🎉 Tuesday Funday – Tour of Stetson University, lunch in DeLand, Barberville Yard Art Emporium, & dinner at Mesa De Notte

Day 2 – 5/2/2023 7:30am 70* high of 84*

Relaxed in the morning enjoying the outdoors with our coffee, tea & fruit.

Drove to DeLand to see where our daughter in law Lauren works. She gave us a campus tour, meeting her coworkers, students & even got a Schmancy pop! We all tried a different flavor! Perfect on a warm day… and free $$$! 😝 We toured all the Halls, student life center, went into the chapel, which was breathtaking. 🙏🏻 Next stop Greek Row, Lacrosse field, Hatters Field then pasted by Melching Field at Conrad Park. 🤯 Fun Fact, ⚾️ Chipper Jones, Hall of Fame Braves baseball player was born & raised in DeLand! 🥰

We walked around downtown DeLand & had lunch at Bake Chop. Amazing lunch & dessert! On our way back to Silver Springs we stopped off in Barberville’s Yard Art Emporium. Then checked out a few cute stores in Silver Springs and then rested a bit.. when Daniel got home from work they picked us up for an Italian dinner at Messa De Notte! We closed the place! 🤣

DeLand – census of 37,351 nicknamed “The Athens of Florida “ Founded in 1876. 🎥 In 1999 Adam Sandler’s The Waterboy was filmed at Stetson along with Ghost Story, From the Earth to the Moon & parts of Days of Thunder, Walt Before Mickey & New Urban Cowboy.

Stetson University – a private university with four colleges and schools located across Central Florida with the primary undergraduate campus in DeLand. The university was founded in 1883 and was later established in 1887. In total, there are over 4,000 students currently enrolled at Stetson.

The DeLand campus is home to the university’s College of Arts and Sciences, School of Business Administration, School of Music, and most graduate programs.

The 175-acre campus is Florida’s oldest collection of education-related buildings. DeLand Hall opened in 1884. The original cost of the building was $4,000. DeLand Hall was known as the first academic building on campus. Today, it is known as the oldest building in Florida in continuous use for higher education.

Elizabeth Hall, houses a number of departments in the College of Arts and Sciences. The South end of the building is home to the Lee Chapel. Elizabeth Hall is an official symbol of the undergraduate campus. The name Elizabeth Hall came from founder John B. Stetson’s wife, Elizabeth. Designed after Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the building is three stories of patterned brick, with a four-story central brick pavilion topped by a snowy white cupola. The building had once served as the college of natural sciences, as well as the library before the introduction of Sampson Hall, which held the books until the Dupont-Ball library was constructed. Currently, the building houses the offices of the faculty and the philosophy department, the department of political science, and the economics department on the first floor. The first floor also houses the Brown Center for Teaching Excellence, made possible by a multimillion-dollar gift from board members Hyatt and CiCi Brown. The second floor houses the offices of the faculty and the computer science department.

Lee Chapel is located in the historic Elizabeth Hall. It is a 100-year-old performance hall that seats 700 in an intimate setting. The acoustical properties are well-suited for classical music performances. It was built in 1897 and dedicated to the memory of John B. Stetson’s late son, Ben, who died at age 6. It is currently named after H. Douglas Lee, who served as Stetson’s eighth president from 1987 until 2009. It accommodates up to 787 people. William Sharp, an art professor, designed all the stained glass windows in the chapel. The organ is a 1961 Beckerath Organ. It is made up of 2,548 pipes and came here in 56 crates from Hamburg, Germany. It took three men two months to build.

Barberville Yard Art Emporium is a landmark, roadside attraction, strategically located in the heart of Central Florida: one hour north of Orlando, half an hour west of Daytona Beach and just a few minutes east from The Ocala National Forest.It offers huge amounts of one of a kind handmade yard art, mostly custom painted on the premises.