House Swap

The Basic Deal

You have a home in the downtown area of Toronto with 2 or more bedrooms, art on the walls, a few plants and maybe even a cat.

We have a 2 bedroom, one bathroom house with a walk-in shower that is 100 feet from the shores of the Trent Severn Waterway. The house has comfortable furnishings, a wood burning stove and about a thousand books, and wilderness at your doorstep.

You live in our house and our responsible grandchildren live in yours starting September 2024 until at least June 2025, maybe until June 2026 if all goes well for everyone.

What do you think? If you’re in, let us know by answering some questions.

A typical sunset over Crowe Bay - what you may see from your kitchen window

Meet the Rices; Chandra, Andrea, Ruby, Jim, Robin, Sara, Jake, Vi, and J (Rhiannon was taking the photo)

The Why

Meet the Rices. We are family and community people. You may be wondering why we would be out here on a limb asking for such unconventional things. And that’s just it. We are people who like the unconventional. We are colourful souls looking for an experience beyond the black and white world of cold hard cash. We think trying to do things a little differently adds something special to everyone’s existence.

Throughout our lives we have found that using our resources to connect with people beyond the bonds of money has been a beautiful way to widen our world. From working in the volunteer sector (from a camp counsellor to the president of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Canada), to inviting strangers (who soon become like family) to spend long stretches of time at the cottage, to helping travellers get back home when they have run out of funds… life is sweeter and more fun when we are all working for each other.

As we have mentioned, we are family first people and we have been lucky enough to be very close with our grandkids. We spent all summer together for years at the Cedars as they grew up. Together, we built and repaired cottages, played games, ate meals, worked hard, and grew close. These kids have become responsible and lovely people, and the last few years have shown us that we have reason to be proud. Now, we are keen to help them into their next phase and add that unconventional twist that brings so much fun to life.

Of course, we could just rent out Top House, and have these young adults rent something in Toronto, but where’s the fun in that? We want the idea to be bigger and wilder, less conventional and more open for joy. We want to prioritize connection and community. We want to find new ways to make the deal sweet. We want to leave behind the old way of doing things. What could be better than that?

Our House Details

What we have to offer is a lovely home in a heavenly little corner of Trent Hills. You can see more photos and a full description here.

In the last few years we have become migratory. We spend our winters visiting our daughters and their families in Tuscany and the Netherlands, and the summers in Birds, our cottage.

The house is on 2 ½ acres on the Trent Severn Water System and is part of a larger property of cabins that used to be a fishing resort back in the 1920s. It has been our passion for the past 20 years to restore this incredible gem to its former glory, and then some!

We live in one of the cabins by the water for the late spring, summer and early fall and spend the colder months visiting our daughters in Europe. The other cabins are let out to a few families during the shoulder seasons, and then are filled with our friends and family over the summer. The house we are offering is part of the property but is set slightly apart too, so your privacy is assured.

We made this leap 20 years ago when we, too, heard the call of the wild. Jim was a professor at McMaster University, Robin was an artist who had recently graduated from OCAD. We closed up our city lives and took on the challenges and blessings of country life. We haven’t looked back since. Maybe we can help show you the ropes.

The view of the back of Top House from the path.

Your House Details

Location - Jake and Emily will be going to school at the Rehabilitation Sciences Building of University of Toronto (500 University Ave). They’d like a place that’s up to a 30 minute walk or an easy 15 minute transit ride from there. Being super studious, they will likely be at the school at all hours of the day and night, so it’s got to be easy to get home after a long night at the library. Rhiannon will be working in the Parkdale area, but she’s more mobile.

Ownership - We’d like to know that you own your home (no sublets or rentals).

Furnished - Jake and Emily will likely return to The Cedars when they graduate, which means they don’t want to invest in all of the furnishings of a home while they study. They will care for it like it’s their own (or perhaps more importantly, they’ll care for it like they’d care for their grandparent’s home).

Your Hosts; Robin and Jim

Ciao! I am Robin. I am an artist, a renovator, and a mom and gran. Over the course of my life I have taken on the challenge of turning run-down old places with good bones into beautiful spaces to live our lives.

Our family home in Hamilton was a twenty-year project that had me stripping floors and woodwork, designing a new kitchen, bathroom and bedroom, painting every wall at least twice, and on one memorable occasion taking a jackhammer to a cement floor.

That home was also surrounded by gardens I designed and built that had a place on several garden tours.

At the same time, I had the fortune to be able to stay home and raise my two daughters, Sara and Chandra. During their upbringing I volunteered at the Canadian Hearing Society and worked as a framer (art, not houses!). I was also a very committed creative. I sewed, knitted, crocheted, did stained glass, and all sorts of things.

