by Beth Kassab | May 14, 2026 | Arts and Culture, City Commission, Historic Preservation, News
Preservation Advocates Say Winter Park Must Do More to Save Historic Homes
With three John Gamble Rogers II homes under threat of demolition this year, advocate says dwindling assets should serve as ‘wake up call’
May 14, 2026
By Beth Kassab
With three homes designed by James Gamble Rogers II currently under threat of demolition, historic preservation advocates pleaded with the City Commission on Wednesday to make meaningful changes to the way Winter Park protects its historic assets.
Betsy Owens, executive director of Friends of Casa Feliz and granddaughter of Gamble Rogers, said she hopes the potential loss of three significant houses — all more than 85 years old — in a single year will serve as a “wake up call” for the city to strengthen its historic preservation ordinance. She said the city’s ordinance is among “the weakest in the state.”
“These are not anonymous old buildings,” Owens said. “They are irreplaceable works by the architect who more than any other helped define the visual character of Winter Park.”
None of the three homes are listed on the city’s historic register, meaning there is no protection from demolition. The register is voluntary and many owners deliberately opt to keep homes off the register under the theory that the home will be worth more without demolition restrictions.
Owens, and other advocates who spoke at the meeting, including Jack Rogers, said it’s time for Winter Park to get serious about preservation.
They are recommending the commission consider adding incentives such as property tax breaks or rehabilitation help for people who list their homes on the register. They are also calling for new ideas such as an investment fund to help with purchasing and then reselling historic homes to people who are willing to invest in and preserve them.
Mayor Sheila DeCiccio recommended a discussion about potential changes be added to the next City Commission meeting on May 27 and the other commissioners agreed. The commission would likely send the matter to the Historic Preservation Board for further evaluation before making a final decision on changes.
The homes currently under threat are:
- 1020 Palmer Avenue, also known as Merrywood, which is under active demolition permit and could be demolished by the end of May. The home is one of the largest and most ornate in the dwindling collection of Gamble Rogers homes. Tara Tedrow, the prospective buyer who has the property under contract, facilitated the demolition permit in March and is also asking the city to amend its comprehensive plan to allow the lakefront property to be split into two lots. Under that scenario, she said, she would attempt to find a buyer interested in restoring Merrywood while her family could build a new home on the other portion of the property. A Planning & Zoning Board hearing on the request was delayed at Tedrow’s request until June. “Despite enormous public interest and dozens of interested investors touring the property, no buyer has yet emerged able to reconcile the nearly $10 million (estimated) asking price with the substantial restoration needs of the house, conservatively estimated at more than $3 million,” Owens said in an email to supporters.
- 250 Virginia Drive sits on a large lot overlooking Lake Virginia. The home was sold last year for $2.6 million and a demolition permit was filed by the new owner last month. The home is considered an example of the Colonial Revival style with strong New England influences, including shaker shingles.
- 617 Interlachen Avenue is possibly “the most eclectic and artistically ambitious of Rogers’ Spanish Eclectic residences. There is no demolition permit filed yet, but Rogers said the home is expected to go up for sale soon and in one of the city’s most expensive neighborhoods. “History has shown that when the dirt beneath a home becomes worth many multiples of the structure itself, it is time for that home to get its affairs in order,” she said.
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by Beth Kassab | May 12, 2026 | Arts and Culture, City Commission, News, Zoning and Development
Blue Bamboo Pulls AI School Sublease from City Commission Agenda
The president of the arts group that rents the old library from the city of Winter Park said it will “take a pause” on the idea of renting out the second floor to a private school
May 12, 2026
By Beth Kassab
The leader of the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts said on Tuesday morning that he would pull a request from this week’s City Commission agenda a request to rent out the second story of the group’s venue to an artificial intelligence-driven private school.
The sublease request, first reported by the Voice on Friday, prompted a number of community questions about whether the for-profit school to be run through a Winter Park couple’s disaster relief foundation met the original intent of creating an arts hub in the old city library building.
