April 9, 2019. Winter Park, Florida – The Alfond Inn at Rollins, the award-winning boutique hotel in the heart of historic Winter Park, has announced plans to expand the property. Construction is expected to commence in late summer with a completion date anticipated for the first quarter of 2021.
The new development of the hotel, which is owned by nearby Rollins College, will include 73 additional guest rooms, bringing the total to 185 rooms. The new guest accommodations will offer spacious luxury rooms and several large suites that can be used for meetings and hospitality or converted into grand two-bedroom suites.
“This is an exciting time for The Alfond Inn and for Winter Park as we embark on the next phase of the hotel’s evolution,” says Jesse Martinez, General Manager of The Alfond Inn at Rollins. “Thanks to the tremendous support of the community, Rollins College, our partners and of course, our guests, we will be able to provide an even higher level of hospitality. The new guest rooms, the additional function space and the new Spa are true game changers, allowing us to serve our guests even better and to fulfill our philanthropic goals, which are always at the heart of our mission.”
The expansion will also include a state-of-the art wellness center and spa and a second swimming pool in an elevated outdoor area with fixed cabanas. The wellness center will offer a limited number of memberships to local residents. There will be over 2,000 square feet of new meeting and public space. The latter will be used to display additional artworks from The Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, which is an extension of the Cornell Fine Arts Museum at Rollins College. The Alfond Inn is the only hotel in the United States that serves as an extension of an art museum.
Philanthropy will remain at the heart of the hotel’s mission. The Alfond Inn directs profits to the Alfond Scholars Program, which awards full scholarships annually – including tuition, room, and board – to entering first-year students in the College of Liberal Arts at Rollins College. The approximate value of each scholarship is more than $240,000 over four years. Since 2013, when The Alfond Inn at Rollins was built, 53 full scholarships have been awarded.
The design for the new building will be in harmony with the original hotel structure, using natural light, open walkways and striking artwork to provide continuity and a seamless transition from the existing space to the new areas. The Alfond Inn’s original design team from Baker Barrios Architects, based in Orlando, will oversee the project, including the architecture, interiors and landscape design.
The Alfond Inn at Rollins is located in Winter Park, one of Florida’s most charming and walkable cities just 15 minutes from downtown Orlando.
Since opening in 2013, the hotel has earned numerous awards including top rankings and recognition from Condé Nast Traveler and Travel + Leisure. The hotel’s restaurant, Hamilton’s Kitchen, is known for its contemporary menu by Chef Stephen Doyle, featuring Florida seasonal specialties and popular favorites and a wine selection that recently received the Wine Spectator Award of Excellence in 2018. The restaurant was recognized as a Choice Best Hotel Restaurant in the 2019 Orlando Sentinel Foodie Awards. The hotel currently has 10,000 square feet of flexible meeting space. It was named Central Florida’s Best Wedding Venue by The Orlando Sentinel Best Bets awards in 2018 for the second year in a row, as well as the Best Local Hotel for Meetings and the Best Local Place for Weddings by the Orlando Business Journal.
