By Katie Pocras Halperin, Nebraska Home Sales Realtor

While many Nebraskans were off in Orlando for the football bowl game, I was bundled up (oh, man was it cold) in Celebration, Florida. Celebration is a town of about 7,500 people and is a Walt Disney master planned community. Essentially, it’s in the Orlando-Kissimmee area. Close enough to Mickey Mouse, but not too close.

Famous architects designed some of the buildings including Michael Graves, Philip Johnson and Robert A.M. Stern. The town looks picture-perfect. As my husband commented, it could be from The Stepford Wives. We really did enjoy our stay. Celebration was a nice oasis away from the theme park hustle and bustle, and The Waffle House. I thoroughly enjoyed walking outside the hotel to my selection of restaurants and stores. Master planned communities have homes and business building designs that fit certain criteria and approval standards.

The town layout was also designed. Homes are on one end, connected with trails. Condos and apartments reside above the commercial street level businesses. Also the walking trails winded around different community lakes complete with views of up-scale and moderate priced homes, many bird varieties and the ever popular back yard live alligator. On my last day, this picture perfect community had hot air balloons floating over head.

Lincoln also has master-planned communities. True, we do have a bit of an alligator shortage, but plenty of birds and other critters. It was quite nice to park our car and go walk to where we wanted. And Lincoln’s planned communities will get to that point as well. New ideas take time. Some Lincoln neighborhoods have adopted design standards. So when a new home or business is built or altered, the building will fit in with the rest of the neighborhood and surroundings.

As for Celebration, I’ll be back. Next time, however, I’m bringing my golf clubs. And a warm coat.