We Resolve……

With the dawn of a New Year upon us, it is customary to stop and think about what changes we want to make for ourselves. What we resolve to do, or not do, is usually at the forefront of our brain for the first few weeks in January.

As part of our extended family, we are reaching out to you, our Clevelands House guests and staff to share the goals we have set for ourselves.

As Reservations Manager, I sit in front of a computer for upwards of 8 hours a day, entering data, but my resolution was to get back to writing. So I have started my own blog and continue to make entries to our Clevelands House blog. Jesse Hamilton, our Director of Operations, has vowed to quench his thirst with something other than Diet Pepsi!! I’m not saying he drinks a lot of it, but if any of you have shares in the company, you may want to sell!!

Sandy Cornell has undertaken the task to de-clutter her world and keep things clean. Make sure you visit her office in the summer and see how she’s doing!! Ted Carruthers is trying to make his new years wish come true by still lobbying to have our office moved to Scottsdale, Arizona for the winter!! (All golfer’s aboard!!)

Maria Hamilton and Bob Shaw are putting family first this year – Maria wants to visit her family in Denmark and Bob will be spending lots of time with his wife, daughters and new grandson.

Rob Wilson is committed to getting more Clevelands House guests playing golf at The Rock golf course!! (Keep your eyes open for more information or call our office for details.) And Brenda Smith has resolved to make no resolutions!!

Okay Cleve’s fans…..we’ve shared with you. Now it’s time for you to share with us. Tell us what you have resolved to do or not do in 2012!!

Our Muskoka Resort gears up for 2012

Happy New Year!! We are welcoming 2012 with mild weather and continually longer days, which always makes us think about summer. We had a great response in December to our tentatively booked family vacations for the upcoming season and we anticipate more family holidays to be booked by February 1st.

With a Muskoka resort as rich in history as Clevelands House, winters are spent tenderly caring for the property and developing new and great ideas for the rapidly approaching family vacation season. While maintaining the rituals that are steeped in tradition, we are always looking for new and fun ideas to help create new family memories.

Family traditions are as close to our hearts as they are to yours and we are eagerly awaiting the spring melt so we can start the process of opening the shutters on another season of memorable family holidays. We look forward to sharing your 2012 family vacation with you and being a part of YOUR family tradition!!

See you soon!!

Surprise Concert

We had such a fantastic time at Cleves last night, August 10.  Word was slowly getting out that we had a special guest performer coming, and when he finally stepped onto the stage, the room erupted in applause.  Mr. Steven Page himself, the lead singer of the Barenaked Ladies, played a set here for our guests, staff, and some VIP guests.  It was well received, there was dancing, laughing, and at points the whole room was singing along with him.  Can’t wait to do something like this again next summer!  HOW FUN

A Clive Update

Our smart little feline undoubtedly is more aware of what exactly is going on than we once anticipated.  Clive, who can ALWAYS be found in one of three locations around this Muskoka resort that we call home: 1) the couch, 2) his food bowl, 3) the parking lot, was no where to be seen earlier in the week.  On this particular day, Clive was to be heading to the vet for an appointment.  Similar to many other pets, Clive does not particularly enjoy going to the vet.  We searched around our Muskoka resort, and waited, and shook his treat bag, and searched some more, yet this clever little feline did not appear.  In fear of being tardy, we decided to cancel Clives veterinary appointment, and re-book it for another day.  Naturally, the minute past the designated hour of his now-cancelled appointment, Clive reappeared.

We have now learned from our mistakes, and are have decided to keep his next appointment a secret from everyone, including Sir Clive himself .  

Clive the Clever



Don’t have a boat? You can still enjoy the lake!

Not everyone has full-time access to a boat, but this should not be a reason to hold you back from enjoying Muskoka Resorts!  We here at Clevelands House, with around 3,000 ft of waterfront, frequently enjoy playing on the water and have come up with a fun list of things to do on the water without a boat.

Top ten things to do in Lake Rosseau at a Muskoka Resort without a motor boat!

1)   Swims to Buoys and back

2)   Attempt to touch the bottom of the lake after jumping off the end of the dock

3)   Try to balance a stand-up kayak

4)   Get a full body work-out on our water park

5)   Enjoy being outdoors and row!

6)   Go cliff jumping

7)   Fish off the dock

8)   Snorkel and explore what the Muskoka Lakes have to offer

9)   See how long you can hold your breath

10)   Shower in the Lake with eco-friendly shampoo!