“The Blue Bamboo Board of Directors has decided to take a pause on the agenda item at this time,” read a message from President Jeff Flowers to the group’s supporters. “We feel that the issues the sublease raises will be better addressed by requesting a city work session where the best use of the facility can be addressed.”
Todd Weaver, a former city commissioner who was instrumental in securing the lease for Blue Bamboo during his tenure, is now the group’s vice president.
The Commission, including Weaver, voted 4-1 in July of 2024 to lease the building to the small nonprofit arts venue. Mayor Sheila DeCiccio was the only no vote after she questioned the group’s financial sustainability. Before the Blue Bamboo won the lease, Rollins College was aiming to repurpose the building into a new art museum.
The venue opened in the summer of 2025 and just months later Blue Bamboo founder and musician Chris Cortez died from brain cancer.
But questions about the future use of the building were already mounting. Just months before Cortez died Central Florida Vocal Arts, which had partnered with Blue Bamboo to secure the city lease as well as a nearly $1 million Orange County grant for the venue and was planning to occupy the second floor, walked away from the deal when the two groups couldn’t come to terms.
That left Blue Bamboo without a sublease to help meet a higher rent obligation to the city that is set to begin in August.
Blue Bamboo’s lease payment is scheduled to increase from $132,000 a year to $276,000 a year in three months.
The proposed sublease to Matthew and Paige Wideman’s Love & Life Foundation was the first concept for the second floor to be brought to the commission since Central Florida Vocal Arts opted against moving forward with Blue Bamboo.
The draft lease calls for the foundation, which says it specializes in helicoptering in aid after hurricanes and other disasters, to pay an annual rent of $198,000 for the second floor, or about $18 per square foot for 11,000 square feet.
The lease between Blue Bamboo and the city calls for the second and third floors of the building to be renovated within two years for “arts education, recording studio and local non-profit use.”
Matthew Wideman told the Voice he planned to use the space to start a location of Alpha School, a for-profit model of private school founded in Austin, Texas that has been lauded by the Trump administration and where tuition is expected to be about $45,000 a year.
The Alpha model calls for students to spend about two hours a day on core subjects such as math using AI-led instruction. Human staff members — known as “guides” rather than teachers — spend the rest of the day helping students develop business, public speaking and other project-based skills.
“The school shall not have more than 50 students, and will not accept school vouchers funded by the State of Florida for those students’ tuition or expenses,” according to a copy of the lease posted with the City Commission agenda for Wednesday’s meeting.
The idea, Flowers told the Voice last week, was to use the music and arts expertise of Blue Bamboo to help instruct students at the school.
City spokeswoman Clarissa Howard said commissioners will now discuss on Wednesday whether to hold a potential work session about the lease at a later date.
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by Beth Kassab | May 11, 2026 | Arts and Culture, News, Zoning and Development
Big Changes Felt on Park Avenue with 'Disruptive' Construction Underway
George’s Cafe owner says the ‘Refresh’ project is hurting business while other sections of the avenue are undergoing a transformation with high-profile closures and new construction for the Rollins art museum and, potentially, a city garage
May 11, 2026
By Beth Kassab
On a recent afternoon, George Paul checked over receipts for the day’s business at George’s Cafe, known for piled-high sandwiches and from-scratch cookies bigger than a fist.
“I lost money today,” said Paul, who has operated the shop in the former Brandywine’s Delicatessen spot on North Park Avenue for six years and, before that, at a location on Lee Road. “And it’s not just today … the sidewalks are torn up. There’s barricades. For our older clientele, it looks hazardous. Our business is down by two-thirds.”
George’s sits in the middle of the first block — from Swoope to Canton avenues — of Park Avenue closed last month as part of the city’s three-year, estimated $8.5 million effort to refurbish underground wires and piping, contain tree roots, upgrade streetlights to a higher-tech model, smooth sidewalks and install other aesthetic changes such as new garbage cans and planters.
Paul said he’s adjusted his hours during the construction to account for fewer patrons.
While city officials see the project, known as the Park Avenue Refresh, as a much-needed antidote for aging infrastructure, merchants are bracing for a temporary dose of pain.
