Building bee blitz puts homes on the lake fast

By STEVE MacNAULL
The Okanagan Saturday

It was a 60-day construction party. "What a blast," said Nicola Consiglio, developer of The Cottages at Secret Point on Westside Road. "We hired 10 times as many crew as a normal construction site and we completed 20 lakefront cottages in 60 days. That’s an unheard of time line in the industry." That means at any one time more than 300 workers swarmed the site. "It was fun. It was busy, but it was also well organized," Consiglio said. "Every day, we had big crews working on the exterior and interior of every cottage. It was quick, but it’s also quality."

To keep that many labourers working hard and happily during long days, Consiglio hired an executive house boat and moored it next to the site. An onboard chef fed the crew breakfast, lunch and dinner and a disc jockey kept the tunes cranked. Consiglio knew it was a unique setting right from the start, so she wanted to get the 60 days on tape. She hired a cameraman, who goes by the name of Dipple, to capture the creation of The Cottages of Secret Point. Among his credits, he has documented Avril Lavigne’s tours. "He’s going through the footage and editing and we’re going to shop it to HGTV (Home & Garden TV) to see if they want to air it as a series," Consiglio said. Ten of the cottages were pre-sold and the remaining 10 are on the market today. The 1,200-square-foot cottages with 45 feet of lake frontage are listed at $849,000. Two cottages with 75 feet of lakeshore each are listed for $899,000. The development is just off Westside Road four kilometers north of Lake Okanagan Resort. Forty-five and 75 feet of lakeshore for each of the structures means they are fitted tightly on 1,000 feet of lake frontage. "We wanted to take full advantage of the waterfront and keep the cottages affordable," Consiglio said. "That’s how we decided on 20 cottages in a gated community kept under $1 million each, which is affordable for a true lakefront recreational home."

They come furnished and there are no restrictions on rentals, so owners can use the property as much as they want, or rent it. Several buyers have already registered with Okanagan Vacation Rentals and are getting $2,800 to $3,200 a week in summer for their cottages. Consiglio (nee Ryman) was Miss Kelowna Lady of the Lake in 1991 and now jokes that she’s the "lady who’s building cottages on the lake". She married Mark Consiglio, who was her partner as project manager and general contractor on The Cottages of Secret Point. They started their development collaboration in Vancouver and moved to the Okanagan 5 years ago to do project management and building at Big White Ski Resort, most noticeably the Trailside Heights townhouses. They are planning a large-lot subdivision at the end of Chute Lake Road called Kelowna Mountain.

Two years ago, the couple started looking for a lakeshore place for themselves and could not find anything for under $1 million. They thought there must be other people searching, too, and came up with a plan to develop a community of cottages priced under $1 million that could be rented so people could get some help with the cost of ownership. "We found this fabulous piece of property only a 30 minute drive from downtown Kelowna," Nicola Consiglio said. "It was the quintessential windy road to the cottage and so Canadiana. We just knew we had to build rustic cottages on it."

While the exterior look is rustic, interiors are modern, with granite countertops and stainless-steel appliances in the kitchens, jet tubs in the bathrooms and all rooms professionally decorated, furnished and finished by Consiglio. The three-storey homes come with three different floor plans-two bedroom, two bedroom with den or three bedroom. The showhome is open 9a.m. to 5 p.m. today. Call 863-5764.