Marquet Hall, Artist concept only; not yet completed and subject to change. Not an actual depiction of the community or its environment. ©Disney

Storyliving by Disney

Walt Disney Imagineering is known for its impressive imagination and detailed storytelling for theme parks and cruise ships around the world. Now the team behind some of the most popular themed attractions around the world is also working on residential communities for Disney’s Storyliving by Disney brand. But for Imagineers who worked on Storyliving’s first community, Cotino, located in Rancho Mirage, California, and the upcoming Asteria in Chatham Park, North Carolina, building a residential community employs many of the same tactics as a theme park, but with a twist.

“What I think is so fascinating about Storyliving by Disney communities is that we are taking all of those details that are synonymous with Disney quality, going back to this idea of storytelling, and then how that influences placemaking, and then how that influences your emotions and what you do in this space,” Caroline Boone, Executive Creative Director at Walt Disney Imagineering, tells me. “We’re applying that to a residential community.”

For Boone and the rest of her team at Imagineering, Storyliving by Disney focuses on subtle details and elevated storytelling to a place where someone will live every day. “We’ve had a lot of debate and conversation and done a lot of research to understand what is the right level of Disney storytelling for an amenity where you are spending your everyday life,” explains Boone. “We still want that to be magical, but really calibrating based on guest and resident feedback to understand what’s the best way for that to manifest in this space.”

It is a fine line for how much Disney is too much Disney for a place where people are living versus vacationing. Most of the Disney details are located at the member clubs at Cotino and Asteria, dubbed the Artisan Club and the Second Star Club, respectively. One of the best examples of these subtle details is at Cotino's Architects Fork, a restaurant and bar, that features construction documents of popular attractions like "it's a small world" and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad. On a larger scale, there’s even a life-sized recreation of the mid-century modern Parr House from the Pixar Animation Studios film The Incredibles 2 that Artisan Club Members can rent for a special event.

On the other side of the country at Asteria, Disney storytelling is going more whimsical. The members club is themed after Peter Pan, with details like a Tinkerbell-themed weathervane on top of the main gathering hub, Marquet Hall, and a storybook home dubbed Lost Key Cottage where members can rent the facility for celebrations and overnight stays.