Gatorland Orlando entrance
— a roadside jaw that has stood since 1962.
Not only on a wall.
Gatorland Orlando entrance, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
Each tile ships in a kraft box, tied with cream ribbon, with a handwritten note from the studio if you'd like to add one.
Three or five different vistas, hung together — a chapter of places you've been, or want to go.
“The painted concrete alligator mouth on Orange Blossom Trail, eight lanes south of Orlando, has been swallowing visitors since 1962. The park itself opened in 1949 as Snake Village and Alligator Farm and is still family-owned by the Godwin family, three generations in now. Inside the gate are a hundred and ten acres of cypress swamp, breeding marsh and rookery where wild herons and storks roost above the resident gators. The entrance is the kind of pop-folk roadside architecture that survived the airbrushing of central Florida. — from the studio
The place, in three passes.
Gatorland is a 110-acre alligator theme park and wildlife preserve on South Orange Blossom Trail, between Orlando and Kissimmee in Orange County, Florida. Owen Godwin opened it in 1949 as Snake Village and Alligator Farm, and the Godwin family still owns and runs it three generations later. The painted concrete alligator-mouth entrance arch was built in 1962 and has become one of the most recognisable pieces of pre-Disney Florida roadside architecture. The park sits on the edge of a working cypress swamp that is also a rookery for wild herons, egrets and wood storks.
The entrance is not stone at all. The 15-foot-wide concrete jaw is a hand-sculpted scenic façade, originally cast in 1962 and rebuilt after a November 2006 fire that destroyed the lobby behind it. The new arch was restored from the original moulds and reopened five months later, in March 2007. It is one of the last surviving examples of mid-century Florida roadside vernacular, the same family of attraction architecture that gave the state Weeki Wachee's mermaid theatre and the Silver Springs glass-bottom-boat dock. The teeth take fresh paint every couple of years.
Gatorland sits at 14501 South Orange Blossom Trail, about 12 miles south of downtown Orlando and 10 miles north of Kissimmee. The park opens at 10 a.m. daily and runs to 5 p.m. most of the year, with the Gator Jumparoo, Gator Wrestling and the Up-Close Encounters shows on a rolling schedule. The wild bird rookery is most active from February through May, when egrets and herons nest in the cypress directly over the resident gators. The original entrance and gift shop sit at the front; the Screamin' Gator zipline runs over the breeding marsh behind.
