WDW Chronicles: Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin

by Jim Korkis
Disney Historian

Feature Article

This article appeared in the September 1, 2015 Issue #832 of ALL EARS® (ISSN: 1533-0753)

Editor's Note: This story/information was accurate when it was published. Please be sure to confirm all current rates, information and other details before planning your trip.

Walt Disney World Dolphin ResortWhen is a Walt Disney World hotel not a Walt Disney World hotel? I suppose when it is the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin Resort.

The Swan and Dolphin is located on Walt Disney Property, but it is not owned by The Walt Disney Company. The Tishman Corporation and MetLife own the Swan and Dolphin. Starwoods Hotel and Resorts Worldwide operate the hotels.

I think the story behind how they ended up on Disney property and their original design is fascinating.

After Walt Disney World opened in 1971, financial difficulties prevented the building of more resort hotels even though plans were well underway for the Asian, Persian and Venetian resorts that were to be added around the Magic Kingdom by 1975.

It was over a decade before any new hotels appeared on WDW property while the Disney Company watched the hotels on Hotel Plaza Boulevard and elsewhere grab the guests and convention groups that were coming to the vacation destination.

By the time Michael Eisner became Chairman and CEO of The Walt Disney Company in 1984, the company's connection to innovative architecture had faded. Eisner rejected a plan to build two rather ordinary hotel towers — Eisner referred to them as "refrigerator boxes" — near Epcot to meet the need for more hotel rooms on WDW property.

However, since Disney had not been involved in the creation of a resort for more than a decade, Eisner felt that if an outside company were involved with the building of a new resort on WDW property, Disney could eliminate the risk and study how it was done and then later do it on its own.

After some legal wrangling with the Tishman Corporation, Eisner hired the award-winning Princeton architect Michael Graves — who had never designed a hotel before — to design the Walt Disney Swan and Dolphin hotels.

When the two hotels opened in 1989 and 1990, they offered the largest hotel convention space in the southeastern United States. There was more than 329,000 square feet of flexible indoor meeting space to accommodate groups of any size, including four ballroom options ranging from 55,000 square feet to 3,500 square feet and 84 meeting rooms, including two executive boardrooms.

In March 1997, Graves did a presentation at the Disney Institute Performance Center, where I was working as a salaried animation instructor, on his projects for Disney. Afterwards, several of us took Graves to Seasons restaurant to continue the conversation. And during that informal get-together, Graves revealed some further insights into his work on the Swan and Dolphin.

At the time, Graves was working on the post office for the city of Celebration, which he called the "smallest building in the city." He was amused that he was responsible for the smallest building and the largest building (Walt Disney Dolphin hotel) on Walt Disney World property.

Disney Historian Werner Weiss debunked the urban legend that the decorations on the Swan and Dolphin don't match the iconic sculptures on the top of the buildings because a helicopter crew made a mistake and installed the figures on the wrong buildings, so to rectify the error, the hotels had to be renamed. Not only would such a mistake be unlikely, but when I talked with Graves it was easy to understand that the exteriors of the hotels are exactly as he designed them.

Some of the story of the Swan and Dolphin has been told in the book "Everything By Design," by Alan Lapidus. He was the other architect who worked on the project, along with Michael Graves.

The "black box" area on the Walt Disney Dolphin that many Disney fans mistakenly believe was meant to be an entrance for the monorail similar to the Contemporary resort is actually supposed to be the heart of a mountain. The Walt Disney Dolphin was conceived as a volcanic mountain which, during an undersea earthquake, has struggled to thrust its way to the surface and with all the fertile soil became surrounded by a tropical rain forest. That is the reason for the banana leaves painted along the side of the building — to represent that forest.

The struggle caused the black box heart to explode, and the water cascades nine stories down the side of the hotel, passing through five clamshell basins to a fountain, eventually splashing into Crescent Lake.

Notice that the walkway from the Walt Disney Dolphin to the Walt Disney Swan has railings and landscaping that mimic waves. The water splashes up onto the Walt Disney Swan and that accounts for the waves painted on the side of that hotel.

Walt Disney World SwanTwo birds were so awed by this spectacle that they alighted on the top of the waves to get a better look and were magically transformed into swans and frozen in time.

Graves deliberately selected two creatures, swans and dolphins, that "were not part of the existing Disney animated mythology," but he had hopes that they would then be developed further as Disney icons.

