Cottage of the Week: $8.5 million for the former Eaton family 2,500-acre hunting preserve
ADDRESS: Boundary Lake Property
NEIGHBOURHOOD: Seguin Township, Township of the Archipelago, Georgian Bay
AGENT: George Webster, Moffat Dunlap Real Estate Ltd.
PRICE: $8.5 million
THE PLACE: The name of the estate might not resonate as much as Hyannisport, the Kennedys’ Cape Cod compound, but Boundary Lake was once the summer escape of Canada’s uncrowned monarchy, the Eatons. Their Georgian Bay retreat was first developed by John David Eaton in the 1940s as a hunting preserve and was used by the family until the late ’90s, when an orthodontist from Grimsby purchased the site and restored the buildings.
BRAGGING RIGHTS: Hyannisport is a paltry six acres compared with Boundary’s enormous 2,500 acres, which extend over two townships and provide access to more lakes than there are days of the week. To put the size in perspective, you could fit 60 Eaton Centres on the site and still have room for all the cabins, the boathouse and at least one of the lakes (suck it, Camelot).
BIG SELLING POINT: The property is bordered on three sides by Massasauga Provincial Park, a nature preserve accessible only by water, which basically acts like a 32,100-acre buffer against anything or anyone attempting to encroach on your Arcadian kingdom.
POSSIBLE DEAL BREAKER: Speculators eager to buy the place and subdivide it, and its many lake fronts, into scores of smaller cottage properties have to ask themselves: how many buyers are going to pay premium bucks for a vacation home as the stock market goes through more ups and downs than Lindsay Lohan’s career?
BY THE NUMBERS: • 2,500 acres • 7 bedrooms divided between 3 cabins • 2 bathrooms • 1 sauna • 1 sugar shack • 1 root cellar • 1 barn • 1 island • 1 herd of elk • 1 boathouse
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