George’s Cafe during construction for the Park Avenue Refresh. (This photo and above photo courtesy of the city of Winter Park.)
“It’s going to impact every business, including ours, at some point, but it’s just one of those things,” said Alan Chambers, co-president of the Park Avenue District and vice president of operations for John Craig Clothier, which operates two stores on the avenue. “We all lived through the major refresh of 30 years ago and it brought tremendous benefits to Park Avenue. When it’s all said and done, it costs us all a little bit of frustration.”
A New Era for the Avenue
Brand Melville opened on Park Avenue in April.
Chambers was referring to the last major series of infrastructure projects on Park, including bricking over paved sections of the road, which started in the mid-1990s when phones didn’t yet have cameras, the O.J. Simpson trial dominated television and the old Winter Park Mall on U.S. Highway 17-92 still stood before it was demolished to make way for Winter Park Village.
Now, the latest refresh project is coinciding with a number of monumental changes that will usher in a new era for the oldest and most celebrated shopping and dining district not just in the city, but across Central Florida.
Park Avenue counted 3 million visitors last year, up from 2.1 million in 2020 and 2.7 million in 2019 before the pandemic. The data is based on consumer tracking software used by the city government that captures unique U.S.-based cellphone signals, meaning some international visitors may not be included in the totals.
Customers check out the newly opened Brandy Melville on Park Avenue on a recent afternoon.
Last month, the opening of Brandy Melville, a popular Gen Z brand known for its minimalist aesthetic and beachy vibe, brought lines of customers waiting to enter. Videos posted to TikTok showed a queue of mostly teen and college-age women wrapping around the corner at Morse Boulevard to check out the store, which has been criticized as discriminatory toward some body types for its policy of selling just one size per style (generally the equivalent of a small).
On a recent weekday, 23-year-old Valentina Orive said she drove 45 minutes to shop there — a short distance compared with the three hours she once drove to visit other locations in South Florida.
“I like the quality of the clothes a lot,” she said, noting the Winter Park store, which replaced the Lily Pulitzer, is larger than the others she has visited, except for one in New York City. “They just have really good basics.”
Love Brandy or hate it, some other merchants took advantage of the foot traffic, Chambers said, with at least one nearby boutique, Through the Looking Glass, offering discounts to customers who showed a Brandy Melville receipt.
Longtime Institutions Face Change
Meanwhile, other institutions along the avenue are calling it quits.
Miller’s Hardware, the longest continuously operating family-owned business there, will shut its doors for good sometime during the second quarter of this year after more than 80 years, setting the stage for redevelopment of the block fronting Fairbanks Avenue.
Stephen Miller, owner and grandson of the founder, said he made the decision for multiple reasons that “took the wind out of my sails.” His son, Clay — whom he anticipated would take over the business — died unexpectedly in 2019 at age 29 and, he said, the business simply doesn’t generate enough revenue compared with what the property is worth.
As for what he will do with the prime piece of real estate, Miller isn’t yet saying.
Miller’s Hardware has been run by the same family for more than 80 years. It plans to close in the coming months.
“The future of the property is to be determined,” he said. “I’m weighing options.”
Miller said he would like to see the current batch of city commissioners consider allowing “more density” as aging buildings are redeveloped.
“The plumbing on Park Avenue kept me in business … that stuff is old,” he said. “The City Commission just needs to let there be more density so they can support rebuilding a lot of places people love.”
Behind the Scaffolding
One spot now undergoing an interior demolition and rebuild is 310 Park Ave. S., where the longtime eatery of the same name closed at the end of 2024.
Dyar McComb of Great American Land Management Inc. declined to be interviewed about the work underway at the building owned by the Holler family through a company called PA Partners LLLP, which owns multiple buildings along the avenue.
Signs beneath the construction scaffolding out front display the logo for Oak & Stone, a concept by Artistry Restaurants, the Winter Park-based group that also operates Boca and The Chapman on Park.
Chambers said some people were surprised by the work on the block between New England and Lyman avenues, but the exterior of the 100-year-old building will remain the same.
