Home and Cottage in One!

Two-for-one! You can live year-round in this amazing home, located just outside of Newmarket, and feel like you’re always at the cottage. Come home to your luxurious natural oasis. Invite all your friends and family to come and play with you!

This great property has a big, beautiful well-designed house with lots of opportunities to enjoy the views as you to extend your living space outdoors on 4 comfortable covered decks. Natural light pours into the elegant interior spaces via skylights. The gorgeous kitchen and open plan living/dining room was designed for entertaining. The 12+ acre property includes a forest and a pond. There’s tons of outdoor space for little kids, and big kids, to play! You’ll be very close to marinas on Lake Simcoe. Bring the boat and be on the water in minutes! Newmarket and Bradford are both a short drive away for shopping, restaurants, and all the amenities of town and highways 400 and 404 are both easily accessed.

Contact me right away and you’ll have the best summer ever!

Click here to see the listing on my website, with details and more pictures.

Move your Family and your Business to York Region

I love living in York Region, and most of my family and friends are here too, mostly in Newmarket, Aurora, Richmond Hill, and Vaughan. Newmarket is the centre of York Region, and my home.

If you're the kind of person who likes to see numbers, here are some impressive numbers for you to consider.

York Region has about 1.1 million residents. It’s the third largest municipality in Ontario and sixth largest in Canada. York Region is big; it covers 1,762 square kilometres from Lake Simcoe in the north to the city of Toronto in the south

The York Region Administrative Centre, on Yonge Steet in Newmarket

Here are some more facts about York Region from Invest in York, the region's business attraction program.

• 1st in population growth among Canada’s largest municipalities

• 42,000 Local Businesses - Ontario’s second largest business centre after the City of Toronto

• 528,000 Local Jobs - 0.8 million jobs projected by 2030

• 14 Fortune 100 Corporations have operations in York Region

• 3,700 ICT Firms - Canada’s second largest Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry cluster

• 70 Employers with over 500 employees; 20 ¬firms with over $0.5 billion in revenue; 98% of businesses are Small-Medium size Enterprises (SMEs)

• 3rd largest residential construction market in Canada after Vancouver and Toronto

• 140M North American consumers within a day’s drive (500 mile radius)

The numbers add up nicely, don't they? So, come on! Give me a call and we'll work together to move your family and your business to York Region.

Choose Newmarket for your Family and Business

If you’re considering moving to Newmarket, good thinking!

I moved up here from Toronto in 1996 and I love it. It’s been a perfect place to raise a family, to do business, and to enjoy life.

Take a look at the Wikipedia page for Newmarket. There is a ton of good information about our town, and lots of great reasons to make it your home. You can follow this link. 

Here are some simple facts from that page:

“According to the 2011 census, the town's population was 79,978. The York Region Planning Department projects a population of 98,000 by 2026. Newmarket's population density is just over 2000 inhabitants per square kilometer, ranking it third in Ontario and 33rd in Canada. 

English is the mother tongue of 77.4% of Newmarket residents, according to the 2011 Census. Italian is the mother tongue for 1.8% of the population, followed by French at 1.4%, and Russian and Spanish, each at 1.3%.

In 2005, the average household income in Newmarket was $96,680.00, far exceeding the provincial average for the same year of $77,967.00”

Check out that bottom line!

If you’re thinking of starting a business, start it here. Newmarket is not only a perfect place to raise a family, but also a great place to do business. People from all over the region come to Newmarket to shop at the Upper Canada Mall, along Yonge Street, on Historic Main Street and all around town. Highway 404 conveniently brings people up into town at Mulock, Davis Drive and Green Lane. 

Although many Newmarket residents commute to jobs in Toronto, something I did for a number of years as well, there are lots of jobs right here. And, the town is growing and improving constantly.  

Here’s what Wikipedia says about our economy:

“Newmarket features a diverse and growing economy based largely in the business services and knowledge industries, and the administrative, manufacturing and retail sectors.

The following are some of the Town's major public sector employers:

• Southlake Regional Health Centre

• Regional Municipality of York

• Town of Newmarket

• York Regional Police

• Royal Canadian Mounted Police Headquarters

• Ontario Court of Justice

• York Region District School Board

• York Catholic District School Board

• Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority

• The following are some of the town's major private sector employers:

• Allied International Credit

• Flextronics

• TS Tech Canada Inc.

• Effem Foods

• CeDe Candy

• Exco Technologies

• Magna International

• Snap-On Tools

• Cintas

Notwithstanding these major employers, a large percentage of Newmarket's population commutes to Toronto for employment.”

Closer to the Action

Have I mentioned how great it is to live in Newmarket? :-)


The best ice fishing I've had so far has been right here in my backyard (so to speak) on Lake  Simcoe at Virginia Beach. Non-stop action. 


I spent last weekend fishing in the Belleville area at the fishing derby on Big Gull Lake. It was a nice trip, good fun with friends at a cottage. But, not one fish was caught by our whole group. 


Living in Newmarket, we're also very close to great skiing. It's no big deal for some of the kids in my younger daughter's class to take a day off to go skiing. And, in the high school parking lot, I frequently see kids piling into vehicles with skis and gear in the back.


Every season has its perks. We're a bit closer to the action here. 

Gone Fishing/ Gone Hunting

Nothing is better than getting outside and heading out on to a lake or into the woods to maintain balance and sanity in your life.

Working all day and into the night, weekdays and weekends, looking at a computer screen and at paper documents and dealing with people on the phone, in person, and electronically, with a focus on accuracy and diplomacy can be taxing. It can be thrilling and exasperating. Numbers and details, discussions and deals follow me into my sleep. 

