of individuals, but it's also a way to bring community together.

>>Well before it rose to national prominence, the Mount Dora Art Festival consisted of a small group of artists trying to create a sense of community.

>>The Mount Dora Arts Festival got its start back in 74, with a group of citizens starting to talk about it.

They were talking about what do we do to keep young people in Mount Dora?

Because there was quite an exodus of people.

>>So the Mount Dora Arts Festival did start off with a bunch of local artists that wanted to support each other and the local art scene in the town, and also bring some people into the downtown area because it was slo and a small town during the 70s.

>>During the era of bellbottom and disco, the community began preparing for the first art festival, a massive effort they took on together without realizing just how successful it would become for Mount Dora.

>>The first show was in 75.

The people that were involved in it used to go almost door to door to the businesses of Mount Dora to get money so we could put the show on.

We also had to ask the state to close one of the roads.

That was the beginning of it.

We probably had maybe about 200 or so artists, including some of us who were local in that show, and it started to grow from there.

>>As the festival grew, so did the excitement.

Today, artists from every corner of the country line up for the chance to bring their art to Mount Dora's streets.

>>We only have about 300 spots so we have a growing waitlist, so to speak, of a lot of artists that would like to be here in the show.

>>Many visitors will plan their trip to the Mount Dora Art Festival a full year in advance.

>>Sometimes it's close to, you know, like maybe as much as 200,000 people or better.

And in some years it's like, you know, 150,000 perhaps.

We ebb and flow in a degree, but we always have an incredible number of people who come.

>>While the festival expanded and gained national notoriety, it stayed true to its original mission: bringing people together.

>>These festivals, they don't just happen, they are not funded by some huge corporate organization.

It's all about community spirit.

>>As Mount Dora's reputation grew, the city became a hub for artists.

>>Artists started coming to this area and starte opening up shops and galleries.

And so now we're known a a beautiful arts oriented town.

People can come to Mount Dora any time of the year, not just during the arts festival.

They can come in and see all the galleries.

We have pop up exhibitions.

You can take a Segway tour to see all the public art downtown today.

>>Today, Mount Dora's art spills out of its galleries and onto the streets.

>>One of the pieces of artwork that has kind of given the city of Mount Dora a little bit of notoriety, I guess, is the Starry Night House, which is along the waterfront.

The City of Mount Dora has a public art advisory committee, and they use funds and purchase pieces.

And they started a Mount Dora art walk along the waterfront.

It's beautiful and it's growing.

It's really about bringing people and community together.

♪♪ >>While Mount Dora developed a reputation as an arts town, its cultural crossroads began inside an old ice plant right on the shores of Lake Dora.

Today, volunteers prove that this small town can still put on quite a big show.

>>In September 1948, John and Bill Barker, Jr.

arouse the interest of a small group.

>>These early newspaper articles capture the momen when Mount Dora began to imagine what a community theater could be.

But behind the headlines, find the people ready to turn an idea into something everlasting.

>>There were some people here in 1948 who had a lot of arts background.

From being up north, from living in major cities.

And one of the guys sons was at school in Rollins, and he had gotten involved in their theater department there, Annie Russell Theater, and came back to talking to hi parents in Mount Dora and said, you really need to start a community theater up here.

That'd be a great thing.

>>The idea began to shine during the post-Worl War Two little theater movement, when communities across the country began crafting their own stages to bring people together through the arts.

>>Post-war, people had more time on their hands.

They had they were raising young families in little towns, and people who were interested in the arts weren't going to go to New York and see a show, bu they wanted to shows themselves.

>>In Mount Dora, that meant transforming an abandoned building into a performance space built almost entirely by hand.

>>They found this old ic plant on the shore of Lake Dora.

It wasn't being used for ice anymore.

They took it over and they gutted it.

And they got seats that were donated from various high school, had some seats in their basement.

So they donated those and they built a stage and during the process of renovating this building took about six months.

They had to break down all the interior walls because they were storing ice in Florida.

The walls were like 22 inches thick, and they were breaking them down with pickaxes and sledgehammers and everything.

>>When that work reached its limits, a little creativity took over.

>>Somebody said, oh, I know how to use TNT.

So some guy knew how to do that.

So he came in and they blew up the inside of the building, which is, that's skill to not knock down the whole building.

So they broke up the floor that way.

It was all just really hard manual labor.

All the volunteers in town, everybody in Mount Dora got involved.

It was only about 2,500 people living here at the time.

And then they opened in February 1949.

>>Over time, the group gre and found a new permanent home.

The theater was right across the street from the train tracks, so every time a train went by, the play had to stop because it was so loud that everybody would just hold still.

And then the train would go by.

Then they'd pick up again.

Keep doing the play.

The Icehouse Players were they incorporated that way.

They said we've got to get out of this location.

It's too loud here.

City of Mount Dora donated this corner.

Corner of 11th and Unser, which was way in the outskirts of town at that poin and started the building in '57.

And they opened in the fall of '58.

>>Today the building reflects its roots and remains deeply connected to the community that built it.

>>I came down to Mount Dora in 1992 because my parents were here and they needed some help.

