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Art Lovers Will Savor The Alfond Inn, Winter Park

It’s not everyday that I turn around to peer at a piece of art hanging from the walls of a hotel. Usually it’s some commercial print of ocean and seabirds. But last week, while spending the night at the Alfond Inn in Winter Park, Florida, I found myself walking aimlessly through the hallways just to check out the art. When I found an ethereal print by Neeta Madahar, repped by one of my favorite galleries in Boston, Howard Yezerski (now Miller Yezerski), I had to dig a little deeper to see what’s up. I found out that the Alfond Inn, a 112-room boutique hotel debuted last August, thanks to a $12.5 million grant from the Harold Alfond Foundation. Profits from the inn will go directly to Winter Park’s Rollins College for a scholarship fund. Harold Alfond founded Dexter Shoe Company, and his son Ted and wife Barbara are both Rollins alumni. Barbara serves on the board of trustees at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston and the couple is recognized by ArtNews as two of the 200 most important art collectors in America. With the assistance of independent Boston-based curator Abigail Ross Goodman (who once ran the Judy Rotenberg gallery in Boston), the couple amassed a 100-piece contemporary art collection solely for The Alfond Inn. Not too shabby. 

 
I wish I could have spent more time in Winter Park, a great walking town of boutique shops and restaurants, just outside of Orlando. The Alfond Inn also houses a rooftop pool and a great Southern restaurant, Hamilton’s Kitchen, where I dined al fresco on chicken and grits that evening. I’d happily stay there again, just to walk the hallways. 
 

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12 years ago, I was hired to write a story about paddling the Allagash River for Men’s Journal magazine. It was late September, when the leaves on trees were yellow, orange, and crimson and the normally taciturn moose was in heat and was as talkative as Bullwinkle. There were no mosquitoes, no black flies, no humans, except our little group who paddled over 5 days up the narrow river corridor. Last year, I was fortunate to return to Maine’s North Woods in autumn, this time on assignment for Sierra magazine. I was in the capable hands of registered Maine guide, Kevin Slater, who with his wife, Polly, run Mahoosuc Guide Service. We spotted moose, bear, a barred owl, and once again we had the river, this time the West Branch of the Penobscot, to ourselves. There’s something about being on a lengthy Maine river in autumn, when the crowds are gone, and you have this serene scene of water, the pine-studded campgrounds, and mountains hovering in the background. It seeps into your skin and I yearn to be back there each fall.
 

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