Soon, about five dozen bedrooms spread across three tricked-out homes will be available for rental.
When completed, the Fantasy Island Orlando Resort in Davenport near Providence will have three themed homes unlike others in the area.
“It’s basically an enhanced and greatly increased size of a luxury vacation rental project,” explained Kurt Forrest Brewer, general counsel and COO for the project. “Three super-sized luxury mansions with extreme amenities.”
Those extreme amenities include laser tag, bowling alleys, LED video walls, indoor basketball courts, pools with lazy rivers, arcades, and many sleeping spaces.
These three new homes are close to 15,000 square feet with around 20 bedrooms and at least 20 bathrooms.
They rent for around $5,000 per night, depending on time of year and other factors.
“This idea is to basically bring a luxury mansion to the masses and that allows people to experience a luxury themed mansion that most people would never be able to enjoy,” Brewer told GrowthSpotter. “Large groups can come together and enjoy a luxurious property with all these amenities that are their own versus sharing at a hotel at relatively the same cost.”
Each home has a similar footprint but a separate theme. The first two homes, one with a VIP Hollywood Experience theme and the second with an Adventure Island theme are completed.
A third home with a Mission to Mars theme is under construction.
“It is going to be the most extravagant one and that is slated to be completed this summer, hopefully by the end of June,” Brewer said. “The technology that’s going in the house is quite extraordinary. There’s going to be a rocket ship in the pool area that has a lift sequence and other stuff.”
This is just one project for Emmanuel Mohammed, the founder and president of Hope Rise Development and Hope Rise Properties, known for themed vacation homes in the area.
The company began in 2011 and featured what was then a massive vacation home with 14 bedrooms. Many of the company’s homes are in Solterra Resort and Veranda Palms, subdivisions designed in part to allow vacation rentals.
“What’s unique about this [Fantasy Island] property is that the property is self-contained. It’s a compound. We have a two-story guard house and gate so we can offer VIP guests 24 hour security,” Brewer explained, adding companies or families could rent all three at the same time. “I really don’t know of any other property that is this unique where you have 60 bedrooms in a secure compound in three supersized mansions with all these amenities with their own lazy river, bowling alleys, and conference facilities.”
The plan is to build additional extreme vacation homes.
“We have acquired adjoining property around this development and have actually phased out potentially two additional phases that will adjoin [Fantasy Island,] Brewer explained.
This compound on Fantasy Drive, behind the Publix-anchored Loughman Crossing, isn’t near other vacation rental communities — and that’s by design.
“It is strategic because land is expensive especially when you get closer to Reunion and the Champions Gate development areas. We were able to acquire this land [for the existing three houses] and its adjoining pieces, fairly inexpensively,” he said.
The company is planning a few additional amenities available to all renters.
“Just south of these three houses is a retention area and the plan is to build a racetrack for go-carts and a building that we will call crew quarters that will house staff and support staff,” Brewer said. “On top of that building will be a helipad for people who want to fly in from the airport in true style.”
The Hollywood home in the first phase is currently for sale for $11.75 million. Edward Johnston with Coldwell Banker Realty is the listing agent.
“We want to sell it to help fund with cash the continued build out of the project,” Brewer said, adding that the home already has more than $1 million in bookings reserved for 2023.
That home has a huge Oscar statue out front, a bowling alley, indoor basketball court, and 20 bedrooms, each with a different movie theme.
When you walk into each bedroom, the theme music from that movie plays.
Of course, there is a theater room but there are also other areas for viewing or gaming, both outside and indoors.
“The living room has an LED-paneled wall, so the entire wall is a screen,” Johnston said, adding there is also a huge double-sided screen in the pool area. “In the amenities area, there is a lazy river pool with a volcano and a fire pit and a large tiki bar area off the back of the house.”
Other homes might be for sale in the future, but none right now.
“It’s always a possibility. When we began this project, the cost of capital and interest rates were very, very different. As you kind of strategize the overall development plan, a doubling of interest rates has a significant impact,” Brewer said. “You have to think how to fund this without having a lot of debt and a lot of expense on that on the balance sheet. We’ve always had a plan that at least one or two of them would be sold and that includes all the phases.”
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