When Celebration saw its first residents move into town during the summer of 1996, everything seemed great. The town center was beautiful, the houses
looked idyllic, the streets cozy and inviting. It was figuratively a Main Street USA that
you could actually live in. However it wouldn’t be long before the flaws
and troubles of the town began to surface and it would start to receive criticism from
the outside. What was meant to be a perfect town was apparently
not so perfect. Announcer: “When it was first announced,
demand to live here was so high Disney ran a lottery. Bill and Susan Bona were among the first 400
winners.” Susan: “I think people came here because-
thinking they were gonna be living on Main Street USA and you know the pixie dust would
be sprinkled and their life would be perfect and they wanted the monorail to pick them
up at their front door and you know this is real life, real mortgages, real jobs.” While many residents of the brand new town
were quick to praise the sense of community that the neotraditionalist design aimed to
foster, they were also quick to highlight a pretty glaring flaw, which is that the houses…
well… they kind of sucked. Back in its initial stages, Disney opted to
use contractors to build the homes of Celebration rather than building the houses themselves. It would hurt their bottom line since they
had to pay the third party companies to do the building, but the benefit was that they
wouldn’t have to manage the logistics of constructing thousands of homes over the decade
or so they expected it would take to complete the town. So they reached out to a number of different
companies who specialized in home construction and put them to work as fast as they could,
and while that speedy construction would prove helpful in the growth of Celebration, it would
ultimately hurt the homes themselves. Problems with the houses began to spring up,
and they ranged from small issues like outlets not working to major ones like leaking roofs
and moldy walls. Many residents found themselves requesting
repair after repair. Some of the contractors would later argue
that a large factor in the sub-par construction was the time crunch they were under and the
sheer number of homes they had to complete. On top of that, the quick turnaround between
planning and building meant that many of the out-of-state companies had no time to foster
working relationships with good local subcontractors who would provide quality building supplies
and additional labor. They also claimed that having to stick to
Disney’s strict style guidelines ultimately slowed them down and increased costs. Lastly, Celebration came about at a time where
there was a housing boom in central Florida, which led to a shortage in skilled workers
who really knew what they were doing. Some outlets, like the Tampa Tribune, also
made the case that perception played a big role in how bad the situation looked. Many of these homeowners were die-hard Disney
fans, and they bought into the idea of a house in Disney’s town on Disney’s property
with the thought that Disney would be the ones involved and taking care of everything. Yet the reality of the situation was that
once that contract was signed, it was pretty much out Disney’s hands. Eventually the complaints would pile up so
high that in 1999 the town would commission an independent inspection of the homes, and
the results would show that of the initial batch of houses, over 70 would need to have their roofs completely replaced to meet industry standards Thankfully over the years as the town expanded
at a much slower rate, the quality of the homes would improve and that list of problems
would shrink. Celebration’s K-12 school would also find
itself getting off to a rocky start. The school was meant to be cutting edge and
use experimental educational techniques. For example, rather than typical classrooms
of 20-30 students with one teacher, classes were made up of 80+ students from different grades with three teachers collectively overseeing everyone. Instead of traditional grading systems, report
cards were made up of more individualized and detailed assessments. In general many of the techniques attempted
were ones that were already being tested elsewhere in the country, however where other schools
would try to implement one technique, Celebration was trying to do it all at once. It lead to a confusing and hectic initial
school year that resulted in six of the nineteen full-time teachers, not to mention the principle,
quitting. Now all of this on it’s own would be worrying,
but it was made even worse by the fact that the following year the campus would be completed
which meant that more students outside of Celebration would begin attending the school. The student body would grow from just over
200 students to as many as 900 students. The school would need a larger and capable
faculty, yet it didn’t even have a small capable faculty at that point. For a few families in Celebration, that first
year was so bad that they’d list their houses for sale and move out. The criticisms of Celebration weren’t just
coming from within the town, however. Early on in it’s development, the concept
faced a lot of ridicule. Now in all honestly, this was largely an extension
of the ridicule that Disney as a whole had received since the early days of Disneyland. For many people, the promise of escaping reality
to a perfectly designed and maintained fantasy world is an appealing one. It’s a way to shed the stresses of daily
life and embrace your inner child. But for plenty of other people, the idea
is unsettling. They find the artificial nature of everything
and the perceived forced happiness as creepy. Celebration was no exception. Some argued that while striving to create
a nicer and more communal town was a noble goal, trying to force it through design regulations
and the appearance of perfection was going too far. And while that level of control and escapism
