JAMES CITY — Visitors to Kingsmill Resort can take in sweet scenes of the Williamsburg area recreated in a 128-square-foot gingerbread village.
“Sweet Ole’ Williamsburg,” created by the resort’s executive chef, includes 17 different candy and icing adorned gingerbread houses and a toy train that runs along a circular track through the village.
The display, which is made up of 1,200 pounds of powdered sugar, 500 pounds of assorted candy and 150 pounds of gingerbread, was unveiled Nov. 22 and will remain open for viewing at Kingsmill Resort through the first week of January. Members and guests are welcome to visit.
Chef Mark Florimonte’s gingerbread creations are modeled after classic Williamsburg-area landmarks, such as William & Mary’s Zable Stadium, the Prime Outlets, a Ferris wheel inspired by Busch Gardens and a candy brick replica of the ice rink in Colonial Williamsburg.
The entire holiday village took nearly 220 hours for Florimonte and his team of volunteers to build and decorate. It’s the second year he’s created the display for Kingsmill, a resort complex and residential community in James City County.
“The part I enjoy the most is the ability to be creative and do whatever I want,” said Florimonte, who has been making gingerbread displays for 23 years. “There is no golden rule on how it should look or how it should be.”
Florimonte used a wide variety of sweets in his gingerbread village, including gumdrops, candy corn, peppermints, jelly beans, Hershey Kisses, chocolate-covered pretzels, lollipops and marshmallows. The village can be found in the main building’s lobby, next to a large television that on one recent visit was running holiday movies. A sign near the display offers some details about the village with a warning not to touch because “Santa is watching.”
In the past, Florimonte has designed and constructed gingerbread replicas of famous landmarks, such as the Eiffel Tower, the Great Wall of China and the Grand Canyon. His creations have been displayed in several places around the country, including in New York City and Atlanta.
Florimonte first began gingerbread making to raise money for the March of Dimes, a nonprofit that focuses on the health and safety of mothers and their babies. This was a cause that he held close to his heart because his own daughter was born prematurely and in a neonatal intensive care unit at the time.
“Sweet Ole’ Williamsburg” will hopefully be a “memory and a moment” for families to share together, said Florimonte, who recalled one family that had made it a tradition to see the Kingsmill gingerbread village each holiday season.
Evelyn Davison, evelyn.davidson.20@cnu.edu
![If it were not for the efforts of a William & Mary president in the 1960s there would not have been a marine science program to benefit from the school’s recent largest financial gift. Davis Y. Paschall, president 1960-1971, was instrumental in the development of the substantial academic programs of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at nearby Gloucester Point on the York River, The Virginia Fisheries Laboratory was established in 1940 as the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory as a joint effort between W&M and the Virginia Commission on Fisheries (now the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. It was initially organized […]](https://www.pilotonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/6SCYSOUXX5GSHC7UWSYZ2RSEAU.jpg?w=408 "If it were not for the efforts of a William & Mary president in the 1960s there would not have been a marine science program to benefit from the school’s recent largest financial gift. Davis Y. Paschall, president 1960-1971, was instrumental in the development of the substantial academic programs of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS) at nearby Gloucester Point on the York River, The Virginia Fisheries Laboratory was established in 1940 as the Virginia Fisheries Laboratory as a joint effort between W&M and the Virginia Commission on Fisheries (now the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. It was initially organized […]")
