Lake of Bays Heritage Foundation

Memoir

Story of Garryowen

Location was better suited as a resort than as a farm

Around 1900 Shirley and Elizabeth Ball traveled from their home in Buffalo, New York to Lake of Bays for their honeymoon. So impressed were they with their visit that a few years later they decided move to Muskoka and bought a large piece of land, complete with a house, along the southeast shore of the lake just before the Narrows into Trading Bay. They soon discovered that their location was much better suited as a resort that it was for farming, and began inviting their friends and relatives to stay with them. Their house burnt down a of couple years later, but in its place the Balls built a two-storey log lodge, which they called Garryowen. Very quickly, the number of visitors exceeded the capacity of the lodge. Rather than build additions to the lodge, as most hotels in Muskoka did when this happened, the Balls came up with a novel solution - no doubt inspired by their initial camping experience. 

The Balls built wooden-frame shelters that guests attached canvas sides to during their stay. They socialized with one another during the day and took their meals at the main hotel. Shirley and Elizabeth Ball never had any children, so it made sense to the couple to sell off portions of their land to these close friends and relatives who obviously loved the place as much as they did. As each decade passed, another cottage or two was built next to one of the pagoda camping shelters. By the time Shirley Ball died in the late 1930s much of the property had been subdivided. Although not everyone was family, their connection to the Balls and Garryowen meant they were also connected to one another.

This information was gathered from an interview in the summer of 2013 with Ann Ruhman.

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