worked when it came to a day or two at Disney World, what would it mean to live it 24/7? For instance how would it affect children
who would grow up there? Would the overly safe bubble of a “perfect
town” do more harm than good? After years in the town, would they be prepared
to face the real world, which would look and operate nothing like Celebration? There was also the matter of accessibility. When the town was originally conceived, the
idea was to include houses of affordable varied prices as well as different styles of apartments. They’d be blended together in their layout
in order to promote more diversity so that there wouldn’t be a “rich part” of town
or “poor part” of town. But with the rising costs of the elaborate
town center and school, not to mention the very specific and detailed architectural guidelines,
Disney quickly learned that the houses needed to lean towards the expensive side to make
up the costs. And so the homes in 1994 began at $125,000,
which put the price at almost 20% over the county average at the time. The result, was a town that served as an example
of the growing socioeconomic divide. Celebration, Florida was over 80% white, and had a median income that was nearly double the county's There were people working at shops and restaurants
in the town center who couldn’t afford to live there. Now to be fair it certainly wasn’t the first or last
community like that, but again, Disney was trying to market this as the ideal
American town for other towns to emulate. Trying to sell that idea without any economic
or racial diversity did not look good for them. And then there was the matter of crime and
accidents. Now really, neither was much of a major problem
in Celebration. That said, like any other town in the country,
it still happened. 1998 would be the year Celebration would see
its first armed home invasion, as well as the first death due to a car accident. And while it would be unreasonable to expect
a perfect town with zero crime and zero accidents, it’s not surprising when the spotlight is turned on both when you try to sell your town as perfect. It was, more than anything else, a marketing
problem for Disney. When someone crashes a car into a pond and
drowns, as far as the media is concerned it didn’t happen in Celebration. It happened in Disney’s Celebration. With every house sold, Celebration inched
forward towards all of the issues and troubles that came with most every town out there. At the same time, with every house sold, Disney’s
investment in the project was literally shrinking. A new home meant that much less land to sell,
and that much less ownership over the town. They could, of course, retain ownership over
the town center, but would it really be worth it? After all, the lion’s share of the revenue
was in the land they were selling for houses. So in 2003 Disney began to divest itself from
Celebration, announcing their intentions to step back from the development and put the
Town Center up for sale. The town center would be purchased by a private
investment firm called Lexin Capital for an estimated $42 million dollars. Knowing that their name would be tied to the
legacy of the town anyway, Disney included a stipulation in the sale that the new owners would uphold
the same design and building standards that they first established back when the town
began. Between those sales and the land sales over
the years, it put Disney’s take on the project at an estimated $550 million. Not bad for a chunk of land they weren’t
using. The news prompted mixed reactions from residents. Some welcomed the change in ownership, and
hoped that it would mean more relaxed homeowner association rules down the line. Others, however, felt abandoned. They had bought into the idea of Celebration
as a town designed, built, and run by Disney, and now Disney was leaving them. How do you measure the success of a town? On the one hand, it was a financial success
for The Walt Disney Company. It helped with Osceola county’s tax revenue,
and it provided a place to live for many families who, despite all these troubles I just mentioned,
were often still proud of the sense of community that developed there. Disney wanted to build a town that would foster
the idea of community, and it worked. On the other hand, Disney also pitched the
idea of a perfect town that the rest of the country could use as a model to base theirs
off of, and with that they failed. It was a development that many people were
happy to live in, but it was very much one-of-a-kind, not a template for the new suburbs. Roy: “Celebration is really EPCOT I think
in the end, in the sense of what Walt was looking for. A really nice place where people really live real lives and have the advantages of modern technology." So was Celebration successful? Personally, like the Disney parks themselves,
I think it’ll depend on who you ask. For many it’s a dream come true, and for
others it’s a failure. The reality, as is usually the case, probably
lies somewhere in between. If you’re new to the channel and want to
get fresh Disney history videos every week, I’d ask that you consider subscribing. And if you’re looking for a good next video
to check out, I suggest the history of the Disney Cruise Line, which had a somewhat unique
origin. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next time.
I trimmed some houses and they were using MDF board to trim the houses. It was the dumbest thing. No matter how many complaints my crew had to David Weekly that this shit will absorb the water, they made us use it anyways. Then of course a year or so later it all had to be replaced and redone with hardie board.
Just mind boggling the person in charge of the materials choose that. There's no way they ever seen MDF because just looking and feeling it you can tell it doesn't repel water. leaving a cold beverage on that shit will leave water marks from it being absorbed