In 2018, Stephanie and Mike Haas rented a friend’s cottage in Marmora, Ont., for a week with their young son Benjamin, who was five years old at the time; Mike’s sister; and his sister’s kids.“The kids being able to run around and hang out was fun,” says Stephanie.
After returning home to Toronto, Mike and Stephanie thought it’d be nice to buy a vacation property of their own someday. They planned to spend the next few years renting to experience different regions, lakes, and cottage layouts to figure out what areas, style of builds, and types of lakes best suited them.
The following summer, in late August 2019, the family rented a four-season cottage on Stoney Lake, Ont. They liked the property—it was on an inlet and built on elevated, rocky terrain. “It feels like you’re in a treehouse when you’re on the deck,” says Stephanie. “You’re really high up, and you have a beautiful panorama right out of our channel.”
The cottage also had a quirky layout, which Mike loved. “You can actually see rock jutting into some rooms at different angles,” he says. The cottage had a main floor kitchen and living room, a master bedroom, two bathrooms, plus a guest bedroom and a kids’ room with a loft. There was also a separate bunkie that could sleep two additional guests.
When the family went canoeing, they noticed a few properties for sale. That prompted Stephanie to start looking at cottages online. On their last night at the cottage, a Friday evening, Stephanie discovered that the cottage they were staying in had been listed that afternoon. “It was just dumb luck,” she says. At the time, they had “no idea” about budget, says Stephanie. “I don’t even think we got that far, because it was four or five years in the future. We were like, oh, in the meantime, we’ll just save up some money.”
The next day, the couple contacted the owners and told them they were interested in buying the cottage. The owners showed Mike and Stephanie around, giving them access to a detached garage and a mechanical room (which is usually locked when it’s rented out).
The cottage was listed for $599,000. Since Stephanie and Mike had already paid off the mortgage on their Riverdale, Toronto, home, they felt comfortable purchasing a second property. They connected with a Stoney Lake-area realtor for the next steps. “We told him, ‘We’re willing to go $50,000 over asking. That’s our limit,’ ” says Mike. “The agent said, ‘That’s not how it works out here. People usually bid under asking.’ ” (This was before the pandemic cottage boom.)
On Sunday, the couple submitted an offer for $589,000 on the advice of their realtor. After some negotiations, they settled on a final price of $595,000. “It just happened so fast,” says Mike. “But it felt good. It felt right.” About a month later, at the end of September 2019, the cottage was officially theirs.
The family now spends a couple of weeks at the cottage in the summer and over Christmas, plus weekend and weekly stretches in between. They’ve also made a few upgrades to the property: replacing the heating system, the water tank, and adding a sunroom off of the main level, which just went in last fall.
But Stephanie and Mike’s most ambitious project has been installing solar panels on the roof of the main cottage.“The system is set up to provide power to the water pump, septic system, and fridge in case of a power outage, which is pretty frequent,” says Stephanie. They also use the panels to recharge their electric car in the summer and can even provide power back to the grid. “Being green and using less power is just a happy side benefit,” says Mike.
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