When you think of a cottage contractor, you might picture a local with a hammer, some missing teeth and a dented pickup truck. But this is Muskoka: Simon Hirsh arrives with a briefcase, a BlackBerry and a BMW.
"My clients expect professionalism," Mr. Hirsh says at his 15,000-square-foot workshop near Lake Joseph. "They want the best, and we try to exceed their expectations."
The boom in Muskoka over the past decade and a half has produced one of the world's largest concentrations of wealthy vacationers, whose ranks include captains of industry, movie stars, superstar musicians (Kenny G arrives by float plane), lottery winners, millionaire sports figures and, according to local gossip, a few well-heeled crooks.
Their cumulative wealth
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has created a unique microeconomy based on luxury goods and services - like Cameron Air, a float plane charter operator that ferries customers from Toronto to the dock of their cottage and whose flights typically cost $1,000.
"Millionaire's row is now billionaire's row," says Wayne Judges, another builder who has successfully ridden the Muskoka boom and whose client list includes Goldie Hawn. Says Mr. Judges, who came to the area in 1974, "The money is unreal."
Ultrarich clients have revolutionized several Muskoka industries. Construction may be the most obvious, and Mr. Hirsh typifies the new breed of builder that has emerged. At the moment, his seven ongoing projects include a hotel-sized cottage with a rooftop
helipad and a three-hole golf course.
The client also wants Mr. Hirsh to install a zip line that will allow him to glide from his front door to the first tee.
"Anything's possible," he says. "Of course, the budget has to be there."
One day late last month, Mr. Hirsh was heading by boat to the site of a $6.2-million, 11,000-square-foot vacation property he is building for the CEO of a U.S. medical-equipment company. The scene evoked the construction of a palace in pre-revolutionary France. Mr. Hirsh's crews had blasted out thousands of tonnes of granite so that the driveway can go where the owners want it, instead of following the landscape. Mr. Hirsh has spent months working with the owner and his wife, ensuring that everything is perfect.
Skilled tradesmen swarmed the structure. Among them was master carpenter Cory Page, who has spent days crafting a stunning spiral staircase that winds around a giant cedar log. When he started working for Mr. Hirsh a few years ago, Mr. Page drove a $400 car and lived in an apartment in nearby Orillia. Now, he's got a brand-new SUV and a 26-acre Muskoka property of his own.
And for Mr. Hirsch himself? He lives with his wife and two young children in a $4.3-million log home on the shore of Lake Joseph. There are two guest houses, two housekeepers, a home theatre and automatic gates. "I don't really advertise the way I live," he says. "But to my clients, there's nothing unusual about it."
Mr. Hirsh, who began his career in Whistler, B.C., believes Muskoka is one of the best spots in Canada to pursue high-end construction. "You have to look at a place and ask whether it can support multimillion-dollar projects," he says. "This place can."
But large-scale building in Muskoka is not for the faint of heart. Materials have to be shipped from larger centres, then transported to remote sites, often by water or up treacherous inclines. Crews have to deal with mosquitoes in the summer and brutal cold in the winter. Mr. Hirsh has made a bit of a specialty of massive, clifftop projects that require schlepping thousands of tonnes of wood, steel and concrete up steep slopes.
"You do what you have to do," he says.
Unlike with a traditional, small-time cottage builder, Mr. Hirsh's operation is vertically integrated. He designs homes with a computerized drafting system, then builds them using in-house labour and equipment. He has 70 employees, a hangar-sized workshop, excavation equipment, construction barges and a $300,000 portable crane that allows his crews to bring in prebuilt modules.
The money to be made in luxury construction has meant a brand-new lifestyle for Mr. Judges as well. When the builder started out, he drove a station wagon with a beat-up trailer to haul materials. Now, he lives in a deluxe home and his work truck is a Lincoln. And that's hardly unusual in these parts: The Tim Hortons parking lot in Bracebridge is often packed with high-end, fully loaded contractor's vehicles.
But the new prosperity has brought a bit of the big-city grind with it too. "In the old days, everyone shut down in the fall, went on pogey, then spent the winter ice fishing," Mr. Judges says. "Now, all the guys have car payments and kids in university, and the clients want you all the time. So you never stop."
About 20 minutes from Bracebridge, Walkers Point Marina is a steel-and-glass testament to the changes that have unfolded in Muskoka. When it opened in 1980, the marina consisted of little more than a rickety dock, a gas pump and a timber shack where founders Sharon and Earl Dunn fixed outboard motors. Today, it looks like a waterfront Mercedes dealership.
"It's not like the old days," says owner John Dunn, nephew of the founders. "Our clients have money and they want nice things."
Walkers Point is one of the biggest marinas in Muskoka, with more than 50 employees and sales in the millions (the marina is privately owned, and does not release figures). Mr. Dunn is putting the finishing touches on a new, 18,000-square-foot showroom to hold Cobalt runabouts, which sell for up to $300,000. (Some of his clients have a half-dozen.)
Mr. Dunn bought the marina from his aunt and uncle in 2001, after spending more than a decade and a half in Toronto as a marketing executive. He saw Muskoka as a unique business opportunity, populated with an international clientele that inhabits the rarefied economy of the superrich. "It's somewhat recession-proof," Mr. Dunn says. "You're not selling tin boats to guys who are living hand to mouth."
The key to making money in Muskoka, he adds, lies in providing high-quality, trouble-free services to people who don't like to waste a second of time. "A lot of my clients are very busy people. They're willing to pay, but they expect results."
Among Mr. Dunn's current customers is a Manhattan investment banker who flies to Muskoka Airport in a private jet most Fridays, then picks up his boat at Walkers Point - Mr. Dunn's staff have it put into the water with a forklift so that it will be ready when he arrives.
Although his clients include a number of sports stars and celebrities, Mr. Dunn doesn't dwell on their fame. "They want to be treated in a straightforward way," he says. "They don't want you fawning all over them. People get all excited about movie stars and hockey players. I just want my customers to be happy.
"And," he adds, "I want them to pay their bills." Given the millions changing hands, that hardly seems like an unreasonable demand.
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