The dolphin image was inspired by the work of Italian sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini. An example of Bernini's dolphins can be seen in the King Neptune fountain in the Italian pavilion at Epcot. However, there is a major difference that Graves pointed out to us. Bernini's dolphins had mouths that curved downward, and Eisner insisted that wasn't going to happen on Walt Disney World property — so Graves' dolphins have their mouths curved upwards as if smiling.

Designed by Graves, the swan statues (like the dolphin statues) are created from steel, wood, and fiberglass, and were believed to be the largest structures of their kind in the world at the time. Since there were no existing samples to work from, Disney artist Gary Graham followed Graves' design, sculpting the swan models out of Styrofoam. These were then computer-photographed (photogrammetry) in a process that turns the shapes into a digitized database.

The photogrammetric information was then sent on to a shipbuilding company in Wisconsin. There it was put into a computer that automatically cut the wooden ribs to exact specifications and imprinted the ribs with numbers and location directions. The ribs were then delivered to the statue site, where they were fitted to a steel frame. Once assembled, a fiberglass covering was carefully brushed on and then covered with five layers of laminate. The swan statues were then sanded, painted and ultimately lifted into place on May 1989.

Completed, the swan statues, referred to as "heroic" statues, are 47 feet high. And at a combined weight of 56,000 pounds, they required a multi-ton crane to lift them atop the hotel. They were placed on specially constructed pedestals at either end of the hotel's roof, which support and display them.

The dolphin statues are 63 feet high. Some Disneyphiles referred to the building as "Flipper's Tomb" when the dolphins first appeared because they looked like the carved statues on top of a tombstone. All the roof sculptures are hollow inside, except for the structural beaming, and they have internal staircases and trapdoors for maintenance purposes.

Graves often used dark and light areas on his buildings and used similar black box designs on some of them. The rooms behind the black square are real. However, the real secret is there was no practical way to make use of the last 80 feet of the pointy top, so fake windows were put on the outside — but there are no rooms up there for guests.

Graves partnered with interior design firm of Wilson and Associates to create rich beach-themed color schemes, hand-painted murals, lily pond carpets, room doors painted to look like striped cabanas, seashell light fixtures and more to capture the spirit of a playful tropical beach.

"Both inside and out, the hotel was designed to echo the tropical Florida landscape, as well as the fun and whimsy of the nearby Disney attractions and an aura of fantasy that appeals to guests of all ages," said Graves.

However, those colorful storylines that neither the guests nor the employees understood (if they were ever told them in the first place) almost completely vanished with the extensive $60 million makeover in 2006.

At the time, Tishman Hotel Corporation Executive Vice President Dave Bagwell stated, "It's a total redesign. Entertainment architecture has had a very successful run, but it's time for a fresh new look."

The hotels transitioned to what is called "modern luxury," which meant the design was less thematic of a playful beach story and more opulent than before. Graves was involved in the room redesign, but not in the makeover of the public space.

Again in 2014, it was announced that both hotels would have a $125 million multi-phase, multi-story upgrade with new furniture and technology that should be completed by 2016. Because it is being done in phases, it will not disrupt the operation of the hotels, which have become favorites for many Disney fans for their events and restaurants.

I suspect there are few mourners of the attempt made by Michael Graves to capture the Disney spirit of "entertainment architecture" without Disney characters. It certainly proved to be a fiery conversation topic among Disney fans, but as you can tell from this column, there was much more to the story than many people knew.

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Other features from the Walt Disney World Chronicles series by Jim Korkis can be found in the AllEars® Archives.

Jim also writes occasionally for the AllEars® Guest Blog, contributing entries under the heading of "Jim's Attic."

Walt Disney World Swan Fact Sheet
Walt Disney World Dolphin Fact Sheet

PHOTOS: Recently Renovated Swan Room

Walt Disney World Swan & Dolphin Resort Overview
Part One
— Part Two

VIDEO: Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin Overview
VIDEO: Walt Disney World Swan Room
VIDEO: Walt Disney World Dolphin King Room

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Jim KorkisABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Disney Historian and regular AllEars® Columnist Jim Korkis has written hundreds of articles about all things Disney for more than three decades. As a former Walt Disney World cast member, his skills and historical knowledge were utilized by Disney Entertainment, Imagineering, Disney Design Group, Yellow Shoes Marketing, Disney Cruise Line, Disney Feature Animation Florida, Disney Institute, WDW Travel Company, Disney Vacation Club and many other departments.

He is the author of several books, available in both paperback and Kindle versions. You can purchase them via our AllEars.Net Amazon.com store HERE.

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Editor's Note: This story/information was accurate when it was published. Please be sure to confirm all current rates, information and other details before planning your trip.