The city of Celebration is one of my favorite places in Central Florida. It was developed by The Walt Disney Company in the late 1990s, inspired by Walt Disney’s vision of the Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, or EPCOT. If you’ve been to any Disney property you know how much detail is put into planning and designing the infrastructure, so when you set foot in Celebration it’s like you enter The Twilight Zone with early 20th-century style middle-class residential buildings harmoniously distributed in suburban areas or “villages”. Think about the pristine exterior shooting locations of the show Desperate Housewives; it’s all that but in the heart of the Sunshine State.

Lake Rianhard. February, 2011

Celebration is located about 20 miles south of Orlando, across the Walt Disney World complex. Town Center is small, with a fair amount of retail, food & dinning locations; Columbia Restaurant is a personal favorite. Interestingly, many buildings were designed by renowned American architects. The city’s official website has some great pictures.

The Florida Hospital Celebration Health is another fascinating part of the community. It is an award-winning hospital that serves the population in Celebration of more than 7,400, it resembles a resort facility with a fitness center and a day spa all under a Mediterranean design. It sounds fictitious, really.

I took the following picture of Celebration Lakeside Park from the clubhouse located near Town Center. Every time I look at the foreground of this photo I can’t help but notice how the big spots on the grass are similar to small lunar craters. It’s like a landscape from another planet, a city from another planet.

Celebration Lakeside Park. February, 2011