So I came down to take care of my mom when she was sick, and after she passed away, I decided to stay for that winter.

I ended up coming to an audition here at the Ice House and getting in a musical called 1940s Radio Hour, all 1940s music, and it was set in a radio station putting on a show.

That was my first show here.

>>Darlin's first auditio led to decades of involvement, including leadership roles and guiding a theater that now spans generations.

>>I like the roots of this place that there's such a strong connection to the original founders.

We have this great set of scrapbooks that you can look through and read the history of it, and the amazing stories of all the families that have been involved through the years.

And I love that the people in this town, because it's still a small town, Mount Dora, will come in and they'll tell me stories about their parents doing shows here or their grandparents, or they'll bring me their mementos.

>>The theater's become a living archive where history is not only performed, but it's passed along.

>>Because of this theater, it's allowed me to learn more about all the people who have ever lived here and ever done a show here.

And, how important it is to the people who come and tell me these stories.

I ca I can see in their storytelling how important it was to their family and their parents to go be in a show at the Ice House as kids growing up, that they remember coming to this theater on field trips and things like that to see shows.

So it's it's a it's neat that it's still very much embedded in the town and a part of the history of the town.

♪♪ >>In Mount Dora, history invite you to pull up a rocking chair.

Have a seat and just stay a while.

Along the shores of Lake Dora sits a place that's rooted in history since the very beginning.

>>Lakeside Inn has really always been a part of the history of Moun Dora, and their growth has kind of been in sync since the beginning.

>>The facade of the building looked much different all those years ago compared to how visitors find it today.

>>When Lakeside Inn first opened in 1883, it was owned by two gentlemen, two investors.

At that time it was just a ten room hotel and it was called the Alexander House.

>>Soon after, ownership shifted in a way that still feels remarkable for the time period.

>>Emma Boone was actually the first woman owner of the hotel, and she was actually just the second owner overall.

So she ran the inn for at least a decade.

And then after she was married, it was her and her husband that owned it.

It was a neat thing to know that in the 1800s, there was a woman who owned the Lakeside Inn, and she actually changed the name to the Lake House, which was the second name before it finally ended up Lakeside Inn in the early 1900s.

As Mount Dora changed, the hotel changed right along with it.

>>They've always kind of had this symbiotic relationship where if the hotel's doing well, the city seems to really be doing well, and if you ask locals, they'll tell you, you know, whenever Lakeside Inn is thriving, that's really when the community has been thriving.

>>Getting her once meant traveling by water, arriving slowly and then taking in the view along the way.

>>One of the things that was interestin was that Mount Dora in the late 1800s one of the things that they were marketing was the fact that it was, you know, the mountains of Florida, which is kind of comedic when we think of Florida now and, you know, the rest of the landscape.

But we do have some, some hilly areas that give us our mount.

That was one of the things people were really drawn by the orange groves, and they would come via the steamboats.

>>What visitors don't always expect?

How much of the original building has endured.

>>One of the things that is unique about the hotel, I don't know that I woul necessarily say it's innovative, but that it is a wooden structure and that it has remained a wooden structure.

With growth of stucc and all of that look in Florida, to have the hotel remain in the way that it is, is something very unique.

There were many times where people, because it was an original structure and it was older, they wanted to just level it and build apartments or build a restaurant and the community, as they always have really fought to protect the hotel.

And I think that is just a testament to how special it is to the community.

The fact that it is here, after celebrating our 140th anniversary in 2023, it's pretty remarkable to just see how much support this inn has had throughout the years.

The floor in the lobby are the original.

You can still see like the heel marks from when they would have dances in the lobby.

And when you look back at old photos, it's very interesting to see how much of the character is still very much the same and the integrity of that history remains.

>>The halls of the inn welcome people from all walks of life.

>>One of our most notable guests was actually President Calvin Coolidge and his wife, Grace, which was right after they got out of office and they stayed here for an entire month.

>>And while guests can stay the night, the Inn always welcomes the community.

>>The best thing about Lakeside Inn for me, that I think people don't always realize, is tha we are fully open to the public.

So you do not have to be a guest at the hotel to come enjoy the restaurant, have a cocktail, sit in the rocking chairs and just have a moment of peace here.

I absolutely think you will feel very much like part of the famil when you come here to Lakeside.

>>For many people, the Lakeside Inn is where Mount Dora slows down.

Grab a seat by the lake, take it all in, and realize you're sitting in a place that's welcomed people for generations.

♪♪ In a town known for its lakefront vistas, there's one place that's quietly anchored Mount Dora's story for well more than a century.

The Mount Dora Yacht Club is the place that brings the community together.

>>Founded in 1913, a gentleman named Henry Fuller retired here from New York, and he was a member of the New York Yacht Club.

And he thought it would be a fine idea to have a yacht club in Mount Dora.

So he met with a handful of the prominent businessmen, and they agreed with him.

They purchased the land and off we went.

>>From the start, the club anchored its identity and life on the water.

>>Back in the day, it was all about power boats.

There was the powerboat association and the grapefruit circuit was all over Florida.

And the Mount Dora regatt was one of the key stops there.

It's hard to believe, but there were actually world speed records set on Lake Dora.

