O Canada: buying luxury on a new frontier

Investing in North AmericaCanadian resorts are targeting Irish buyers. Frances O'Rourke visits Red Leaves, two hours' drive from Toronto, where 32 Irish people have bought properties

RED Leaves, a resort being built on 700 acres in Muskoka, a holiday home area north of Toronto, Canada, that's long been the playground of the rich (and in recent years, the famous), seems an unlikely stamping ground for Hap Wilson.

Wilson, a Grizzly Adams kinda guy, is an environmentalist who amongst other things leads eco-tourist canoeing expeditions in Canada's far north.

Now he's building a 700-acre nature reserve at Red Leaves, a 1,400-acre resort for the kind of people "who like to come out and play", in the words of its marketing director Stephen Taggart. Hiking on trails into the reserve, visitors will be able to stop at observation points to view not just local flora, but also perhaps fauna, which includes moose and bear.

When developer Ken Fowler asked Wilson, who lives in Rosseau, where Red Leaves is being built, to create the reserve, Wilson asked for more land for it. Unusually, Fowler agreed. He also agreed to Wilson's other demands, which include an insistence that the whole trail be built by hand: Wilson won't allow any motorised vehicles into the area in case they should damage its ecological balance.

The nature reserve will be just one - if one of the more unusual - attractions of Red Leaves, a luxury resort where Fowler plans to build a whole holiday village over 10 years, in association with the Marriott hotel chain: it will include a five-star "condo hotel" and a smaller boutique waterfront hotel, spa, townhouses, restaurants, shops and a theatre and oh yes, a "pet hotel". (Pet owners will be able to see how Fido or Tabby is getting on via room-to-pet hotel webcam).

Winter and summer activities at Red Leaves will include golf, boating on Lake Joseph, on which the resort is located, swimming in lake or pools, hiking and horse-riding. In winter, there will be skating on ice trails, cross country skiing, and sleigh rides.

Already around 32 Irish buyers have bought into Red Leaves, not so much because of the undoubted beauty of the area, but because it's a good investment, says Red Leaves's Irish agent, David McCarthy.

What's on offer at this stage of the resort's development are "condominium suites" being sold off plans in the Rosseau Hotel, the second stage of the resort's development - the first, Nick Faldo's The Rock golf course, opened in 2004. In all, there will be 179 units in the five-star Rosseau Hotel, of which about 70 are left for sale, costing from around €253,000 to over €700,000 ($360,000 to over-$1m Cdn).

They come with an annual 7 per cent guaranteed rental income for four years, according to agent McCarthy, who says the average daily room rates will be around €280 ($400 Cdn). Maintenance fees and other charges are accounted for in this guaranteed return.

Owners buy the hotel condos - which will range in size from 43-70sq m (464-749sq ft), come with their own kitchens and be designed in a luxurious faux rustic style - freehold, and can sell them on straightforwardly. There is limited allowance for personal use for buyers - one week a year, plus a second week at a 50 per cent discount. (Irish buyers can also opt for other packages which allow up to nine weeks use a year.)

An additional expense to be paid is Canadian property tax, which could be close to €2,500 ($3,200 Cdn) a year on a property worth €295,000 ($420,000Cdn). Canada and Ireland have a double taxation treaty, so tax on rental income can be paid in either country.

Units in the boutique waterfront Paignton House hotel, (which will be connected to the Rosseau by a covered walkway) are now also for sale, costing on average €347,000 ($500,000Cdn); in spring next year, townhouses likely to cost from over €700,000 ($1m-plus Cdn) will be launched.

Fifty and sixtysomething Canadian baby boomers are fuelling mini-property booms in resort areas across Canada as they retire. But foreign buyers - principally from England and Ireland, as well as the US - have also been buying properties from Newfoundland in Canada's far east to British Columbia, close to 3,000 miles away in the far west. Muskoka - a sprawling area of rivers and lakes, not a town - has an edge because of its easy accessibility, only two hours' drive from Canada's business capital, Toronto. The area is pretty much the ultimate in "cottage country", a phrase that conjures up images of lazy days deep in Canadian woods. The region has been a popular vacation and holiday home area for well over a century for well-to-do Torontonians as well as Americans.

Hollywood celebrities like Goldie Hawn and Tom Hanks have bought in the area in the past decade, and Muskoka's property boom has seen prices soaring - it would be hard to find a regular cottage on the waterfront in the area for less than $1 million Cdn (€700,000).

Despite Muskoka's sophistication and star appeal, local towns like Bracebridge, Port Carling, Bala and Gravenhurst remain true to their sober Ontario roots: think small town New England, redbrick buildings, neat, white-trimmed churches, good restaurants, country markets, craft shops, summer theatre.

Even if you think investment, rather than holiday home, it's a place well worth a visit.

Agent David McCarthy is at www.financialconsultants.ie