Winter Park + Delray Beach
By Augustus Mayhew
Located almost equidistant north and south of Disneyopia, Rollins College and Florida Southern College are significant cultural destinations on the I-4 corridor, too often overlooked in the rush to monorail into a virtual Tomorrowland. During this past week, I was in Winter Park at Rollins, as captivated by the campus’ existing ensemble of barrel tile-and-stucco buildings that remain from the original 1929 master plan designed by the firm of Kiehnel & Elliott as I was several years ago by the 1950s organic Frank Lloyd Wright campus at Florida Southern College.
![]() | ![]() | | Rita Bornstein, president of Rollins College, left, with Harriet and George Cornell and their puppy. Photograph courtesy Rollins College Archives and Special Collections. | ![]() |
“At the time, Hamilton Holt, the president of Rollins, was impressed with the Miami-based Kiehnel & Elliott’s work at the Rolyat Hotel in Deland, built in 1925 and now part of Stetson College of Law. Holt commissioned the firm to formulate a new plan, designing a campus with understated picturesque Spanish-style buildings,” said Wenxian Zhang, head of archives and special collections at Rollins.
“When Kiehnel died in 1942, associate architect George Spohn took over as campus architect,” Zhang added. Added to Kiehnel & Elliott’s spirited Mediterranean adaptations, the ecclesiastical work of the renowned architect Ralph Adams Cram, as known for his various Manhattan churches and cathedrals as the campuses at Choate, Phillips Exeter, and Princeton, and the more recent work of James Gamble Rogers II, whose father and uncle with the same names were also architects, combine to make Rollins College a masterwork, as distant in time and place as the archetypal ivory tower.
Along with a distinctive otherworldy setting, Rollins has been fortunate primary beneficiary of its alumni, especially the concentrated generosity of George and Harriet Cornell, of Delray Beach. Two of the most delightful people you would ever want to meet, the Cornells’ contributions over a three decade totaled more than $105 million, not only to the advancement of academic endeavors with scholarships and endowed chairs but also to the bricks and mortars, providing the funds that facilitated several significant buildings. I have mentioned the Cornells before, in regard to the Morikami Museum, Palm Beach Zoo, Old School Square, and perhaps utmost for George Cornell, a local dog park named in their honor. After Harriet died, “Don’t call an ambulance!” I always saw him driving around with his beloved dog.
And then, I motored to Delray Beach where I stopped in at Arts Garage for the opening of Rene von Richthofen's latest exhibition of auto-erotica. |
