First Ever Holiday Confection Competition in partnership with the Florida Hospital Foundation to benefit the Florida Hospital Transplant House, Opening in 2015

For more information, contact:
Robert Hubler,
407-639-4212, rhubler@RosenHotels.com

For photography, visit https://www.rosenshinglecreek.com/photoGallery.asp

ORLANDO (Oct. 2, 2014) – Orlando’s Rosen Shingle Creek® is well known for its exceptional dining and artfully crafted pastries, handmade by world renowned executive pastry chef, David Ramirez, and his team. But now, the hotel is inviting other local chefs, pastry enthusiasts and members of the hospitality community to share in the confectionary fun as it introduces the inaugural Rosen Shingle Creek® Gingerbread House Competition. The contest will benefit the new Florida Hospital Transplant House, scheduled to open in 2015.

The competition will be judged by Ramirez, former winner of the Food Network USA Pastry Challenge and former team captain for Team USA in the Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie, or World Pastry Cup; members of the Florida Hospital’s Gourmet Soirée committee, Chef Emily Ellyn and Bill Sullivan; and other community leaders.

“We are thrilled to introduce this wonderful new holiday tradition to Rosen Shingle Creek®,” said Leslie Menichini, Vice President of Sales & Marketing, Rosen Hotels & Resorts®®. “The Gingerbread House Competition not only will provide a charming holiday backdrop for our guests, but also, the proceeds will go to a very worthwhile cause, the Florida Hospital Foundation to benefit the Florida Hospital Transplant House to aid organ transplant recipients and their families.”

The gingerbread houses will be on display Dec. 1-22 at “Gingersnap Station” in the hotel’s main lobby. Judging will take place on Dec. 18 from 5 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. During the judging, competitors and guests may enjoy a Gingerbread Reception featuring complimentary light fare and a cash bar. Guests may enter to win a variety of giveaways, including hotel stays, gift certificates and other prizes.

Entries will be judged on originality, overall appearance, choice and use of materials, and difficulty of design. All gingerbread houses must be original; no kits may be used. The main components of the house, including the walls and roof, must be constructed of gingerbread and all components of the house must be edible

The deadline to register for the gingerbread competition is Oct. 15 by 5 p.m. Registration forms and a complete list of rules and acceptable gingerbread house dimensions may be found at www.rosenshinglecreek.com/holidays. All participants must attend a Gingerbread House Entry Reception the evening of Oct. 23 to review the rules of the competition. Installation of the gingerbread houses will take place between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. on Dec. 1. All prize money will be donated to the Florida Hospital Foundation to benefit the Florida Hospital Transplant House. For more information, prospective participants may contact Amy Leniz at ALeniz@RosenShingleCreek.com.

The Gingerbread House Competition is just one of many holiday events at Rosen Shingle Creek® this season. Gingerbread-makers-in-training can learn the tricks of the trade as Ramirez leads Gingerbread University on Dec. 13 from 11 to 12:30 p.m., as well as cookie decorating and chocolate making sessions on Dec. 20. Other festive holiday events include a Holiday Entertaining workshop with “Retro Rad” Chef Emily Ellyn; the Big Band Dinner Show Series, featuring a performance by Michael Andrew & The Atomic Big Band and A Blast from the Past Original ’50s Holiday Revue; as well as a Nutcracker Ballet Performance and Tea; performances by local choirs; and much more. A variety of specially priced accommodations packages are also available for holiday getaways. Visit www.rosenshinglecreek.com/holidays for more details.

The AAA Four Diamond, 1,501-room Rosen Shingle Creek® is conveniently located at 9939 Universal Blvd., just off the International Drive tourist district and 10 minutes from the Orlando International Airport. Among the many honors the hotel has earned is Meetings & Conventions (M&C) magazine’s Gold Platter Award, a “best of the best” award which is given only to the top catering departments at convention properties across the country. To book a room, guests may call the Rosen Shingle Creek® reservations line at (866) 996-6338. For more information, visit www.rosenshinglecreek.com or call (866) 996-9939. For more information about Rosen Hotels & Resorts®®, visit www.rosenhotels.com.

The Florida Hospital Transplant House provides a ‘Home away from Home’ for patients and their families during treatment and recovery. It will also provide opportunities for interaction with other families facing similar health challenges. For more information, visit: https://www.floridahospital.com/foundation/areas-support/case-support-transplant

Harris Rosen, founder and president of the award-winning Rosen Hotels & Resorts®, isn’t a man who thinks much about his legacy. He is too busy for that. Rosen’s time is spent envisioning new ways to help the less fortunate here in Central Florida and around the world. He is actively ensuring that the next generation of hospitality professionals takes the industry to even greater heights. At the same time, he’s busy launching the most dynamic vacation and convention hotel to open in Central Florida in years—Rosen Shingle Creek®. In truth, this new property is more than just another hotel for Rosen; it is the crowning achievement of his four distinguished decades in the hospitality industry. Just as important, it is the fulfillment of a personal dream.

“I have spent the best years of my career here in Florida,” Rosen explained. “I love every aspect of this state—the geography, the history, the people. So, for my final project, I envisioned a hotel that honored the majesty of the natural Florida frontier and reflected the spirit of the grand hotels built here at the turn of century.”