>>Those races sent ripples o recognition across the country.

>>There were several of them set here, and people came from all over the country, and they would actually close off Old 441 so that people could park and watch the races.

In 1953 we switched to sailboat racing.

the noise of the boats was too much for the town, and a gentleman had a connection down at the Key Biscayne Yacht Club, and they came up here and organized the first sailing regatta.

And it's been going every year since.

>>The club's history followe the social currents of the time.

>>Well, not unlik most of the clubs in those days.

It was a gentleman's club.

The upstairs was where they did dinners and teas and dances, but down below was basically a men's lounge and onl the men were allowed down there.

They had two bowling lanes, they had card tables, they had pool tables and the ladies ran the upstairs.

They cooked all the meals, cleaned up.

Women were actually allowed to become members in the early 2000s.

We were a little behind the curve.

I think it was 2006.

The first woman became an actual member.

>>During World War Two, the clubhouse took an important role in the community.

>>There were two main things that happened here.

First, the clubhouse itself was used as a USO and thousands of servicemen were fed and entertained here.

And the second thing was there was a group of club members that took their boats out sunup to sundown every day.

There was, I think, 11 of them.

And they patrolled the whole chain of lakes.

And that was to watch for any accidents that had happened from the fighter planes that left out of Leesburg airport.

>>For those who spent their lives here, the club is closely connected to what makes Mount Dora feel like home.

>>I always ask people when they move here, why did you come to Mount Dora?

And it's surprising how many people say they just drove into town and said, this is where I want to live.

Which is hard for me growing up here to think that way.

But, it is really special and unique, and I think there's a real hometown feel about it.

>>That hometown feel is reinforced through longstanding traditions and shared experiences.

>>We have a lot of nautical traditions.

The Burgess in the bar, that' all part of nautical tradition and yacht club.

On our dock we have the American flag, our club burgee, and then we have four signal flags that spell out MDYC.

>>For more than a century, the Mount Dora Yacht Club has shaped daily life on Lake Dora alongside the people who call this place home.

♪♪ Along the shore of Lake Dora, you'll find the lawn bowling lanes.

Here, players roll through their mornings, generating not only skills but also a sense of community.

>>Lawn bowling is an English sport founded in the 1500s.

It now encompasses just about every country that was part of the British Commonwealth.

>>When their winter retrea started feeling a little stale.

The two men turned to lawn bowling, and it quickly became something the whole community enjoyed.

>>In 1928, we had some snowbirds that were down in Florida, and they were staying across the street here at the Lakeside Inn, and they were looking for something to do.

And in the wintertime, they go tired of doing golf every day.

And they had lawn bowling in New England, where they were at the time.

They founded the Lawn Bowling Club.

We had two rings.

We are rolling bowls, not "balls," but bowls to a little white ball called the Jack.

And our rinks are forever changing.

The conditions are always different, so it is a challenge to master.

>>Lawn bowling keeps its classic feel.

Yet, the game continues to gro well past its 1920s traditions.

In the 1920s and up through the early 1950s, me and women didn't bowl together.

They had separate bowling times.

>>Originally lawn bowls were made of wood and now they're composite plastic.

That came about after World War Two, and they developed all the plastic stuff.

>>And the Mount Dora Lawn Bowling Club changed right along with it.

In 1997.

The facility that we had needed some major work, so they were able to do a fundraising drive from our members and they actually came up with about almost $200,000 back then for our members.

And they built our new clubhouse.

>>Those upgrades made it possible for the club to welcome new player and fresh, competitive energy.

>>Back in 1997, Mr.

and Mrs.

Roller started a tournament here in Mount Dora called the Holiday Bowl.

They wanted to expose many different bowlers far and wide to the little town of Mount Dora Christmas, and it would be a series of five games for three days.

And the clubs all over Pennsylvania, New England, the Midwest, Canada, all across the state come here and they look forward to it every year.

>>In the state of Florida I think there are 14 clubs now and then in the US, approximately 50 or just over 50, with about 3,000 actual lawn bowlers in the in the country.

>>When you're out here bowling every day, you gotta keep the competition interesting.

>>Probably the most important to me is Pill bowling Pill bowlin is something we do on the daily bowling schedules, and it is designed to avoid people bowlin with the same people every day.

For a new bowler, that's intimidating.

We invite all the bowlers up here to sign in on our sheets.

We determined how many rinks we're going to need for that day.

We put little pills into a bag and we draw them out one at a time, and they go to their assigned rinks.

That way, new bowlers can bowl with the more experienced bowlers and they learn quicker and the friendships form.

It's a camaraderie.

It's not just lawn bowling, it's friendships.

♪♪ >>Fro lake views to historic streets, the people who built their lives here shaped the Mount Dora of today.

This city continues to grow thanks to the traditions that make this part of Lake County feel like home.

Well, that's going to wrap it up for this edition of Florida Road Trip.

Thanks for joining us.

I'm Scott Fais.

We'll see you down the road.

And until then, safe travels, everyone.

♪♪ >>This program is brought to you in part by the Paul B. Hunter and Constance D. Hunter Charitable Foundation, a proud partner of WUCF and the Central Florida community.