Proximity to Vancouver puts lakeside homes in easy reach
Michael Sa
Sun
Covered porches will allow Cottages at Cultus Lake owners and visitors to enjoy their mountain and lake prospects and weather outdoors all year around, one of the holiday- home project’s designers points out.
Siting of the homes among the trees will contribute to household privacy.
An amenity building will feature two outdoor pools, two hot tubs, a fireside lounge, theatre and fitness centre fitness centre
The Cottages at Cultus Lake project is one of the more intriguing vacation-home propositions to call out for Westcoast Homes reporting in some time.
The homes will be lakeside homes located less than two hours east of Boundary Road. Further, they will be all-season-accessible lakeside homes.
In contrast, vacation properties on Nicola Lake are more than three hours from Vancouver, by way of the Coquihalla Highway.
Properties on Kamloops and Okanagan lakes are four hours away, by way of the Coquihalla and, in the case of the latter, the Okanagan Connector.
Further, no holiday destination that involves a Coquihalla Highway journey is predictably all-season accessible from the Lower Mainland. As a member of a road crew called out to clear the Okanagan Connector of an overnight dump earlier this summer said: ”You can basically get snow up there 12 months of the year.”
(To be fair, the Encyclopedia British Columbia entry for Cultus Lake includes a foul-weather warning: “Cultus is a Chinook jargon word meaning ‘bad,’ possibly a reference to the angry winter squalls that descend on the lake or to the supernatural creature that was believed to inhabit the area.”)
If The Cottages project attracts because of a travel-time advantage, it equally attracts because of a local-geography advantage: There’s not a lot of fee-simple property at Cultus.
Many of the existing residential properties, for example, are occupied under 21-year leases with the city of Chilliwack. Additionally, most of the lakeshore is located within Cultus Lake Provincial Park.
The Cottages’ property was a private campground for many years.
As much as the homes will be lakeside homes, they will also be mountain homes.
Cultus Lake is located in the Cascades, a location that permits the observation that a Cottage home is an opportunity for Canadian residency in a mostly American geography.
The Cascades run for 1,100 kilometres, with their southern extremity in northern California and their northern the confluence of the Fraser and Thompson rivers.
The two most travelled routes to lake country in B.C. — the Coquihalla and the Hope-Princeton — both cross the Cascades.
The homes will be anything but mountain cabins, promises Peter Censorio, one of the designers involved in The Cottages at Cultus Lake
“Cabins tend to be simplistic log houses built in rural settings. They are generally more primitive and don’t always come with everyday conveniences such as indoor plumbing,” he says.
”Cottages are more refined and designed to suit today’s expectations.
”A cottage is a home away from home, built in a charming setting that features all the comforts and conveniences of West Coast living.”
“We have incorporated an indoor/outdoor design-concept at The Cottages. The covered front and rear porches will lend themselves to veranda-like living and allow owners to enjoy the outdoors all year round.”
”Ancient cedars” are being preserved to ”maximize privacy,” a dual goal that will be achieved by ”plotting cottages throughout the forest setting.”
If placement of each home is meant to infuse the properties with that private-retreat quality so important to holiday-home ownership, the plan for an amenity centre is meant to infuse the properties with another, and more current, second-home quality: activity.
”We’ve also created an amenity building called the Tree House which features two outdoor pools, two hot tubs, fireside lounge, theatre, fitness centre and many areas for family activities, Censorio says.”
“Our goal at Cultus was to take an existing recreational area and develop it to fit to today’s recreational-property expectations. Our cottages are designed toward today’s lifestyles and are equipped with everyday conveniences such as dishwashers, and washers and dryers.”
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NEW HOMES PROJECT PROFILE
The Cottages at Cultus Lake
Location: Cultus Lake
Project size: 230 cottages
Residence size: 1 bedroom + loft; 2 bedrooms; 2 bedrooms + loft; 3 bedrooms; 3 bedrooms +loft
Prices: From $324,900
Telephone: 1-877-888-4950
Web: cultuslakecottages.com
Developer: Ocean Park
Developments, Cultus Country Investments Ltd.
Architect: I-3 Design, Ankenman & Associates Architects
Interior design: I3 Design
Tentative occupancy: Fall ’08
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