Construction scaffolding covers the front of 310 Park Avenue South, a sign of more changes to come on the avenue.
“There wasn’t anything inside that looked historic, and I’m not sure if anything had ever been replaced, so it’s going to be a wonderful change for that building,” he said. “The Hollers are going to do a good job on that. They are tremendous partners in the city and in the district.”
People forget, he noted, that “at one point that entire space was an Olive Garden and then Fat Tuesday.”
That was before the first refresh project three decades ago, when part of the street was still paved rather than brick and no one had even heard of Y2K much less streaming in 4K.
More Changes on the Horizon
With the latest refresh project well underway, even larger changes are afoot beyond shifting storefronts.
City officials are considering building a three-story garage behind City Hall to ease parking frustrations with 120 new public parking spaces on top of the 145 required for city employees and operations.
An architectural rendering shows the exterior of a new Rollins Art Museum.
And Rollins College is constructing a new 30,000-square-foot art museum across from The Alfond Inn, just blocks from Park Avenue, that will also alter the equation for foot traffic and parking.
The museum is set to open in 2028, the same year the third and final phase of the Park Avenue Refresh — from New England to Fairbanks avenues — is scheduled to take place.
George’s Block to Reopen
As for George’s, Paul said he is grateful his catering business is doing well but wishes the city would do more construction work at night or on weekends, when it would be less disruptive to his breakfast-and-lunch cafe.
Clarissa Howard, who is leading the refresh project, said some work related to the stormwater system will be done at night, particularly when workers must close the entire street.
Each block closure, which includes shutting down one lane of traffic with detours, will last about four weeks, she said.
“There’s always going to be disruption with any kind of construction, but we’re not there for months and months at a time,” Howard said. “It’s four weeks and the infrastructure we’re putting in will last four decades.”
She said the stretch in front of George’s is set to reopen this week and the project will continue moving block by block south toward Fairbanks Avenue.
“We’re definitely hurt,” Paul said. “I don’t know … I wish there was a solution to this. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when they go down the street.”
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by Beth Kassab | May 8, 2026 | Arts and Culture, City Commission, News, Schools
Family Envisions AI-Driven Alpha School for Second Floor of Blue Bamboo
A sublease agreement will be considered by the City Commission next week as the nonprofit music venue looks to fill space before a rent increase later this year
May 8, 2026
By Beth Kassab
The second floor of the Blue Bamboo Center for the Arts, which leases the former library building from the city, could soon house a location of the private, artificial intelligence-driven Alpha School.
The school was praised last year by the Trump administration as a model for education, and tuition is expected to be about $45,000 a year.
The school would operate through the Love & Life Foundation, a nonprofit that delivers disaster aid and is led by Winter Park residents Matthew and Paige Wideman.
Matthew Wideman said that mission overlaps with the for-profit Alpha School because he views K-12 public education as being in crisis.
“What I would argue is our mission is lifting up the hands of those that are oppressed or impacted, and we look at the education system as a disaster,” Matthew Wideman told the Voice.
He said the school’s innovative approach is one potential solution and that the second floor of the old city library is an ideal setting for a school designed to “empower and prepare children for the world of tomorrow.”
The Alpha model was founded in Austin, Texas, where students spend about two hours a day on core subjects such as math using AI-led modules. Human staff members — known as “guides” rather than teachers — spend the rest of the day helping students develop business, public speaking and other project-based skills.
U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon visited the school last year and said she was “blown away” by the model, according to news reports. Her visit came after President Donald Trump signed an executive order promoting the use of AI in schools.
“They use a more tailored program to find out what the child’s interests and talents and gifts are and help them find that at a young age,” Paige Wideman said. She added that she appreciated the school’s emphasis on “EQ,” or emotional intelligence.
The Widemans, who have five children ranging in age from 2 to 13, said they personally fund their foundation and could potentially provide scholarships for the school, which is known for tuition of about $45,000 a year or, in some cities, more.
Many private schools in Florida accept public vouchers or public education dollars that can be spent at private schools.
