Inside the ultra-exclusive Disney World community where families watch fireworks from bed and get private rides to the parks
A Florida family has found a way to make every day feel like a fairy tale — by owning a storybook-inspired home within the gates of Walt Disney World.Cristie Anne, the 39-year-old creator behind the travel account The Traveling Red, splits her time between her primary residence in Miami and a vacation home in Golden Oak, Disney’s ultra-exclusive residential community in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.The gated enclave was designed by Walt Disney Imagineering and is composed of individually designed luxury homes — including Cristie Anne’s cottage, which takes its cues from Belle’s provincial home in the live-action “Beauty and the Beast.”She told the Daily Mail that the inspiration is immediately apparent when the home’s exterior is compared with the cottage seen in the film.Inside, Imagineer-designed details continue the theme without making every room feel like a theme-park attraction.Her parents purchased the four-bedroom, 3,600-square-foot cottage in 2020 for an undisclosed sum, although buying within the resort was never part of their original plan.They had been searching for a family beach house when her parents visited friends who had recently purchased a place in Golden Oak.
On the same day Cristie Anne’s future home hit the market, her parents toured it and showed the property to her and her brother over FaceTime.Her daughter was just 3 years old at the time, making a “Beauty and the Beast”-inspired Disney cottage especially difficult to resist.The family saw it as a place where she could grow up while they built traditions together.Golden Oak properties occupy a rarefied corner of the Orlando market.
Other homes currently available within Walt Disney World are asking about $8 million, while past reports have placed prices across the community between roughly $2 million and $20 million.Cristie Anne has not disclosed what her family paid.Living on Disney property comes with perks that most parkgoers can only dream of.Depending on which par...