About

The house on Shawnigan Lake.

Two acres on the sunny side of the lake. A house we love, that we let other people use.

The Lakeside House from the water, west-facing, mid-summer
01 — The story

It wasn't bought as a rental.

The house wasn't bought as a rental. We bought it in 2021 as a place for the kids' summers — somewhere on the east side of Shawnigan, the sunny end of the lake, west-facing dock. The first year we did almost nothing to it: slept in the rooms our kids picked, ate on the deck, wrote a list of what didn't work. In 2022 we gut-renovated the whole house — kitchen, bathrooms, floors, the lot.

We started opening it to other people in 2023. The mix now is roughly even: families, weddings, and corporate retreats in the shoulder seasons. We live in Victoria, forty-five minutes away.

It's not a hotel. It's a house we love, that we let other people use.

Aerial view of Shawnigan Lake and the property's two-acre lakefront
02 — Before we got here

Good bones. A dock you tested with one foot.

When we first walked the property, the bones were good and the location was hard to argue with — two acres on the east side, the sunny side, with a west-facing dock that catches every sunset from April through October. The house needed work. The kitchen was dated, the bathrooms were tired, and the dock was the kind of structure you tested with one foot before committing your full weight.

We rebuilt the dock, gutted the kitchen, redid the bathrooms and the floors. We added the sauna and the pickleball court because those were the things we actually wanted when we pictured being here. The bones of the house stayed — the roofline, the cedar, the way the living room opens straight to the water. We just made it the version of itself we wanted to come back to every summer.

The 60-foot cedar dock running west into Shawnigan Lake
03 — Why it works this way

One group. The whole property.

Every booking gets exclusive use of the property. No other guests sharing your weekend, no strangers on the dock. That's a deliberate choice — we think a place this size works best when one group has the whole thing.

We cap weddings at 50 seated. That's the property's sweet spot, where the lawn isn't cramped and the kitchen can actually feed everyone. We could probably fit more, but it would stop feeling like a wedding at a house and start feeling like an event at a venue. We're not interested in that.

We don't list on Booking.com or VRBO. We want to know who's coming. Brianna talks to every guest before anything is confirmed, and if there's a detail that matters to you — an early check-in, a caterer recommendation, whether the dock can hold a ceremony — she'll sort it out. We'd rather field twenty emails than deal with one bad surprise.

The Cottage living room with the woodstove glowing in the evening
04 — What we're like as hosts

No front desk. A binder on the counter.

We're not a hotel. There's no front desk, no lobby, no concierge in a blazer. But we respond within four hours, and there's a binder on the kitchen counter with everything you need — WiFi password, sauna instructions, where to find the paddleboards, which wineries are worth the drive, and which restaurant in Mill Bay to book if you don't feel like cooking.

If something breaks, we fix it or we send someone who can. If you need a restaurant recommendation at 9pm, Brianna will text you back. We live in Victoria, forty-five minutes away, and we treat this place the way you treat something you actually care about — because our kids swim off that dock in August, and we sit in those same chairs watching the same sunsets.

Aerial view of the Shawnigan Retreats estate — house, lawn, dock, and beach
05 — How we run the place

What we promise, in plain language.

  • We answer every inquiry within four hours, 9am to 7pm Pacific. After that, the morning.
  • No deposit until you confirm dates. Fully refundable up to 30 days before arrival.
  • We only take a handful of weddings a year, and we won't book a wedding if there's a family already on-site that weekend.

What's on the property

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Private dock and beach

200 feet of west-facing waterfront, with a swim ladder off the main dock.

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Outdoor seating

Adirondacks on the dock, a covered porch, and a fire pit that gets used most evenings from May through September.

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BBQ and outdoor dining

A propane Weber, a long cedar table that seats 12, and string lights overhead.

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Wi-Fi

Fibre across both buildings and the dock. We test it monthly.

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Sauna and hot tub

The cedar Finnish sauna seats 6 (holds 8). The 6-person hot tub runs year-round at 39°C.

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Pickleball court

Regulation-size, fenced, with paddles and balls in the shed.

Come see it.

Come see it for yourself. Send Brianna a weekend and she'll line up a property walk — half an hour, no obligation, coffee on the deck.

Send Brianna a weekend Call us