Tofino, B.C., on the west coast of Vancouver Island, used to be a hangout for hippies and surfers. Real people logged the forests and fished in the ocean.
But with movies booming in Vancouver and the little town only a 35-minute flight by Lear Jet, the Beautiful People have discovered it. And land values are a-soarin'.
An excerpt from the NYT story:
THE Wickaninnish Inn in the British Columbia town of Tofino has Champagne breakfasts, individual plunge pools overlooking the Pacific Ocean and a guest book that the inn’s owner, Charles McDiarmid, tries hard to keep under wraps.
Some of the guests, Mr. McDiarmid said discreetly, are “people working on the many different sets in Vancouver.”
The “sets in Vancouver” — 120 miles away — are the film and television stages of the booming production center that insiders only half-jokingly call Hollywood North. And as nearly everyone in town knows, Mr. McDiarmid’s “people” have included Danny DeVito, Uma Thurman, Susan Sarandon, Alanis Morissette and Donald Sutherland.
Rather than hanging out in their trailers all week, movie stars and film executives are heading to Tofino, a remote town of 1,700 on the Pacific Coast lined with pristine white sand beaches, old-growth pine forests and, increasingly, multimillion-dollar homes. With 12 films and 11 series, including “Smallville” and “Battlestar Galactica,” currently being produced in Vancouver, it has come as no surprise that celebrities are now calling Tofino their second home, with some joining the rush to buy property.
Once a quaint fishing and logging village, this hippie-surfer resort on the edge of Vancouver Island has been getting fancier and pricier by the season. Tackle shops now share the same sidewalk with galleries. Seedy bars have been displaced by brew pubs. Even simple lunch spots have a tony feel: foodies across Canada flock to the fabled purple lunch truck called Sobo (short for Sophisticated Bohemian) for the “killer” fish tacos with fresh fruit salsa (6 Canadian dollars, or $5.40 at 1.15 Canadian dollars to the U.S. dollar).
Swap the pines for palms, strip off a few layers during the winter and it’s a mini-Maui. But unlike Maui, Tofino still has rustic charms.
Its appeal is not hard to figure out. Just 35 minutes by Learjet from Vancouver (five hours by car and ferry), tiny Tofino is enveloped by Clayoquot Sound (a Unesco biosphere reserve), the 150,000-acre Pacific Rim National Park Reserve and some of North America’s best surfing spots. All around are tree-carpeted mountains with eagles flying overhead, cathedral-like valleys filled with 1,000-year-old trees, white glaciers gleaming in the distance, and crystal-clear waters as far as the eye can see.
Beyond the world-class surfing (winter swells can measure up to 40 feet), there’s kayaking, whale watching, fishing, boating, hiking, bathing in natural hot springs and storm watching — all of which makes Tofino a kind of wonderland for outdoorsy types.
Among them is Sarah McLachlan, the Canadian singer and the founder of Lilith Fair. Four years ago, she bought a woodsy one-story house on a stretch of pearly sand called Chesterman Beach — one of only 60 ocean beachfront plots in the town.
"Tofino's a close-knit town at the end of the world, surrounded by verdant green rain forests, raw ocean and a peaceful inlet,” Ms. McLachlan said. “I was very lucky to have been able to buy up here four years ago, and now I want to cry every time I have to leave.”
Noncelebrities, of course, have fallen for Tofino, too. In the last few years the demand for homes on Chesterman has skyrocketed.
“The beachfront land has doubled in value in the last two years from under $800,000 to over $1.5 million,” said a longtime local ReMax agent, Linda Pettinger. A teardown with 100 feet of oceanfront along the beach recently sold for 1.6 million Canadian dollars to Brendan Morrison, a Vancouver Canucks hockey player, setting a record for land alone.