Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation

Memoir

Story of Bondi Village Resort

Named after Bondi Beach in Australia

In 1905, Joseph Tapley and his wife Elizabeth emigrated to the United States from England. After finding the poor air quality in cities like Philadelphia and Buffalo bad for his health, Tapley moved his family to Muskoka where they purchased land at the top of Haystack Bay. They named their home ‘Bondi’ after Bondi Beach in Australia, where Tapley had once visited. Over the next several decades they acquired more land, which they farmed with limited success. Recognizing the potential of tourism, the Tapleys built a couple of small cottages to rent out to tourists, and named the place Bondi Village Resort. 

After Joseph passed away in 1946, his son, Paul and his wife Rosemary took over the business and built more cabins during the 1940s and 1950s. Bondi Village guests, many of whom returned year after year, and generation after generation, were mainly folks from cities in southern Ontario and upstate New York. During the summer, guests and their children routinely helped Paul and his son Brian with farming activities in connection with the resort, and often enjoyed meals prepared with food from the farm. In the 1960s and 1970s, skiing and snowmobiling became popular, and resorts like Bondi Village were able to remain open through the winter. Their son Brian, and his wife Carol, who own and operate the resort today, added a few more cabins when they took over in the 1990s.

This information was collected from an interview in the summer of 2013 with Brian Tapley.

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