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What's new in Mount Dora?
By Karen Haymon Long/Tampa Tribune
Hardly anything - and that's the charm it
holds for history buffs and collectors of antiques.
MOUNT DORA - Lake Dora would be reason enough to visit this Central Florida antique mecca.
Graceful grasses sway with the breeze along shore's edge. Squawking gulls swoop from the bluest of skies into the blue of the lake, then soar up again. Fluffy white clouds crawl across the sky. Then, when the wind starts tipping the rocking chairs on the Lakeside Inn's porch back and forth, back and forth, visitors yearn for nap time.
Like its showcase lake, Mount Dora beckons guests with the promise of relaxation and pretty sites. This little town with a white brick city hall that looks like Tara in ``Gone With the Wind'' offers all kinds of treasures - from 19th century clapboard homes to Old World antiques.
But antiques are just one reason to visit Mount Dora. The area also draws boaters, anglers, golfers, walkers, even shuffleboard players and lawn bowlers.
Antique shops and restaurants line both sides of downtown's Donnelly Street, an easy stroll from Lake Dora. Shops are on side streets, too, all within walking distance of each other and the Lakeside Inn, whose main building, housing its lobby, dates to 1883.
Many visitors arrive on Friday, shop downtown, have lunch and dinner in area restaurants, spend the night and head out for more shopping at Renninger's Antique Center and Farmers and Flea Market about 10 minutes southeast of downtown off U.S. 441.
Antique hunters will find everything from colorful Fiesta dishes to oak hutches and grandfather clocks, both downtown and at Renninger's, where 500 dealers crowd 35,000 square feet of indoor space.
Renninger's is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. Admission and parking are free. The flea market alone takes an hour or two to see, with its fresh produce tables piled high with carrots, asparagus, bananas, avocados, lettuce and cantaloupes, and other booths selling books, clothes, toys, tools, even kittens.
Three times during the winter months, 1,200 antique dealers from around the country converge on Renninger's for its ``Extravaganzas'' - giant antique swap meets held outdoors and inside on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. The next one is Nov. 15-17 (For more information, call (352) 383-8393).
Wear comfortable shoes, be prepared to do some hiking and take along bottled water. It can take hours to see row after row of antique toys, tools, canoes, dishes, jewelry, furniture and other items.
Strolling past all these objects of the past feels like stepping back in time, to an era when people still used sugar shakers, butter churns and irons heated on wood stoves.
Sometimes, just being in Mount Dora feels like visiting the past. Throughout the town are turn-of-the-century homes and buildings. Be sure to see the Donnelly House, built in 1893 on Donnelly Street, named for the town's first mayor; ancient oaks dripping with Spanish moss; and downtown restaurants furnished with antique tables and chairs.
Visitors can take carriage rides - pulled by a Clydesdale named Shane - on Friday evenings, Saturdays and Sundays downtown. E.J. Blough and Sheri Reihl own the business and serve as drivers, dressed in black livery uniforms.
Look for their carriage near the train depot on Alexander Street, or listen for its bells.
SMALL-TOWN FRIENDLINESS
Another sign of the past: Shop clerks greet customers coming and going. And everywhere bells tinkle when shop doors open and close.``Let me know if you need any help. If I can't help you, I'll find someone who will, even if I have to go outside to find'em,'' one downtown clerk called out to a weekend visitor.
In another shop, the owner walked a customer to the door, saying: ``Thanks a lot for stopping by. Have a good weekend. Bye!''
The town is so small (population 7,900) that even weekend visitors start recognizing people by Sunday. That hometown friendliness only adds to Mount Dora's charm. After all, this was the town that allowed filmmakers to paint its downtown buildings pink for the 1981 movie ``Honky Tonk Freeway.''
TAKE SELF-GUIDED TOUR
Buildings are back to their normal colors now, and many are worth looking at. The self-guided Mount Dora Historic Tour is a good way to see some of the better ones. Free maps are handed out at the Chamber of Commerce, stationed in the railroad depot, built in 1913 at the top of Alexander Street.The walk takes an hour and a half or so and wends from the depot past homes built in the late 1800s and early 1900s, by city hall, built in the 1880s, past the lake-hugging boardwalk in Palm Island Park and the lighthouse in Gilbert Park, then around Lake Dora and back to Alexander Street.
The route can be driven as well as walked, but it makes for a pleasant 3-mile jaunt.
Those who work at the Chamber of Commerce are happy to give visitors free events calendars, brochures on bed-and-breakfast inns and other accommodations, and menus of area restaurants.
They also share interesting tidbits: Why is the town called Mount Dora? they often are asked.
``The land slopes up from Lake Dora to the highest point of 184 feet above sea level downtown - so that qualifies us as a mount,'' declares the chamber's Nancy Rose. For anyone who has seen the movie ``The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill and Came Down a Mountain,'' her pride seems only natural.
OK, then, who was Dora?
The town's name came from the lake's, says Dave Felts, chairman of Mount Dora's Historic Preservation Committee. The lake's name came from Dora Ann Drawdy, who lived in the area in 1846 and befriended federal surveyors by letting them camp in her yard, cooking dinner for them and washing their clothes. When the surveyors went back to Washington, they named the lake in her honor.
A CITRUS SMELL
At first, the town was called Royellou for the postmaster's children Roy, Ella and Louis. But Felts says some townswomen thought that name ``didn't do the town justice.'' So, in 1882 they renamed it Mount Dora for the lake and the land rise they thought looked like a mountain.Drawdy would be proud to see how her namesake turned out.
There's a genteel air - and the smell of oranges and tangerines, a legacy from the town's roots as a citrus center. And, even though Money magazine named Mount Dora one of the better towns in which to retire, people here seem far from retiring.
They always seem to be gathering for town festivals. Their annual arts festival is the first full weekend of February; the annual antique wood boat festival - at the boat ramp at Gilbert Park - is March 28-31 this year. April brings an annual fine arts show, a sailing regatta - this year is the 42nd annual - and an antique car festival. In October are a bicycle festival and craft fair, and in December, the annual ``Lighting of Mount Dora'' and a Christmas walk.
Eduardo's Station, a Mexican cafe bar on Donnelly Street that (jokingly) claims it was founded in 1591, has live music Wednesday through Sunday. Two blocks east, Juliana Restaurant has music, too.
But, it's nice just to relax and not do much of anything in the evening, after dinner. Nothing but maybe look at the lake. And the moon.
