Christmas Light Installation in Laureate Park, FL

Laureate Park is the flagship residential neighborhood of Lake Nona in southeast Orlando, a new-urbanist community of front porches, alley-loaded garages, pocket parks and a village center with Canvas and the aquatic center. The architecture is modern and varied: flat-roofed contemporaries, Craftsman-style porches, farmhouse gables and townhomes, often side by side on the same street. It has an active HOA with exterior guidelines and a strong December culture, and it is about forty-five minutes from our Apopka shop on the 417.

Modern homes need a different lighting approach. On flat-roofed houses we trace the parapet and the horizontal lines of the facade in warm white C9 bulbs so the design reads as intentional rather than decorated; on porch-front homes the porch roofline, columns and railings carry garland and lights while the main roof stays simple. Because garages face the alley, the front elevation is all porch and windows, and a wreath on the front door and lit planters do more than they would on a garage-front house. Palms and young oaks along the street take a trunk wrap that fills the small front yards with light.

Laureate Park's HOA sets display windows and expects tasteful, non-flashing lighting, which is how we design here anyway. Installs run from mid October through the week before Thanksgiving, everything is on a dusk timer, maintenance is free all season and we take everything down in January. Townhome and villa owners get the same package scaled to the roofline. Because streets are compact, we can install several neighbors on one visit and encourage blocks to book together.