This article is from the spring 2024 edition of Coast Life magazine.
Waking up in one of 31 guest villas at the Painted Boat Resort consciousness is accompanied by mild surprise. No bedside alarm beams the time with crimson rigidity. No wall clock admonishes the late sleeper.
Time works differently here. Morning light caresses the contours of Pender Harbour before stealing into the island-studded enclave of Gerrans Bay. Its sheltered waters rise and fall imperceptibly, barely rocking the yachts moored at the resort’s marina. A few intrepid guests, bundled in luxurious cotton robes, glide down the hill for early-morning refreshment in the seaside infinity pool and hot tub.
For Walter Kohli, whose company Sofien Management has managed Painted Boat since 2015, the resort experience is inexorably linked to its surroundings.
“At resorts worldwide, there seems to be a tendency to be separate,” he told Coast Life. “That’s something I addressed immediately, to make sure that the local community is welcome. This is part of their community. I said, come in and look at our facility. I don’t need your money as much as I need your goodwill—so that you can talk about us and so that you can send people to us.”
Cultural rootedness starts right at the reception desk. As a trio of new arrivals confirms spa reservations (the resort offers treatments ranging from pedicures to full body scrubs), they chat with the front desk agent who mentions that her son and the housekeeping manager will both be appearing in a Sunshine Coast musical theatre production.
Kohli himself has served as a director of the local non-profit Loon Foundation, which oversees a variety of local research and stewardship initiatives.
A sense of homey familiarity stems from the fact that the resort offers fractional ownership of its villas.
“An owner is in residence in the unit upstairs and her grandchildren are visiting,” an agent cautions an incoming guest, “so you might hear the pitter patter of small feet.”
The Painted Boat also inherits its unassuming character from its status as a fixture in the Pender Harbour community. It was almost two decades ago that the longtime family-run Lowe’s fishing resort was purchased by developers who introduced luxury amenities to the 4.5- acre forested property.
“It’s really nice,” said Pender Harbour resident Dale Jackson, who runs the EarthFair Store bookshop in Madeira Park. “Because in the wintertime we have all the local people and then in the summertime we have either fresh summer visitors who haven’t been at all, or regular summer visitors. So it’s a nice flow of different people and different interests.”
Under the charming local veneer, the Painted Boat’s milieu is decidedly cosmopolitan. In honour of Black History Month, the community hall served an African feast by Chef Iyabo Olaniyan, who is raising funds for a school in Nigeria.
At the Painted Boat’s The Lagoon Restaurant—under the direction of executive chef Frédéric Haute-Labourdette— popularity of its ultra-fresh West Coast fare prompted Kohli and his wife Yester Mani to establish a sister eatery in downtown Sechelt. The Ocean Club Café opened in mid-2023. Haute-Labourdette worked with the staff to shape a menu evocative of The Lagoon.
“I thought the location was just amazing,” said Kohli. “Sechelt is an ocean-formed town, and yet all the business takes place about three blocks away from the ocean. Why don’t we open it up?”
Kohli was raised on a farm in Switzerland, a world away from the five star resorts he has managed in Canada, Malaysia and Borneo. His farming heritage, he says, imbued him with a humble approach. “When you have a farmer’s values, you value people, you value nature,” he explains.
Entrées at The Lagoon cater to the well cultured palettes of its global clientele. Finishing touches to the 2024 menu were
still underway when Coast Life went to press, but recent highlights comprised braised lamb shanks complemented by fire-roasted root vegetables, seared filets of wild coho salmon imbued with essence of Canadian whiskey and maple syrup, and Mediterranean seafood pasta fused with local snapper.
The drinks list is similarly urbane. While the majority of wines are sourced from Okanagan vineyards and Californian estates, the selection encompasses vinters from five continents, including a subtle preference for Haute-Labourdette’s native France.
Spirits (like Sailor Jerry Spiced rum and Cabo Wabo tequila) evoke The Lagoon’s maritime setting, perched on pilings above the moss-carpeted foreshore.
In Sechelt, the menu at the Ocean Club Café emphasizes more casual elegance (“you can be yourself, you can laugh a little bit too loud,” says Kohli) and bears influences of The Lagoon.
Spa patrons at the Painted Boat are entitled to visit the resort’s Serenity Garden, which features an exclusive hot tub, saltwater pool, and a massage waterfall. According to a pair of guests, their deep tissue massage was the finest they’ve experienced at a host of top-tier B.C. resorts.
“We were thinking about moving to Vancouver Island,” the pair said, reclining in the Painted Boat hot tub after grilling steaks on their villa balcony. “But our trip to the Sunshine Coast changes everything.”