To clear my head and give my body a workout, I retreat to nature. This time of year I let my beard grow, put on my camouflage and blaze orange gear and head to the woods. I'm hunting, but I'm also hiking, bird watching, and meditating.

In the summer, and later in the winter, I can go fishing and ice-fishing.

There are plenty of opportunities for hunting and fishing within a reasonable distance from Newmarket, so it's easy to take a day off and be back in the evening with fresh air in my lungs and a fresh outlook.

Fishing near Newmarket

I took the family fishing yesterday.

We have a little boat with a motor and a mini-van with a hitch. We have a good spot to put the boat into the water on Lake Simcoe just up the street. (Well, about 17km up Leslie.)

Living in Newmarket has its advantages: from our house to the lake in less than half-an-hour!

When fishing with 3 females, it’s good to have a spot with a porta-potty. And, with young female family members, it’s good to have a spot near home so that you don’t spend more time in the car than on the lake. That spot is at the bottom of Cook’s Bay in Keswick.

In no time at all, we were on the lake and catching fish. Catching and catching! I would hook a worm and hand the rod over to one daughter and then the other would be handing me a rod with a fish on it. Hook a worm, then release a fish, hook, release, and so on: Non-Stop Action!

We kept 15. A good large-mouth bass, several perch and some sunfish. Victoria, my 11-year-old, counted her catches: 30!

I cleaned the fish when we got home and soon they were in the frying pan. Talk about fresh fish!

These are the family memories my girls will cherish forever: Dad taking us out on the boat and hardly getting a chance to fish because we’re catching a fish on every cast, and then Dad fries up our catch for supper, and the blue lake and the green shoreline under the bright blue sky and our beautiful home in Newmarket.

We won’t remember the sunburn.

Fireworks for Canada Day

I rode my bike up the Tom Taylor Trail, north of Davis where it's called the Mabel Davis Trail to see Newmarket's Canada Day Fireworks. Amazing view from across the river. And, so close you could smell the fireworks and feel the explosions in your chest.

My family had gone to a friend's house, which backs right on to the end of George Richardson Park where the fireworks are set. They reported an amazing experience too. Best ever.

It seemed to me too that this year's Canada Day fireworks were the longest and most spectacular ever. Maybe it was my awesome viewing spot, but it was really something!

I noticed that people were doing bigger and better fireworks of their own this year too. Not a recession year for the fireworks industry?

In fact, every weekend since Victoria Day in May we've been hearing fireworks going off in our neighbourhood. There is a law that prohibits using fireworks any time other than Victoria Day and Canada Day. It doesn't seem to be enforced. I wish it would be.

Please, people, use up all of your fireworks on the appropriate days! Obey the law. Don't set off fireworks any other time.

Fireworks are great twice a year. But, that's enough.

Soccerfest in Newmarket

I wonder how many families are involved in the Newmarket Soccer Club. On Soccerfest Saturday, it seems like everybody in Newmarket is out on every soccer field and every neighbourhood is full of mini-vans parked along the sides of the roads. In fact, up to 20,000 people are involved according to the Newmarket Soccer website.

Soccerfest weekend lands at the end of June, before school is out. It’s a two-day house league tournament and everyone gets team and individual photos taken. There are food tents and sponsors and advertisers set up tents too at George Richardson Park. But fields all over Newmarket are used for the games. It’s amazing how they get it all organized. It’s amazing how parents get all their kids to the right place at the right time, especially in families where more than one child is playing.

I know why the mini-van is the stereotypical vehicle for ‘soccer moms’ (and dads!). We have to carry lots of stuff around: our camp chairs, water bottles, umbrellas (sometimes a shelter for the whole team), sweaters, blankets, towels, sunscreen, bug spray, hats, snacks, younger siblings, toys and books to occupy the younger siblings, pets, grandparents, etc.

You never know what kind of weather you’re going to have to deal with: hot, cold, sunny, rainy, sometimes a bit of everything. So, you have to be prepared for anything.

This year, we had a game at 8:30 on Saturday morning. It was cold and rained the whole time. For the 11am game, it rained some more but not the whole time. There must have been a power surge between those games when we all went home between games and all the parents threw all the soccer uniforms (including shin pads and cleats) into the clothes dryers! Sunday was hot and sunny.

Soccerfest is a great community event.  I get to know a lot of great people, great families in Newmarket, being “Coach Harry” and we have lots of fun at the side of the field. Soccer, the Beautiful Game, is the very best sport in the world! 

Halfway to cottage country

Another great thing about having a home in York Region is that you're that much closer to cottage country.

It's Friday evening on the last weekend in June, around 8 o'clock, and I'm sitting in my house in Newmarket thinking about all the people packed onto Hwy 400 going to the cottage.

Think about it. If you lived here, you could already be there.

Mowing the lawn

Yesterday’s rain came just at the right moment. I had cut the grass the day before and it was looking a bit dry. Now it’s nice and green and it looks great.

That’s another thing I like about my neighbourhood in Newmarket. People show pride of ownership. They take care of their homes and properties.

So, I have to make sure my lawn doesn’t get too long and messy. My wife takes care of the flowers and bushes. The house has to look good. We’ve got to have curb appeal.

I’m glad it’s summer. I don’t like mowing the lawn, but it’s better than shovelling snow!!!

One good thing about running around behind a lawn mower: it’s good exercise. It keeps me looking good too (;-D