You've probably met people who, if they could, would stay at the House of Mouse all year round — a fantasy that, from weddings and honeymoons to condos, the Walt Disney Company (DIS) is all too happy to accommodate.
Disney has experimented with this idea before, but only in communities that are just outside its Florida resorts. The entertainment company's latest venture is taking that park atmosphere further and launching a residential community to California's Coachella Valley.
What's Storyliving By Disney?
Dubbed "Storyliving By Disney" the neighborhood will feature a number of villas, condos, and housing complexes with that fairytale touch as well as a "grand oasis" of food, shopping, and entertainment — touches include live performances by Disney workers, cooking classes, and a lagoon of "clear turquoise waters" one can walk by.
"As we prepare to enter our second century, we are developing new and exciting ways to bring the magic of Disney to people wherever they are, expanding storytelling to Storyliving," Josh D'Amaro, chairman of Disney Parks Experiences and Products, said in a statement. "We can't wait to welcome residents to these beautiful and unique Disney communities where they can live their lives to the fullest."
While Storyliving will be built in Rancho Mirage, California (a desert town two hours outside of Anaheim where Walt Disney once owned a home himself), the Disney machine is already planning to build similar communities at other U.S. locations.
The cost of the different condos and villas have not yet been announced but do not expect them to be anything close to budget-friendly — when Disney opened the Golden Oak resort in Florida's La Buena Vista, prices for a home started at $1.6 million while one has recently listed for $16 million.
Who Wants To Live At Disney?
The stereotype that Disney is about parks and movies for kids has long ago become outdated; the idea of "communities" of those who want to make the Disney vision their lifestyle dates as far back as Walt Disney's day.
Standing for Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow, the current EPCOT theme park started out as an idea for a model community of 20,000 people in the 1960s. Walt Disney had originally envisioned a "city that would 'never cease to be a living blueprint of the future'" — the residents would live in a gated community of what's needed for life (homes, shopping, entertainment) and the latest technological innovations.
Disney
"It will be a community of tomorrow that will never be completed," Walt Disney said at the time. "It will always be showcasing and testing and demonstrating new materials and new systems."
While the concept never came to fruition and instead served as the launching point for Walt Disney World's opening in 1971, Disney has not given up on the idea of the residential community.
In 1996, the company developed the Town of Celebration 20 miles outside of Orlando — while the homes in the 7,000-person community are now privately owned and unrelated to Disney, the entire town was designed in the same nostalgic, new urbanist style that one sees when walking down Disney's Main Street.
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