A Hard Place to Leave

The children that attend our Kids Program here at Clevelands House create
memories that last a lifetime, and friendships that stretch past the typical
week-long stay. How do I know this, you may ask? Because I used to come up
to this wonderful Muskoka Resort. As a child, I had never been to a
stay-over camp. I was heavy into summer activities, and never really wanted
to miss my games. Yet for one week each summer, I did not detest to sitting
out for the week. We were heading back to Clevelands House, the place where
I would see all my friends again, idolize my kids counselor’s, write love
note’s to the cute waiter, and perform a made-up dance routines to the girls
at the front desk with said group. Cleve’s was that safe environment where
my parents felt comfortable allowing us to have “the run of the joint”, and
this allowed them to enjoy their time even more – or so they tell me. The
first day of camp was always so exciting. We would play ice-breaker games
out on Manor Lawn or in the Cherokee Room, and the Colour Cube was always
something I looked forward to running around in. The Craft Lady seemed to
be the coolest girl on resort, and heading into that fantastically decorated
craft room always made me giggle. By the end of the week I would leave,
having formed closer bonds with all of my friends. We exchanged addresses
and would frequently write each other throughout the year. My pen pals from
this Muskoka Resort were always my favourite because they would throw in a
hemp or beaded bracelet to add to our already filled wrists.

Cleve’s is an experience I will never forget. As a child, my siblings and I
loved it so much that we were hard set on working here when we were older.
My sister became a “Kiddie Sup”, and then a Front Desk Girl. I became a
Dining Room Server, a Social Director, and now I am back for my third summer
as the Director of Recreation and Social Media. Clevelands House is just so
different from anything else I have ever experienced; it is a hard place to
leave.

Free Weekend Getaway Contest to Our Muskoka Resort

We here at Clevelands House recently held a free weekend getaway contest to our Muskoka resort for Toronto Star Wonderlist subscribers.  We asked them to write into us, explaining why they deserve this free weekend away for their family of four.  After reviewing the hundreds and hundreds of stories we received, we had the difficult task of narrowing it down to three finalists.  To view the final three stories, please see our Muskoka resort facebook page – Clevelands House Resort – and look under the “story contest tab”.  There you will be able to place your vote for who you feel is the most deserving!  Best of luck to our finalists, and to all those who participated, thank you for sharing your story with us!

My Favourite Place

I first started working at Clevelands House after my first year at University.  I went back to school the next year and was forever changed.  For a course paper, I was asked to write about my favourite place, and it was fairly obvious to me what I had to write about.  Here is that piece, written in September 2009, after my first summer of working at Clevelands House.

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Clevelands House, Muskoka

For one week every summer since the age of three, I have experienced a great vacation at a humble Muskoka Resort called Clevelands house, or Cleves as many call it.  Over the course of 16 years, I have come to have a special love for this place.  This past summer I had the opportunity to work there.  I went to Cleves thinking I’d know what to expect, but really having no idea of how great my summer was going to be.  I had little awareness of the fact that through good times and bad, the steadiness of the nature around me, and calm or the storm, would constantly be there to offer comfort and share its secrets throughout a summer of new experiences and familiar ways.  There are various aspects of Muskoka that draw me back year after year, including the lush forests, the never-ending deep lakes, and finally the lifestyle.

The forest

It’s a Thursday, mid-July in the early evening, and all I can hear is my feet hitting the pavement, my heart racing, and my steady breaths as I take in the fresh cottage air.  Today is a special day, I feel the need to veer off my usual jogging course, and instead of following the road, I take the steep trail that leads to lookout point.  This is a tough hike, but for some reason, today, I can do it.  I listen now to my feet crushing the leaves and debris the surrounding trees have left on the ground.  All I can do is take it in.  As I pass through this beautiful forest, I can hear squirrels scurry away from me, and I feel completely at ease with nature.  The trees move with me, I push myself harder, and harder up this steep incline, and am finally there.  I stand on a rock at the top of this forest, standing tall, out of breath, and in awe.  The sun is still shining, hitting the water beautifully.  The islands dot the lake, and the trees create a masterpiece of such greenery that one cannot help but stare.  I begin to imagine the stories these trees hold, and think about the animals that roam around these lush forests.  Bears, deer, moose, to name a few.  I decided to walk down the trail and instead admire all that surrounded me as I caught my breath, this time not from the jog, but from the view.

The lake

The end of July, my parents come to stay at Cleves for the week, they bring the boat.  It’s my day off, and I’m laying on the dock, itching to get into the water.  I grab my 3 best friends, hop in the boat, and take off into the middle of Lake Rosseau.  I kill the engine, and we all take in every aspect of our lives, each of us totally submerged in our own thoughts, surrounded by water, islands, and little else.  There are few boats on the lake this day, and I take the lead by diving off the bow of this old 1978 Grew.  Carley, Brittany, and Kelsey follow suit and soon after we are mermaids.  Laughing, splashing, leaping into the warm summer lake water.  We remain in the water for what feels like hours, it’s our day off, we don’t need to keep track of time.  Someone hits the radio, I start the engine, and we’re off again, zooming through the water, letting our hair dry in the warm summer breeze.  No need for towels on this day.  We head back to the beautiful Muskoka resort we call home, go sit on the veranda that overlooks Lake Rosseau, order a cold beer, and reflect.  Mermaids for the day, not bad.

