A one-time dancehall on Presqu’ile Bay

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77 Bayshore Road, Brighton, Ont.

Asking price: $1,050,000

Lot size: 144-by-209-feet

Property taxes: $2,912.46 (2024)

Agent: Jen Tripp, Harvey Kalles Real Estate Ltd.

The backstory

Prince Edward County, on the northern shore of Lake Ontario, has long been a vacation destination because of its sandy beaches and world-class wineries. But just before you enter The County there’s a little getaway south of the Town of Brighton known as Presqu’ile Point.

The spit of land that curls around Presqu’ile Bay is almost entirely protected provincial parkland except for a strip of mostly waterfront cottages along Bayshore Road. This little patch of cottage country was also once a popular attraction for well-heeled partiers from Toronto and Rochester, N.Y. Among other attractions was a dance pavilion that operated between 1913 and 1970, and the Presqu’ile Hotel, built in 1905.

Across the street from the pavilion and hotel was a more modest facility, The Woodmere Lodge, which consisted of a main house and some smaller cabins for guests. The Presqu’ile Hotel was torn down in the 1970s, but the Lodge outlived it. It was winterized and converted into a four-season private home in the 1980s. For the past two decades, long-time Presqu’ile fixture Dora (Kay) Craig – who died in 2023 at the age of 101 – split her seasons between the lodge and her family’s waterfront cabin.

Ms. Craig’s daughter, Shawnee Spencer, has fond memories of her childhood summers spent at the point.

“We were at the [Lodge’s] snack bar all the time. I’m still friends with some of the girls that worked at Woodmere,” said Ms. Spencer.

When they owned it, Ms. Craig would return to the waterfront cabin in the summer and Ms. Spencer’s brother and sisters would use The Lodge when visiting.

“We’d have good parties there, it was a good space for parties,” said Ms. Spencer. “We would have groups of friends come with RVs, we could sit 14 or 16 for dinner on the porch and we’d dance in the living room.”

The Lodge Today

Originally built in 1923 as a private house, the Woodmere is two stories tucked behind a few trees. Its humble yellow siding gives it a 1960s feel.

The covered porch with hardwood floor extends the full length of the house, and the front door opens right into the main room.

This room is like visiting the central-casting version of an early 20th-century hunting or fishing lodge; it’s easy to imagine a gumshoe detective holding court over a motley collection of suspects.

Every other room in the house extends off this central space that rises up two storeys that are panelled in walnut-coloured wood. The space is dominated by a huge fieldstone fireplace and chimney that rises through the loft balcony above it, and local histories say it was once adorned with the taxidermized head of a buffalo. All that wood makes it feel cozy, but tall windows on the upper level bring in plenty of natural light to keep it from feeling oppressive. A family room with walkout to a rear patios has been added to the right of the central lodge room.

Off to the left is a breakfast room that connects to the – yes, wood-panelled – kitchen. A small bedroom or den (likely an office or oversized pantry when this was a working hotel) extends off the kitchen, and reconnects to the main room near a timber-clad bar that wraps around the loft stairs.

The primary bedroom is on the other side of the fireplace, with a three-piece ensuite bathroom that connects jack-and-jill style to a hallway/storage space between it and the smaller bedroom.

On the upper level is storage space (for guest-cabin linens, once upon a time according to Ms. Spencer) and two bedrooms under the eaves of the roof looking out into the provincial park, which the 209-foot-deep lot backs directly onto.

The Point

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Presqu’ile today is a lot sleepier than its history would suggest: there are tales of rum-runners and bootleggers operating a flotilla of speed boats across the international border. Even Ms. Spencer’s father, a dentist named George Craig, had a power boat; but he was an early water-skiing enthusiast who made his own skis and taught all the kids, even hosting shows in the bay in front of the hotel lawn.

“They did pyramids and tricks, they were doing jumps off the ramp and my brother would go under the guys going over, and he did barefoot skiing,” said Ms. Spencer

Yacht clubs on the U.S. side would hold races that ended up at Presqu’ile and as many as 700 people would be drawn to the summer’s nightly dances at the Pleasure Palace, a dance pavilion operated for decades by hotel owner Grant Quick.

“I remember as a small child in the cottage going to sleep to the music playing in the dance hall,” said Ms. Spencer. “When I got bigger, I got to go to the dance. I remember one day I went in the door with one boyfriend and I went out the window with another. I remember dating a band boy – I must have been 15 or 16 – there would be lots of fish in the sea.”