Tenthouses take visitors to higher level

Secret Cove, B.C.–Ever wanted to sleep in a treetop tent?

That's the allure of Rockwater Secret Cove, a B.C. resort with a difference. Located on the Sunshine Coast less than two hours north of Vancouver, Rockwater invites you to sleep in "Tenthouse Suites" perched over an ecologically enchanted forest.

They're not rough-it tents for wilderness fanatics. They're for softies. Dedicated softies. The sort of softies who like their tents with heated slate floors, king-size beds, propane fireplaces, Japanese shoji screens and slate showers with rainforest heads.

There is no TV, blessedly. The remote is for the hydrotherapy tub that bathes you and massages you and then dries itself off.

The 15 tenthouses also have sprawling verandas looking into the treetops and the blue Pacific and sunsets worthy of IMAX.

You access your tenthouse via a 450-metre-long boardwalk trailing through arbutus – the West Coast tree whose trunk reveals colours from orange to mauve and whose bark is as smooth as human skin. The fussy arbutus thrives only within five kilometres of the ocean.

After the ancient cedars, it's the glory of B.C. forests.

Surprisingly, this treetop luxe isn't just for the rich. Travel & Leisure magazine recently named it among "25 Affordable Beach Resorts" worldwide.

The tenthouse concept was born when owners Kevin and Deanna Toth and a business partner purchased the old Lord Jim Resort in 2004. Miraculously, the forest had been left alone.

"It was a fragile ecosystem," says resort spokesperson J.M. Boyd, a transplanted Hawaiian who swears B.C. is the real paradise. "Question was, how to incorporate it into the resort without compromising it? Kevin and Deanna followed the gospel of the smallest footprint."

A walk on the boardwalk and you understand the reverence. Perched atop massive granite outcrops rising straight out of the ocean, the forest floor is a mosaic of mosses, lichens and wildflowers. The peculiar chartreuse moss drapes stern rock faces with armloads of mint-green fluff.

With the boardwalk the only intrusion into this environment, the first tenthouses were built last year. They were an instant success. Guests warmed to wilderness luxe and escape-hatch romance. (And did we mention the tenthouses being off-bounds to children and dogs?)

There are also lodge rooms and cozy oceanfront cabins on ground level.

The Toths initially planned to close the tenthouses through the winter, housing guests in the lodge rooms and oceanfront cabins. "But," says Boyd, "the guests implored the resort to keep them open all year long.

"We said okay, but there'll always be a warm room in the lodge. What followed was a brutal winter with plenty of snow and killer windstorms. Guests stayed in the tents anyway and loved it. There was only one night when we had to move a couple."

This season, in addition to swimming, hiking, ocean fishing and an alfresco spa, the resort is offering kayaking excursions. The Gourmet Moonlight Kayak Trip, for instance, sees guests paddle across the Strait to Thormanby Island at sunset for a beachside dinner prepared by the chef, then returning by the light of the moon and a few billion stars.

This is the sort of romantic outing that usually collapses as couples reach the island and discover the "gourmet" dinner is iceberg lettuce salad and ham sandwiches. Not here: If the tenthouses are half the resort's signature, the other half is chef Steven Ewing's cooking.

Ewing, who spent three years as chef at Vancouver's eternally hot Raincity Grill, is out to bring resort cuisine up to free-standing restaurant standards. The dining room suggests faded log-cabin chic, but it doesn't much matter when the aroma of truffles is wafting through the air.

Ewing's menu focuses on B.C. fare with superlative Pacific ingredients including halibut cheeks, albacore tuna, Rockwater bouillabaisse of local fish and shellfish, Dungeness crab cakes and wild boar. For breakfast, he offers "Bennys" of smoked duck and black cod.

Ewing marries his oh-so-sweet Pacific scallops with crisp planks of applewood-smoked bacon, a rush of crisp-soft, salty-sweet contrasts. He wraps smoked black cod around shiitake mushrooms and bok choy in a marriage that qualifies as umami, the sexy fifth taste after sweet, sour, bitter and salty.

Ewing's Salt Spring Island lamb shank seems to account for three out of five orders. It's a weapon of Biblical portions, every bite a succulence.

Nor is dessert an afterthought: a veteran crème brûlée aficionado, guest Carol Lamont of Thunder Bay says: "I've followed the brûlées for 30 years. Best I've ever had was at La Cirque in New York. Until now: This is the perfect balance between egg and cream. It's incredibly silky and soft."

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Another sweet is the tab. A three-course dinner for two with a first-rate bottle of Okanagan wine comes in at less than $150 with tax and tip.

Ewing produces his miracles from a tiny kitchen, but not for long: at the end of this year, the resort will close for three months for a massive renovation.

"There'll be a new lodge, a conference centre and more cottages," says the chef.

"And I'll get to design and install a 2,400-square-foot kitchen. It will be in keeping. By then, we'll be talking about the most ambitious and sophisticated resort on the Sunshine Coast."

Source ref: http://www.thestar.com/Travel/article/217142