The Lifestyle

Day? Everyday.  I wake up with my 5 roommates at 7:40 am.  We rush around the room in a daze, robot like, finding each piece of our uniform, quickly brushing our teeth and washing our faces, and then sprinting to the punch clock for 7:45 am.  We then serve breakfast.  Yes, we are waitresses in a fine dining room.  The shift passes, and we head back to bed, only to wake up an hour and a half later to do the same thing all over again.  After lunch all the staff head down to the dock, or beach.  We swim, play volleyball, listen to music, talk about the insanity that happened the night before, and just enjoy the time that we all have left together.  The staff members are made up of people from all over the world.  Jamaica, Sweden, Pakistan, Australia, Ireland, England, just to name a few.  After this magic summer, we all part ways and this exact group will never again be.  It’s a heart-wrenching reality that never sits well.  We dismiss these thoughts and go back to enjoying our days.  Five o’clock strikes, we all make our way towards the staff dining room to eat dinner together, we are each others family for these two months.  We are soon off to work again, only to meet up again after hours when the resort shuts down, and we just are just beginning.  We head down to the dock with towels and pillows to star gaze and go for a midnight dip.  Our shifts may have gone horribly that day, we may have gotten in trouble for making mistakes at work, or we could have been feeling homesick, but whatever had happened to us that day was left in those moments.  We took advantage of our favourite place and the people who made this place what it was.  Magic.

The never ending trees, the islands left unexplored, the animals, the lake, the people.  Clevelands House would not be my favourite place if even just one of these elements were missing.  I have made connections with the forests, explored those islands, watched deer graze, experienced the lake and all it’s wonder, and formed lifelong bonds with the people.  There are books (The History of Clevelands House – Magic Summers), and movies on Cleves (a documentary that was released this past summer), just proving that it is other peoples favourite place as well.  C.H. has been part of my life for as long as I can remember, and spending this past summer there just made me appreciate it even more.  I will never forget the memories I have created while in Muskoka.  It is so much more than just a Muskoka resort, it’s my favourite place.

Muskoka Resort Memories

I don’t remember how old I was when we first went to Clevelands House, but I remember that week like it was yesterday. My parents decided to take us on our first family vacation to a Muskoka resort and we never looked back. I was a little unsure of the Kid’s camp on Monday morning, but once I met my counselor and the other kids in my age group, I hit the ground running and never looked back. It was AWESOME!!
At the end of the week, I was devastated that we had to go home. I remember crying for most of the ride back to Toronto, wishing we could just turn the car around and go back. In November, before Christmas was even close, we got the best present ever. In the mail was a letter from my new favorite Muskoka resort with an offer letter to return the following summer. I could barely contain myself. My parents sat us down and gave us a choice – we could try Europe the following summer or relive our family vacation at Cleve’s. It was unanimous and we were off to that great Muskoka resort for another summer holiday.
When we arrived the following summer, I was ecstatic to find many of the same kids I had met the previous summer. We were all in the same group again and had a blast – and that family tradition continued for years. I now take my kids every summer so they can have the same Muskoka resort experience that I remember with such fondness. And the best part for my kids, is now they can keep in touch with their new Cleve’s friends by email. We even get together in the winter with some great friends we met in the summer. Thanks Cleve’s – for starting the best family tradition we have!!

6 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Clevelands House

Since Cleve’s has been around for over a century now, there is a lot of neat history that goes forgotten and/or unnoticed.  Let’s take a short trip down memory lane, and perhaps you’ll learn a thing or two!

• The main hotel was originally built to be a barn.  It was only a last minute decision, made in 1881, to make the conversion from barn to hotel.  This was due to room requests!
• When the main hotel was originally built, the front desk was actually situated in the main hotel lobby.
• The General Store and the Post office used to be on the dock where Duke’s is located.
• Clevelands House used to have horseback riding, with stables located just on the other side of Juddhaven road, near laundry.  When Mr. C took over this Muskoka Resort, he didn’t enjoy the presents the horses would leave, and therefore decided to get rid of the four-legged wonders.
• There was no physical road going into Clevelands House Resort until 1935.  This meant that from 1869 until 1935, you could only access this wonderful Muskoka Resort, Cleve’s, by horseback trail, or by boat!
• The big dented rock infront of the North Lodge is actually indented because it was hit by lightning over 40 years ago.

If you have any fun facts about Cleve’s that we missed out on, please share!