Rosen purchased this parcel of 250 glorious acres along the legendary Shingle Creek several years ago. Flourishing with native flowers and plants—including dense oaks, towering pines and majestic cypress trees—this site, Rosen felt, embodied Florida’s natural magnificence. And he knew that it would be the ideal setting for the final project in his illustrious career.

That career began in 1961 when Rosen graduated from the prestigious School of Hotel Administration at Cornell University. But Rosen’s path to success began at a much earlier age.

“My first job was selling worms,” Rosen explained. “I was 8 or 9 years old, staying at a cabin in upstate New York during the summer while my father worked in the city. After a few days up there, I realized that the fishermen were anxious to fish, but didn’t want to bother with finding their own bait. So, I started catching night crawlers and selling them—three worms for a quarter. That was a lot of money back then.”

That worm business was perhaps the first glimpse of Rosen’s entrepreneurial spirit. But it wouldn’t be the last.

After college, Rosen went into the Army for three and a half years and was stationed overseas in Asia and Europe. While in Germany, Rosen was once again bitten by the business bug and found an opportunity to start a tulip business. Once again, he was a success. In fact, he earned enough money selling flowers to do a little traveling while on R & R, and it was on one of these trips that he stumbled onto his next entrepreneurial adventure.

On the beaches of Spain, Rosen began selling sun reflectors to the German tourists. He manufactured the reflectors himself and even sold advertising on the backs to makers of sunscreen. Before he headed back to his unit, Rosen had sold out of his inventory.

To Rosen, these ventures felt perfectly natural. Everything he attempted, he approached with incredible energy. And when he returned from his service, Rosen rededicated himself to the hospitality industry. He went to work with the Hilton Hotel Corporation and worked his way up to senior management, and then went into management with the Disney Company in California.

When Rosen migrated to Central Florida in the early seventies, he was ready to reclaim his entrepreneurial spirit, only this time, it wasn’t a worm business he was interested in.

In 1973, Rosen purchased a 256-room Quality Inn in Orlando on International Drive, and his company was officially underway. In Florida, Rosen was determined to set his roots, and raise the bar for the entire hotel industry. He was also excited to be a part of something bigger. He wanted to immerse himself in the community as well as his business.

Rosen recollects, “Where I grew up, in New York City’s Lower East Side, people didn’t have a lot of money. Everywhere I looked, I saw blue-collar workers. But my mom wanted more from me. I remember her saying constantly, ‘I don’t care what you are, just be the best.’” That advice pretty well sums up Rosen’s work ethic—whether he’s working on a new hotel like Rosen Shingle Creek® or on one of his philanthropic endeavors, he is headstrong and totally committed. “I know that I’ve come a long way, but I don’t feel wealthy or successful. I think it’s just my Lower East Side background. I just work hard, like my mom told me to do.”

Over the course of the last thirty years, Rosen’s company has grown from 256 rooms to more than 6,300. Today, the Rosen family of hotels, which includes the award-winning Rosen Centre® and Rosen Plaza®, and four other properties in the Orlando area, remains, unwaveringly, a standard-bearer of service, reflecting the influence of Rosen’s early positions at the Waldorf Astoria and others.

“The secret of success is no secret,” Rosen says. “You’ve got to work your ass off. You have to be obsessed.”

While the company’s newest property, the Rosen Shingle Creek®, may be the pinnacle of Rosen’s hospitality career, his legacy extends well beyond guest rooms and golf courses. To people in the hospitality community, as well as the community at large, Rosen is just as renowned and even more revered for his philanthropy and good will.

Throughout his career, Rosen has believed that his mission is not just to conduct business in the community, but also to invest in it. Toward that end, in 1993, he launched the Tangelo Park Pilot Program with the mission of fulfilling the dreams of at-risk children and their parents.

“My pledge was that every two, three and four-year-old would be able to go to preschool at no expense to their parents,” Rosen explained, “and that for every youngster in the program who was accepted to a public college in the state of Florida, we would pay his or her tuition, room, board, books and travel.”

Since its inception, the Tangelo Park program has provided more than 200 college scholarships, and high school dropout rates have gone from 25% in 1993 to just 6% in 2004.

Rosen has also donated more than $22 million to the University of Central Florida for the creation of a world-class school of hospitality management, and he has become involved in such diverse projects as “Water for Haiti,” raising funds to purchase specialized water filtration devices in order to provide fresh drinking water to one million people in Haiti and “The Bronze Statue Program” at Bethune-Cookman College. Most recently, Rosen pledged $3.5 million to build a Southwest Orlando Jewish Community Campus in Dr. Phillips. The Campus will bear the name, “The Jack and Lee Rosen Southwest Orlando Jewish Community Campus,” in honor of Mr. Rosen’s parents. As a result of his many heartfelt efforts, Harris Rosen is no longer simply a hotelier; he has become, in fact, a role model.

For more information about Rosen Shingle Creek®, call (866) 996-9939 or visit www.oldrsc.com.

Rosen Hotels & Resorts® currently owns and operates seven properties in the Orlando market. Numerous hospitality-industry awards, employee longevity and a reputation for quality have fueled the growth of Rosen Hotels & Resorts over the past 34 years. For more information about Rosen Hotels & Resorts®, visit www.rosenhotels.com.

For more information, contact: Robert Hubler
(407) 639-4212, Email: rhubler@RosenHotels.com
Photography available in our Photo Gallery