Interesting Facts about Beach Club Villas

Every Disney Vacation Club resort features its own unique history and facts. So, as part of a series here at DVC Resale Market, we’re providing glimpses into hotel trivia you may not know. Here are some interesting facts about Disney’s Beach Club Villas.

The Hotel Came First 

The Disney Vacation Club program specifically built a few resorts, such as Disney’s Old Key West Resort and Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa. In other instances, DVC officials persuaded their peers at Disney to add inventory at existing properties. 

Beach Club Villas falls into the second category, as the hotel technically predates the entirety of DVC. The original property, Disney’s Beach Club Resort, opened on November 19th, 1990, which was 13 months before DVC technically hosted its first guests. 

A few years later, DVC petitioned Disney to reclaim some of the space. That’s precisely what happened in May of 2000, when DVC announced its intention to add hotel inventory at Beach Club. Then, in July 2002, Beach Club officially opened as a DVC property. So, the hotel operated for nearly 12 years before it became a part of the DVC program. You can imagine how excited members were to own a contract at a resort with such a desirable location.

A Legendary Architect Built Beach Club 

I’m not much of an architecture fan, but I pay more attention when it comes to the creation of Disney hotels. Since the theming matters so much at these places, the chief architect’s influence is readily apparent. 

Beach Club claims something unique in the American Disney hotel library. Well, technically, Yacht & Beach Club does. Legendary architect Robert A.M. Stern helmed the creation of this hotel campus. 

Who is Stern? Well, from 1998 through 2016, he held the title of Dean of the School of Architecture at Yale. He’s also the 2011 winner of the Driehaus Architecture Prize, a global award that’s one of the most prestigious in the architectural field.

Disney hired him not long after he’d hosted Pride of Place: Building the American Dream, an eight-part 1986 PBS documentary. His architectural work on Beach Club impressed Disney officials so much that he was invited to join the company’s Board of Directors in 1992 and remained there through 2003. 

That’s not all! Disney admired Stern’s work with Beach Club so much that the company sent him across the lake to create Disney’s BoardWalk Resort. Internationally, He created the Disney Ambassador Hotel at Tokyo Disneyland, plus the Disney Hotel Cheyenne and the Disney Newport Bay Club at Disneyland Paris. 

Most impressively, Stern designed the entire city of Celebration, Florida, a place many DVC members know very well. None of this would have happened if not for Stern’s excellence in creating Beach Club. He even has a D23 page and could feasibly be named a Disney Legend at some point.

The Places Are Cape May and Newport

Disney’s theming often vacillates between wildly broad and uncannily specific. That’s definitely the case at Beach Club, a hotel with a definitive point of view. 

When Disney announced the project, it promised a hotel campus “reflecting the whimsical architecture of oceanfront homes built in the early 20th century in Cape May, N.J.” If you go to the architectural site explaining the process today, it reads slightly differently. 

Courtesy of WDW News Today

According to RAMSA, here’s the description of what you’ll experience on the hotels’ campus. “While both hotels draw their inspiration from America’s architectural past, each has a unique identity. The Yacht Club is reminiscent of the rambling, shingle-covered seaside resorts that were built toward the end of the last century in New England towns such as Newport, Marblehead, and Bar Harbor. The Beach Club is lighter, more airy in expression. It is modeled on the many Stick Style cottages and resorts that could be found in towns like Cape May, New Jersey.”

So, the initial plans called for a solid representation of Cape May before Stern and his team expanded the premise to other parts of New England. These places are within three hours of one another, but they possess their unique spirit and vibe. Disney has meshed them at the more upscale Yacht Club and the less patrician Beach Club. 

The various styles all work together to create an immersive halcyon days of yore New England beach theme. However, some rooms will remind you that you’re right by EPCOT. Savvy DVC members know the room requests to make to give them better odds of a special view. A handful of DVC rooms provide a straight-line view of Spaceship Earth, proving once and for all that Beach Club is an architectural triumph.

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