When Andrea Hagarty handed in her resume at the Bonnie View Inn in summer 1991, she planned to wait tables for a season before moving on to her next adventure.
“That was 33 years ago,” Hagarty told The Highlander last week. “I guess the adventure I was looking for was here all along.”
The iconic lodge overlooking Lake Kashagawigamog turns 100 this year. An anniversary celebration is taking place Sept. 1, with Hagarty, who still works at the inn part-time, and on-site owners Ryan and Stephanie Yates, inviting the community to help mark the milestone. It will be a “festival-type day” Hagarty said, with live music, performed by County band The Ya Babys.
Reflecting on the centennial, Hagarty said Bonnie View has endured much over the years. The site was established in 1924, with two cabins on the water.
Hagarty said people would come to Haliburton County via train from the city, then have to navigate a horse and buggy through winding country roads to get to the inn.
Kash resort a generational attraction
The Moody family took over in 1935, building a main lodge and adding several new cabins. They steered the resort through the latter stages of the Great Depression and the Second World War, before selling to Jack and Gisele Young in 1950. The Youngs owned Bonnie View until 1970.
Hagarty isn’t sure who bought the inn from the Youngs, with the ownership trail picking up again in 1982, when Ted and Joyce Waffle bought it. They ran it for five summers, ceasing operations in 1987. Bonnie View sat empty for two years, save for the wildlife which had taken refuge. Hagarty was working at nearby Birch Point Lodge by this time.
“The inn was left with the tables still set. Raccoons were living inside, teens saw it as a good party spot,” said Hagarty, a teenager herself then. “I may have been a teen partyer.”
In 1989, the Bikowski family bought the inn and, alongside Peter Mavroukas, revitalized the space. Hagarty joined two years later. While born and raised in Mississauga, she had been visiting Haliburton County, and specifically Lake Kashagawigamog, since she was a small child. To her, it was home.
Hagarty influence
Hagarty maintained her job at Bonnie View and waited tables at McKecks and at the Pinestone for a couple of years, before Mavroukas completely took over in 1994. Shortly after, the inn’s manager suddenly quit, leaving Hagarty to temporarily fill in. She was in her early 20s at the time.
“I didn’t know what I was doing – I was running the place by myself,” Hagarty said. The gig turned into a permanent one, Hagarty bought a cottage down the road, and slowly built her team.
While Bonnie View has shaped almost the entirety of her professional life, it was the catalyst for her home life, too. She met Monte Miscio, the inn’s chef, in the mid 90s and the two quickly became an item. Together they had two children, Paydon and Macy, who both grew up at the resort.
Macy, 20, works as a waitress on the patio overlooking the lake in the summer. She’ll be there this weekend, doubling as a reporter – gathering stories from guests for a documentary she’s compiling on Bonnie View’s history.
She told The Highlander about countless memories she made there.
“There used to be an old telephone booth just outside the resort. I would have friends over and we would dress up in funky outfits, call the resort from the phone and ‘book’ a room. Then we would come into the lobby and pretend to check in as different characters,” Macy said. “One of our favourites was getting on each other’s shoulders and wearing a trench coat. My mom and staff made it very fun for us.”
Oink oink
Hagarty and Miscio bought the inn in 2005, using savings, proceeds from the sale of Hagarty’s cottage, a bank loan, and small personal loans from longtime guests Jim and Kathy McLeod and Dianne and Arie Vanderboom – who wanted to see the pair succeed.
By this time, Bonnie View was becoming famous thanks to one very special guest – a domesticated house-trained pig named Penelope.
“I had always wanted a pet pig when I was a kid, so I got myself one. Penelope sat in the front lobby and greeted people for years. It got to the point where repeat guests would bring some kind of pig-themed gift for me to put up,” Hagarty said, estimating, at one point, there were around 3,000 items on display.
Penelope passed in 2008, but Hagarty went out and got another, naming it Daisy. The pig lived at Bonnie View until 2020. It now lives at Killara Station and has undergone a necessary name change.
“It turns out Daisy is actually a Duke,” Hagarty laughed.
The stories
Hagarty said she feels blessed to have played a major role in thousands of people’s important milestones.
She’s now seeing the generational impacts – the kids who used to run riot around the property when she first started have now grown up and are bringing their own little ones.
“Coming to Bonnie View is a family tradition for many. We had guests here just last week who said their grandparents came here all the time, then their parents, and now they’re picking up the baton,” Hagarty said.
Victoria Harding was the production manager of the two Camp Rock movies that were filmed in Haliburton County in the late 2000s. She and around 100 members of the management team stayed at Bonnie View for the duration.
“Andrea and her team were troopers and figured out how to accommodate our needs – the toughest part was having to leave and come back to the city every weekend as the resort was generally sold out,” Harding said.
She has returned with her family on several occasions in the years since and plans to attend this weekend’s milestone celebration.
“We just love it there – the suites are very accommodating. We were treated so well. The property is fun and well-equipped. It’s always a favourite,” Harding said.
Yates said he’s fully acclimatized to northern living now. He moved with his family from Oakville in 2020. He was familiar with the area, having cottaged on Little Boshkung Lake for most of his youth. Yates said he’s always wanted to give his four kids “the full cottage experience.”
As of June 30, Hagarty has no stake in the property – a scary proposition for Yates, who said he’s leaned on the former owner heavily through the transition. Hagarty said she feels comfortable taking another step back knowing general manager, Bonnie Warren, is around to help.
Weddings are back on the agenda this fall, with nine booked. There are also plans to launch a new weekday dinner service for locals, Monday through Thursday. It’ll begin Sept. 3 and run to Thanksgiving.
Yates admitted there’s pressure guiding the business into its 101st year but is confident in Bonnie View’s innate ability to weather the bad times and thrive during the good.
“The goal is to keep this place around for another 100 years. I can’t imagine the lake without this place,” he said.
The anniversary celebration runs from 1 to 6 p.m.