But a provision in the draft lease would prohibit the school from accepting vouchers.
“The school shall not have more than 50 students, and will not accept school vouchers funded by the State of Florida for those students’ tuition or expenses,” according to a copy of the lease posted with the City Commission agenda for next Wednesday’s meeting.
The vouchers — commonly known to parents as Step Up for Students scholarships — are at the center of a new lawsuit filed by Florida’s largest teachers union and several parents, including Orange County School Board member Stephanie Vanos, who represents Winter Park and has three children of her own.
The lawsuit alleges the program violates the constitution because the state now sends more than $5 billion in public money to private and charter schools through vouchers while not requiring those schools to follow the same standards as traditional public schools.
Matthew Wideman and Jeff Flowers, who runs Blue Bamboo, said the restriction on vouchers was requested by the city.
City spokeswoman Clarissa Howard said city staff did not advise on the voucher issue or initiate the requirement.
Wideman said his core business is real estate. He holds an ownership interest in Truist Plaza, the downtown Orlando high-rise, among other ventures through The Wideman Company LLC.
He also said his foundation has partnered with Starlink, part of SpaceX, to restore communications after hurricanes and other disasters.
Alpha School also operates a location in Brownsville, Texas, near Elon Musk’s new rocket hub and city known as Starbase. The school also has campuses in five other states, including Florida locations in Palm Beach Gardens and Miami, according to the Alpha website.
Under the draft lease, the Love & Life Foundation would have the right to enter into agreements with third parties such as Alpha to provide operational, management and administrative services for the school.
Wideman said the school would benefit from Blue Bamboo’s performing arts infrastructure and expertise, including its stage, which students could use to practice public speaking and other skills.
Flowers, who helped finance Blue Bamboo for years and took over operations last year after founder Chris Cortez died, said the organization’s performers could serve as music teachers and provide other technical instruction for students.
The lease between Blue Bamboo and the city calls for the second and third floors of the building to be renovated within two years for “arts education, recording studio and local non-profit use.”
Flowers said the sublease is an important part of Blue Bamboo’s financial picture because its lease payment to the city is scheduled to increase from $132,000 a year to $276,000 a year in August.
The proposed lease with Wideman’s foundation calls for annual rent of $198,000 for the second floor, or about $18 per square foot for 11,000 square feet.
Last year, another nonprofit, Central Florida Vocal Arts, walked away from a sublease agreement with Blue Bamboo after becoming dissatisfied with the terms.
Flowers said the building’s third floor remains available for sublease.
He said he has invested both personal funds and Orange County grant money into improvements, including a staircase, a new elevator, a refurbished air-conditioning system and a new fire alarm system. Blue Bamboo received about $900,000 last year through a county grant program funded by the tourist development tax collected on hotel rooms.
Flowers said the venue’s performance calendar is mostly booked through January.
“We’re profitable,” Flowers said. “We’re paying the rent and the utility bill and keeping up with expenses.”
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Update: This story has been updated to include a response from city spokeswoman Clarissa Howard.
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by Beth Kassab | Apr 30, 2026 | Arts and Culture, Historic Preservation, News
Orange Signs Herald May as Historic Preservation Month
Residents display their yard signs each year in support of maintaining what’s left of the pockets in Winter Park where 100-plus year homes are commonplace
May 1, 2026
By Beth Kassab
It’s that time of year when orange yard signs start sprouting up in yards all over Winter Park to mark May as Historic Preservation Month.
The signs are a longstanding tradition among preservationists who want to remind Winter Parkers of the benefits of preserving historic architecture and the eclectic charm that keeps the city at the top of the charts when it comes to home values.
Winter Park’s Historic Register lists more than 120 homes and continues to grow each year.
Historic districts in the city include College Quarter, Virginia Heights East, Interlachen Avenue and the downtown area centered on Park Avenue.
The city encourages those with designated homes or those who live in the districts to display their signs.
People who need a sign can pick one up at Casa Feliz on any Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., said Betsy Owens, executive director of the Casa Feliz Historic Home Museum and a leading preservation advocate in Central Florida.