Following my passion for making beautiful things, I went back to school at 50 and did a fulltime 4 year art degree in Material Arts at Ontario College of Art and Design. Being a student again was exciting and showed me that I can do anything I set my mind to. I worked with wood, metal, textile, and ceramics. I love the process of making and find that while my hands are busy, my mind is calm.

Hi! I am Jim. I am a professor retired from McMaster University where I taught Social Policy in the School of Social Work 30 years. In addition to this, I volunteered with many community organizations. This work was recognized in 1983 when I was named Hamilton’s Citizen of the Year. I focused most of my volunteer energy on the Boys' and Girls' Clubs of Canada where I eventually became National President. For these activities I was awarded: the Boys’ and Girls’ Club’s award for ‘Recognition for Outstanding Leadership’; the ‘Fellowship of Man’ award for contribution to children in Canada; and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal.

Happily, my career also left lots of time for family life and I am proud to say that our family sat around the table for dinner every day as the kids were growing up. We also went on exciting adventures together, especially on our sailboat, Magic, with which we would take long summer trips up and down Lake Ontario.

I am a foodie who loves to cook and explore new restaurants. Now that our girls live overseas, I am thrilled to be able to take my appetite for food and life and see new worlds. In each country we visit, I wonder how it has been shaped by its culture and the public policies of its leaders. I am forever curious about how things work.

A million years ago I studied art, and in recent years I have come back to it. This year, I am focused on abstract painting. I find the ability to express myself in colour and form exciting, if sometimes a bit daunting.

While we were out celebrating our 38nd anniversary together, we were reminiscing about the turning points in our lives and discovered that our best times had always been when we were off on a big, new adventure. We decided it was time for our next one. That is how we ended up here at The Cedars, in the middle of this beautiful countryside far from everything we had known before.

And as suspected, this has been a delicious and fruitful adventure.

Here we are sitting on the back porch of Top House.

Here we are on our way out to a formal event with the Probus Club

The Grandchildren

Meet our grandchildren - Rhiannon, Jake, and Jake’s girlfriend Emily. These kids are responsible non-smokers with good heads on their shoulders looking to settle into their next steps and make the next couple of years count. All they need is a home from which to be able to give it their all.

The Neighourhood

The Cedars (and Top House) are10 minutes outside of the up-and-coming Campbellford and 18 minutes south of Havelock in Trent Hills

Most of our neighbours on both sides of 10th Line have farmed this land for generations. Coming and going to town we see the seasonal changes and activities that produce the food we eat - there is nothing like the smell of fresh cut hay! Many of the cottagers that share our shore have also grown up spending their summers here fishing, swimming, and boating on Crowe Bay. It’s a family oriented neighbourhood.

When we bought The Cedars, it had been used infrequently and was returning to the wild. We wanted to keep the four hundred feet of shoreline natural to encourage the wildlife that had been making it home to stay. And they have! We see otters, mink, turtles, herons, loons, deer, geese, wild turkey, osprey and a variety of ducks and birds as they pass through.

Trent Hills includes Campbellford, Havelock, Hastings, Warkworth and the village of Trent River. These are all small towns and true to the reputation of small towns, the people are friendly. There are lots of opportunities to meet people outside of the activities of daily living.

In our neighbourhood we have:

A strong Probus Club - offers friendship, educational opportunities, social activities and fun for active men and women in their retirement and semi-retirement years
The Horticultural Society - is a great community for garderners. They organize garden tours and plant sales
The Historical Society - is for history buffs. They collect stories and historical artifacts from the Trent Hills area
The Agricultural Society - runs the Campbellford Fair each summer. They have a curling rink, baseball diamonds, and fairgrounds. They also host community garage sales and the 4H club for youth
The Aron Theatre Co-op - is our local movie theater that also features TIFF as well as Indigenous films, musicians, and first run movies
Westben - is our musical theater that has amazing musicals and arts performances.
The Warkworth Spinners and Weavers Guild - is a great group of fibre artists who range from well respected sheep farmers to teachers for the Ontario Handweavers and Spinners Certification program.
The Spirit of the Hills Arts Association - supports local artists and organizes studio tours
Porchella - is a music festival in September with performers taking to the porches and Carports of Campbellford to entertain the roving audience.
And a trail system for cyclists and walkers

We also have the Campbellford Memorial Hospital, the World’s Finest Chocolate Factory, an excellent library, and Dooher’s Bakery (voted Canada’s sweetest bakery). And every Saturday morning people gather at the Campbellford Farmers’ Market to enjoy music and treats from local producers.

If you’re interested in a house swap, please fill in this application form.