The New Face Of Resorts In Frontenac County

Jeff Green | Mar 02, 2022

O’Reilly Lake Campground, long a summer refuge where families from Kingston come for summer fun, was purchased last summer by Summerhill Resorts, a fast-growing Canadian resort park company that now owns 16 resorts, three in Alberta and thirteen in Ontario.

The new managers of O’Reilly Lake are the Schadts, Jennifer and Jonathan.

Jennifer is the General Manager of the O’Reilly Lake Resort. She was working at the Summerhill Waterways Resort on Big Rideau Lake, and was keen to take a leadership role at O’Reilly Lake. Jonathan is a carpenter by trade, who has worked in the summer resort industry for a number of years, in addition to running his carpentry and general contracting business in Havelock.

“When we first came to O’Reilly Lake, we saw that the land, the view of the lake, the Canadian Shield landscape was something that is ‘not a normal view’ in the summer resort world. Other places are nice, with beautiful beaches and water, but this is something special,” said Jennifer Schadt. “One of the good things about Summerhill is that the company will upgrade the facilities, improve the visitors centre, the bathrooms, all work that Jonathan is working on, but we don’t make changes to the natural beauty of the landscape. We are tree huggers, not tree cutters.”

One of the major changes that will come to the resort comes from the Summerhill business model. Of the 150 sites, 85 will be filled with returning campers, whose campers or mobile homes were already in place when Summerhill purchased the resort. There are also a further 15 sites that are called “transient sites”, which rent out by the week or month during the summer season.

Another 35 sites, which are now vacant, will be available only to people who purchase new or used cottages on wheels from Summerhill.

The cottages range in price from $125,000 to $250,000, and Summerhill offers financing as well.

“One of the advantages of Summerhill is our relationship with the companies who make the cottages. Because of our size, we are able to get a good price and also we are able to secure availability for our customers, which is a big issue right now because demand is high and the supply chain issues have made it harder to build anything,” said Jennifer Schadt.

Summerhill has been working with the St. Lawrence College Employment Centre to hire up to 20 staff members to work at O’Reilly Lake this summer. The employment centre organised a job fair last week. (February 25) The company is hiring maintenance workers, carpenters, resort staff, and people to run a children’s and recreation program.

The weather for the job fair could not have been worse, as a short but intense snow storm hit during the 4-hour window of the job fair, but the response was very strong.

“We were really impressed with the quality of the applicants,” said Schadt. “And the local staff we hire will be one of the ways that we get to know the community. We really appreciate how the employment centre has come through for us.”

She said that O’Reilly’s is also looking to set up a “farmer’s market, Yoga instruction, massage, a food truck, maybe a manicurist” to come into the resort, for our summer residents. These are the extra amenities that we offer at our resorts, and it creates local employment as well.”

Karen McGregor, Manager of the Employment Centre, said that the “change in ownership at the resort is resulting in increased employment opportunities in the Arden, Mountain Grove, and Sharbot Lake areas.”

Jonathan Schadt is currently working on an upgrade to the resort’s visitor’s centre, and washrooms, for the coming season, which gets underway in early May.