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by Beth Kassab | Apr 3, 2026 | Arts and Culture, News
Harold Ward III Leaves Long Legacy as a Community Caretaker
Ward died on Monday at age 92
April 3, 2026
By Beth Kassab
Harold Ward III, the well-known lawyer who helped shape modern Winter Park as an advisor to the city’s most prominent philanthropic foundations and institutions, was known for his modest and likable persona mixed with a scholarly command of the law.
Ward died Monday after a brief illness. He was 92.
“Harold was a very humble person and you wouldn’t know he was behind as much as he was behind,” said Doug Woodman, trustee and executive vice president and treasurer of the Elizabeth Morse Genius Foundation and Charles Hosmer Morse Foundation.
Woodman said that until recently Ward, a longtime trustee for the groups, still spent several mornings a week at the foundations’ office on North Park Avenue.
On Friday his desk was neat and tidy just the way he always kept it with a photo of his wife of 66 years Mary Lewis “Libby” Ward, who died in 2024.
“That was the most important thing he had on his desk … he was a really dedicated family man,” Woodman said, recalling how his mother, Louise, and Libby became friends and attended the first annual Winter Park Sidewalk Art Festival together.
Harold Ward, center, attended an event for Rollins College, where he chaired the board of trustees multiple times.
Their husbands were both partners at Winderweedle, Haines, Ward and Woodman where Ward eventually became known for his estate planning practice.
He started at the firm in 1960, choosing to return to Winter Park after law school at the University of Chicago and a clerkship with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black and a stint as an attorney for the U.S. Air Force.
It was in the D.C. area where he met Libby, who worked for IBM and held a degree in mathematics from William & Mary.
David Odahowski, president and chief executive of Edyth Bush Charitable Foundation, said the Wards often had Sunday dinner with Justice Black and would drive him on road trips to Florida, where the justice also had relatives.
“Harold and Libby — the two of them could have stayed at the hub of everything, but the tug of Winter Park brought them back,” Odahowski said.
Harold Ward in an undated photo
“When you think about Harold, you think about the movie ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ and Harold was starring as George Bailey,” but in his own story, he said, with Winter Park as his version of the film’s Bedford Falls.
Ward was a founding trustee and incorporating member of the Edyth Bush foundation, which has awarded more than $114 million to support the local arts, education, health care and more.
His roots were intrinsically tied to the founding of Winter Park, where he grew up and attended Winter Park High School where he played the double bell euphonium in the band, according to his daughter Mary Christian.
Charles Hosmer Morse, once the city’s largest landholder who donated the property for Central Park and the first town hall, hired Ward’s grandfather to help run his company.
The younger Ward was a friend of Morse’s granddaughter Jeannette Genius McKean and her husband Rollins College President Hugh McKean.
Jeanette McKean started the Morse and Genius foundations in honor of her grandfather and mother and Ward served terms as chairman of those boards as well as chairman of the trustees of Rollins College. The Morse foundation operates the Charles Hosmer Morse Museum of American Art and the Genius foundation provides funds for that endeavor as well as other charitable causes around town.
“In meetings, he was always the guy who asked the question that nobody else thought of,” Woodman recalled.
Harold Ward reads to his grandchildren. (All photos courtesy of the Ward family)
With the loss of Ward comes the loss of “an incredible amount of institutional knowledge.”
But Ward was also far more than his work, Christian said.
She said she remembers her dad being home just about every night by 6 p.m. for dinner with the family and always took time off for summer road trips that the family spent months planning.
“He was a wonderful dad. He would do anything for us and that translated to the kind of person and caretaker he was for the community,” said Christian, who lives in Maitland and also serves as a trustee on the Genius Foundation. “He was just very committed and dutiful … I know he was proud of the things he did, but he didn’t talk about himself in that way.”
Ward was also devoted to First Congregational Church of Winter Park where his family has been members since 1886. The church will hold a service for Ward on May 2 at 11 a.m.
In addition to Christian, Ward is survived by daughter Cathy McNamara and son Tom Ward, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
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