Developers of a proposed $66.9 million boutique hotel in Montverde secured an incentive grant from Lake County that could potentially save the development up to $824,269 annually in property taxes.

Spencer Schar, president of The Club at Bella Collina, applied for the grant in 2025 for his “Mansion at Bella Collina” project, and Lake County Commissioners unanimously approved it at Tuesday’s commission meeting. It is the first of five grants planned by the county to attract new hotels to the area.

Planned on approximately four acres along County Road 455, near the luxury lakefront Bella Collina gated community and next to the Siena at Bella Collina vacation condos, the proposed boutique hotel is set to contain 100 rooms and a conference center.

Of those rooms, 70 will be standard guest rooms and the other 30 will be suites. The suites will be broken down into 22 luxury suites, four executive suites and four presidential suites.

According to Schar, the hotel will be managed by The Club at Bella Collina, but will not have memberships and will be open to the public.

Schar said the idea for a hotel was inspired by a lack of local access to luxury amenities, event space, and hotel room supply. The plan, he said, is to help “supply more for the demand that Lake County sees.”

“We think that there are positive conditions that we’re currently in for Lake County,” Schar said. “There’s population growth within the county that would be sufficient enough to grant the need for more supply of hotel and luxury amenities, as well as hospitality demand, for those that live here.”

In September, Lake County commissioners voted unanimously to add hotels as a targeted industry eligible for up to a 75% discount on their property taxes in the hopes of attracting five new hotels in the next 10 years. The grant will be paid out over a 5-year period.

Lake County Economic Development Director Meg Brew said the incentive made a substantial impact on the decision to apply for development of a hotel project.

“One of the questions we ask on the application is for the developer to indicate the degree to which the incentive influenced their decision to include certain amenities,” she said. “[Schar’s] group indicated that it had a large sway on their decision.”

Schar is the son of Dwight Schar, a founder and former executive chairman of NVR, Inc., one of the largest U.S. homebuilders and parent company of both Ryan Homes and NVHomes. Schar was one of the original developers of Bella Collina, a Tuscan-themed, gated country club and golf community in Montverde with new home prices frequently starting in the millions. The elder Schar also developed the adjacent condo hotel on Lake Siena.

The community is popular with several celebrities and athletes, including New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, who bought a home in Bella Collina for $3.5 million in 2021. Former NFL quarterback Robert Griffin III sold his Bella Collina residence for $4.24 million in 2023.

Robert Wahlman, former CFO of Axiom Bank and current CFO of FinWise Bank, paid $3.2 million for a house on Pendio Drive in Bella Collina back in 2023 only to sell it less than a year later when Wahlman got transferred to Salt Lake City for his job.

In order to be eligible for the incentive grant, the hotel must include specific amenities, and the amount of the grant award is based on the number and type of amenities provided.

Schar’s application checked more than a dozen boxes to qualify for a 75% grant award the first year. Those include plans for specialty and table-service restaurants, a fitness center, a banquet or meeting space for 150+ people, spa services, a heated pool and more.

During the commission meeting, Schar said he estimates the hotel would create about 148 full-time jobs and another 77 part-time roles.

According to Schar, his family is looking to invest “about $75 million” and that no outside investors will be required to finance project development.

“This is going to be owned and operated by my family and the organization that we are leading currently within Bella Collina,” he said. “With the current timeline that we’re under right now, we’re in design phase. We’re trying to figure out what the right fit is for the site that we have.”

Schar said his company is looking to start construction by fall and, assuming they hit that benchmark, hopefully open in “late 2028.”

The Hotel Siena would be the first of five potential grant awards given out in an attempt to lure high-quality hotels to the county. The program will expire after ten years.

“We live here, we work here, we want to invest here, we want to be here,” Schar said. “We’ve been here for 14 years and we want to continue to grow our business and grow the opportunities for Lake County.”

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