Over the past seven decades, Arthur “Sonny” Foley has watched his hometown of Collingwood, in Canada’s southern Ontario, transform from a factory town to a tourist haven. From his perch at the helm of his family’s furniture business and his seat on the local government council, he watched the town’s railway and shipbuilding district and its flour and saw mills grow quiet, only to be replaced by a new buzz around the quaint shops and restaurants of historic Main Street and new communities of second-home owners.
More importantly, Foley says, the residents changed – not only in demographic composition but also in attitude. “In the past when we were a shipyard community, there was a ‘we-they’ mentality developing but that’s not the way any more,” he explains. “Everyone works together. We’re very fortunate to have many permanent part-time residents.”
Located only 90 minutes from the largest Canadian city of Toronto, Collingwood and surrounding areas are now the destination of choice for urbanites who want to rest and relax as well as those who want to retire to the country. Aside from the attractions of the town’s 19th-century downtown core, its location on the picturesque Georgian Bay, with nearby ski slopes for winter and beaches for summer, is an obvious asset. There are nature activities and special events, such as the Collingwood Elvis Festival, which attracts visitors from all over North America. And, with a rash of new development that has earned Collingwood the nickname “Sprawlingwood”, there is a wide variety of properties available to buy at relatively affordable prices. The average price of a house in town is C$255,000 (£147,617).
In spite of the influx of new people and the changes they’ve brought, Collingwood remembers its past, with photos and souvenirs in the local museum and mural paintings of historic moments on the stone walls that stand among the renovated buildings and local businesses downtown. Founded in 1858 and named after the admiral who was second in command at the Battle of Trafalgar, the town came into its own after the harbour and railway were built. The area soon became a big Canadian shipping hub, eventually known as the Collingwood Shipyards, which put many locals to work. By the 1970s and 1980s, manufacturing companies had moved in too and the town was the largest industrial employer in the region. But in 1986, the shipbuilding industry crumbled, soon to be followed by manufacturing weakness across Ontario. Many of Collingwood’s industrial plants were forced to close, including the renowned Blue Mountain Pottery.
The town could have collapsed too. But instead it reinvented itself, using its bay for water sports instead of shipping containers and surrounding open spaces for new homes instead of factories. “It’s a community the citizens care a great deal about and we work very hard to accommodate visitors,” Foley says.
“When you look at the [town population] it is estimated at 26,000 to 31,000,” says Chris Carrier, the mayor, but “with a huge permanent part-time population of 7,000.”
Of course, many newcomers gravitate to areas outside Collingwood itself, where they can hike or cycle, swim or ski. There are older neighbourhoods filled with large, Victorian homes as well as modern suburban communities lined with large, custom-built properties. “The variety is endless and there is a home in a price range for anyone,” says Christine Smith of Clairwood Real Estate. New three-bedroom homes on large lots in town can be had for C$500,000 and there are many properties just outside Collingwood on several to 100-plus acres, with prices ranging from C$349,000 to C$3m.
Another option is the Blue Mountain ski resort, a high-end European-style village complete with Scandinavian baths that is run by large North American operator Intrawest and located in the Town of the Blue Mountains (pictured above), next to Collingwood. Prices are relatively high, with three-bedroom, 1,700 sq ft condominiums outside the village starting at C$450,000 and slightly smaller condo-hotel units in the new, centrally located Mosaic building going for about C$725,000. But “you are paying for the amenities,” says Steven Lafave, regional director of sales and marketing for Intrawest at Blue Mountain. “We try and get away from selling four walls and a roof. We try and sell a destination.”
Rick Crouch, an agent at the Royal LePage agency, says he’s also noticed buyers looking further afield. “We have definitely seen an increase in the activity in [multi-million-dollar] country acreage type properties. There used to be about two a year and in 2007 we had two a month.”
Although many buyers are still holidaymakers, there is a growing number of people who are moving to the area permanently. “They have several reasons,” explains Smith, who is originally from the UK. “Some have been coming to the area for years and have ski chalets but are now at retirement age and are selling the chalets and buying permanent homes.
“Many people have been moving here from overseas too”, she adds, for a lifestyle change. “I started a woman’s group called New Women in the Area because I kept meeting many people who had moved not only from within Canada but from overseas and now there are 81 women in the group and I would say about 15 of those have moved from the UK in the last four years.”
Ken and Margaret Adolphe are new residents of Collingwood who fall into the former category. They started off as weekend visitors, commuting from a Toronto suburb for 10 years, but when they retired a few years ago, they decided to relocate, moving into a C$700,000, 3,000 sq ft waterfront property with a spacious ground floor and bedrooms on a loft-style second storey.
Margaret Adolphe is quick to point out that the price of the property isn’t indicative of the broader Collingwood market or, indeed, her and her husband’s wealth; they were able to buy it mainly because they sold their Toronto house when the market was booming. Still, she feels fortunate to have found her dream home in a small-town location.
In contrast to their old car-bound, city and suburban lifestyle, “now there is no place in this area that I can’t get to in 10 minutes – and that’s on foot,” she says. “We lived [in Toronto] for 40 years and our kids grew up there so it was the biggest move for us. But it was the best move we ever made.”
Daina Lawrence is a former FT correspondent based in Ottawa
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Estate agencies
Clairwood Real Estate, tel: +1 705-445 7085, www.clairwoodrealestate.com
Royal LePage, tel: +1 705-445 5520, www.propertycollingwood.com
Intrawest, tel: +1 819-681 5000, www.intrawest.com
