Posts Tagged With: 1950s

Exquisitely Furnished Lucerne Gardens

Top: 1950's Bottom: 2014 Lucerne Garden Apartments have changed little, while the view changed substantially.

Top: 1950’s
Bottom: 2014
Lucerne Garden Apartments have changed little, while the view changed substantially.

Lucerne 2The Lucerne Gardens apartments have been located on the southern end of Lake Lucerne for over 60 years.  The apartment exterior looks much as it did in the mid-1950’s.   Its great view of the Orlando skyline has experienced quite a bit of change in these decades.

The historic home of Dr. Phillips is obscured by the 408 running over the north shore of Lake Lucerne.  Much larger buildings stand in the distance than what a residents of past decades saw when looking across the lake.  Still the Lucerne Gardens are a small remaining piece of 1950’s Orlando.

The view across Lake Lucerne today

The view across Lake Lucerne today



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Minute Maid Headquarters in Orlando

Minute Maid Headquarters 1957 and the building today 2013

Minute Maid Headquarters 1957 and the building today 2013

Minute Maid Headquarters

From the back of the postcard:  “National Headquarters of Minute Maid Corporation in Orlando, FLa.  Located near the heart of Florida’s rolling citrus grove country, at the intersection of 441 and Rte. 50, this beautiful building is the center of all operations of Minute Maid, world’s largest grower and processor of citrus products — Minute Maid and Snow Crop frozen concentrates, and Hi-C canned fruit drinks.”

This history of Minute Maid goes back to World War II, when research created a new method to concentrate orange juice.  The US Army awarded a contract to a new company, Florida Foods, to provide an orange powder that could be reconstituted into juice.  The war ended before the product made it to the troops, so Florida Foods turned to the consumer market.   Florida Foods became Vacuum Foods and later renamed Minute Maid Corporation.

Minute Maid’s headquarters were built at the corner of OBT and Colonial in the mid-50’s.   Coca-Cola purchased Minute Maid in 1960 for its first venture outside sodas.   In 1967, Coca-Cola moved the headquarters to Houston, TX.

Having been used by Orange County Public Schools in recent years, today the building sits empty.  Plans are currently underway to locate a Wawa convenience store on this site.

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From The Miami News 10/20/1957

From The Miami News 10/20/1957

Categories: Advertising, Post Card Stories | Tags: , , , , | 4 Comments

Checking Back into The Angebilt

Click to access the PDF of The Angebilt Hotel brochure.

Click to access the PDF of The Angebilt Hotel brochure.

The first post on Orlando Retro Blog was about the Angebilt Hotel.  We are checking back into the Angebilt with a circa 1940’s travel brochure and a restaurant menu from 1957.   (You can download a PDF of the brochure by clicking on brochure image to the left.)

This brochure is from a time when the highlights for Orlando travelers were:

  • Fishing and Swimming
  • Tangerine Bowl
  • The Washington Nationals Winter Home
  • Eastern Airlines
  • Rollins College
  • Ben White Raceway

The air condition dining room provided table de hote service.  (A Google search tells me we call that prix fixe today.)   From this 1957 menu, the restaurant offered a wide variety of seafood appetizers (Blue Point Oysters on the half shell $1, Crab Meat Cocktails Supreme $1.25), salads (a 20 cents up charge for Roquefort cheese dressing), and sides like Lyonaisse Potatoes (25 cents) and French Fried Onion Rings (30 cents).  Highlighted was the Deluxe Plantation Planked Burger: Our Specialty from the Plantation Lounge (Choice Western Beef, ground daily in our own Kitchen, Broiled on an Oak Plank with Ripe Tomato, Julienne Green Beans and Bordure of Whipped Potatoes) ($1.65).  An oak planked burger sounds rather culinary forward for 1957 Orlando.

Atop the Angebilt was a Sky Room or the “Top of the Town” for conventions and banquets.  Also a solarium where bathing beauties in the modest swimwear of the era could enjoy the “benefits of Mother Nature’s greatest helper ‘the sun'” as well as therapies and massages.  On the mezzanine was a lounge decorated in what looks like tropical prints on wicker furniture.

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The text of the brochure speaks highly of our City Beautiful, “Nowhere else in this whole wide world has nature smiled so lavishly.”  The staff is described as, “young in years” but “old in service.”  Guests are invited to stay a night, a week, or as a permanent resident.

Below I created a “then and now” of the hotel lobby with the picture from the brochure and a current shot.   The lobby has been restored and is in great shape today, and looks very much like it did in brochure.   No longer a hotel lobby but a business entrance now.  The front desk staff and the elevator operators are long gone, but it is reassuring that some of the charm remains in this once grand hotel.

The Angebilt Lobby in the 1940's and Today

The Angebilt Lobby in the 1940’s and Today

Categories: Advertising | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

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