Orlando, Florida, is a crowded market for family resort offerings. But Evermore, which opened this year, stands out.
The 1,100-acre property features vacation rental-style houses designed for families, 12 food and beverage outlets, a 36-hole golf course and a beach-lined lagoon that spans more than six football fields in size. What’s more, the resort is also the setting for the 433-room luxury Hilton hotel Conrad Orlando.
Hotel Dive sat down with Stewart Brown, executive vice president of hospitality at Dart Interests, the resort’s developer and owner, to discuss Evermore’s unusual model, the rise of family travel and Dart’s expansion plans.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
HOTEL DIVE: How did Evermore come about?
STEWART BROWN: Chris Kelsey, our president for Dart Interests, was going through our real estate portfolio, and he was like, “Wow, the Grand Cypress Golf Club is a really interesting gem.” Here you have 1,300 acres literally adjacent to Disney. We share about 3 miles of border with Disney World, and we’re 10 miles from Universal, in the heart of the tourist corridor.
So Dart spent a couple of years thinking about what to develop on this piece of land, and at the same time, we saw some trends in hospitality. The rise of family travel and multi-gen travel was already popular in Orlando, but we saw it getting more and more popular, and we saw a deterioration of connectedness. I have kids, and it’s like a battle to try and connect with them because they’re on their devices.
And then at the same time, there’s the rise of home sharing. Platforms like Airbnb have been making it easier for people to access that product type, but we saw a lot of issues with that model, and so that was an area of opportunity.
The pandemic exacerbated all of the trends that I just spoke about. So we set out to change the way that people vacation together, and a lot of that is just making the togetherness richer. We developed a true destination resort right here in Orlando with luxury accommodations and world-class amenities.
What makes Evermore a destination resort?
When most people come to Florida, they have to decide: Do we want to go to the beach, or do we want to go to the theme parks? Now you don't have to choose. We brought the beach to Central Florida.
We have three home types. We have the villas, which were the villas of Grand Cypress, which we renovated; what we call “flats,” which are essentially apartments with full kitchens and washer-dryers; and 69 single-family homes. They were all purposefully designed to be vacation rentals. All of our vacation rentals have full kitchens and washer-dryers, and there's a seat at the dinner table for every single person.
And then you have some things that maybe you wouldn't have if you just rented a house elsewhere. We've got world-class fitness classes, activities and 36 holes of Jack Nicklaus golf.
How does Evermore combine hotel-style hospitality with the vacation rental model?
We see a lot of sophistication coming very quickly to the rental space. Some people want to meet the host and get to know them. This is not that. We are after the people who want to be with their tribe and have that together moment. So we stay out of your way if you want us to, but if you want help, we’re there.
Many of the people we've hired come from the hotel business. We've managed to recruit some really great hospitality people.
In addition to all the rental options, there’s a luxury hotel on site. Why does Evermore have both?
I come from hotels, and I think we're trained to think of vacation rentals as a bad thing. But it comes down to the use case. So — I’ll use myself as an example — if I'm going to come for an event, [my wife and I] would probably stay at the Conrad. We'd go to the spa, we'd play golf, we'd have our togetherness moment at a hotel.
But I have four kids, so if we're all coming, I'm probably going to rent a house. We're probably going to cook half of our meals. There's a product for whatever your use case is.
Orlando is a crowded hotel market. What do you do to ensure Evermore stands out?
We think our vacation rental model is very innovative. It’s one of a few, if not the only, true destination resort in Orlando. And then our location is privileged. We're just super fortunate to be where we are, right in the heart of the tourist corridor. If you look at the single-family home vacation rental market in Orlando, most of it is further south from us. So we also have a good location because there are fewer vacation rentals in Orange County. And with a luxury positioning, I think there's nothing else like it in your market, as crowded as it is.
Evermore doesn’t work with a hospitality management company. Why did you choose that model?
The thing that we do that's a little bit different is that we own and manage everything. So the Conrad is managed by Hilton, but owned by Dart. And then all of the vacation rentals, the lagoon, the activities, recreation, the F&B around the lagoon — it’s all owned and managed by an operating company that we essentially stood up to do that.
That gives us a lot of control, and we can do some things that you couldn't do otherwise. The whole area is gated, so it's super secure. You can let your kids just kind of roam on their own. We have on-site engineering and maintenance. And because we own and control everything, everything was purposefully designed. We have the same dishwasher in every unit, and we have extra parts. And then we have a la carte housekeeping so mom and dad don't have to run around cleaning their whole vacation. It's kind of a mesh between a traditional vacation rental and the hotel world.
We did look at other operating entities, and in the end, we felt no one else was really doing what we were proposing to do. So it's hard to know who could do it successfully if they've not done it in the past. We thought, hey, if we're gonna crack the code here, we might as well do it ourselves. And then if this works out and we like the business model, we can take this show on the road.
Where else is Dart considering for future resorts?
We are only eight months old, but this summer we had spectacular demand, which exceeded our expectations. So the model is working great, and we think we do want to look for other locations. There is only one theme park capital of the world, but we think a mountain Evermore could make sense. A beach Evermore could make sense. On a lake could make sense. We have a network of people all over the country who are looking at developing all sorts of real estate — not just this one concept or even hospitality, but they all are steeped in what we do here, and are out looking for expansion possibilities.
