As has been widely reported in the Disney fan community, from MiceAge to Boing Boing to Re-Imagineering, the Pleasure Island Entertainment District at Walt Disney World, Florida, is closing this fall for a complete overhaul. Disney will be introducing outside-franchise restaurants and bars, as per the agreement the company already has with the likes of Rainforest Cafe and Planet Hollywood. This means that the half dozen or so uniquely themed bars and nightclubs on the "island" will be closing their doors forever on September 27, 2008.
This is a shame, because as a thematic entertainment and dining venue, Pleasure Island has no equal. unlike Jon Jerde's Universal Citywalk (which has a similar commercial presence), the area was designed with an extremely elaborate backstory; a testament to the thoroughness of the disney design process. The tale is reproduced here from Since the World Began: Walt Disney World's First 25 Years by Jeff Kurtti. The following concept art and text are © Disney Enterprises.
In the late 19th century, an adventuresome Pittsburgh entrepreneur, Merriweather Adam Pleasure, moved to the island and founded a canvas manufacturing and sail fabricating industry. The Florida climate favored his business, and though the merchant sailing industry was in its twilight, pleasure yachting discovered his superior product and his success was made.
The earliest buildings on the island were a wood-burning power generating plant (collapsed and rebuilt in concrete in 1934), the textile mill where high-grade canvas duck was woven, the circular fabrication building where sailmaking was done, and the owner’s residence. During the First World War, the manufacture of military tents required several additions to the mill and fabrication buildings. After the war, the pleasure craft industry expanded and boathouses for yacht outfitting were added. Before the catastrophic decline of the St. John’s aquifer in 1928, yachting clientele were accommodated in a salubrious club. Pleasure commissioned the building after becoming acquainted with the work of the messrs. Sir Edwin Lutyens, Charles Macintosh and Eliel Saarinen during a visit to the Paris Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Demand for the outfitting of luxury watercraft ebbed during the depression, and although financially unscathed in the market crash of 1929, the founder of Pleasure Canvas and Sailmaking, Inc., left the business in the hands of his two sons and embarked on a late-in-life adventure to the far reaches of the earth. Aware of the westering circumnavigations of Irving Johnson and the youthful crews of his Yankee Clipper, Merriweather Pleasure commissioned the yacht Domino (named for his then-favorite pastime), which brilliantly foresaw the awesome J-boat formula. With his daughter Merriam and her second husband, he embarked on a series of eastward ‘round-the-world voyages. They returned from their many expeditions with a vast treasure of adventure and discovery. The trophies eventually overwhelmed Pleasure’s comfortable bermuda-style house, and he built a warehouse to store and catalog them.
In 1937, Pleasure hit upon a novel advancement in amphibious aviation, and became consumed with the development of a secret device. He worked feverishly with a small staff of experts in a mysterious metal building he constructed just offshore in Lake Buena Vista.
The Domino was presumably lost with merriweather, merriam, and all hands, having been reported pitch poled in a howling summer storm while attempting a circumnavigation of Antarctica in December 1941.
With the outbreak of World War II, Henry and Stewart Pleasure’s sail and canvas business boomed, so much so that they added several large prefabricated steel buildings to house their expanded operations. The success continued after the war into the 1950s, sail making and chandlery being augmented by a flying boat service, until Stewart’s poor business decisions and Henry’s lavish lifestyle forced Pleasure Canvas and Sailmaking, Inc., into bankruptcy in 1955. As a note of finality, Hurricane Connie inflicted near-total destruction two weeks before the creditor's sale, ripping the roof and siding off the 1937 amphibian building and leaving the island an unsalable shambles.
Wow. That’s quite a detailed story to support the design of a small collection of bars and dance clubs—and that’s what makes Pleasure Island well, such a pleasure. Each and every square foot is designed to support this backstory, from the architectural mishmash to the layers of aging and weathering, from the wayfinding and graphics to the period-accurate typography. The crown jewel of this impressive district is the Adventurers Club—which is the primary reason the Disney fan community is up in arms over the dismantling of Pleasure Island.
The theme and setting of the Adventurers Club is New Year’s Eve, 1937. The club is a society of explorers and eccentrics from all over the world who have welcomed you, the guest, to partake in their songs and celebrations (replete with humor). They implore you to cheer along with the rallying cry “Kongaloosh!”—the name of the bar’s signature drink. The bar and theater are jam packed with ephemera, antiques and oddities from around the world, presumably collected by the club’s globe-trotting members.
The concept behind the Adventurers Club is “part thematic design, part live theater, part piano bar, part improv club, and part grandpa’s pool room (if gramps was Teddy Roosevelt and wildly eclectic)” in the words of one friend. Brad Beacom accompanied me on my research trip to Walt Disney World last fall—including two stops at the Adventurers Club (that's his back up top in the first photo walking into the club). He goes on to sum up the experience nicely:
"The Adventurers Club is completely unique—there is really nothing else like it. The level of detail is astounding (par for the course in Disney's world) and as a guest you are experiencing the design in a format that allows for infinite contemplation and investigation. Unlike a ride-thru attraction, such as Pirates of the Caribbean or The Haunted Mansion, you play a far more active role in exploring the thematic environment and interacting with both live actors and audio-animatronic elements.
It's a shame that Disney is removing this extremely unique thematic experience. A petition has been established to save the Adventurers Club, and it garnered nearly 3,000 signatures in the first 72 hours it was online, proving that the attraction has made a lasting impression on many visitors to Walt Disney World.