It’s with great excitement that we launch our newly updated website! Many thanks to our current webmaster, Mary Bella (Maestra Web Design) of Etobicoke, Ontario, for all her hard work. Our deepest gratitude goes to our outgoing webmaster Anshu Mathur of Waterloo, Ontario, who kept the Fancy Free website updated for 10 years.

We hope you like our new site. It’s got all the features of the old site: the history, the photos, the happy comments from guests. With this update, the site is more dynamic and easier to use. And there are lots more pictures!  Fancy Free Island is so photogenic that you can really never get enough pictures.  

Over the last few summers, Fancy Free has had some intensive renewal projects done. The boathouse has been strengthened and slightly enlarged, and now boasts Cape Cod siding, skylights and a lifetime-warranty steel roof.

The new French doors on the second floor have opened up a hitherto hidden view of the channel that is quite literally breathtaking.  You can see the full sweep of the shoreline and the sparkling water of the channel stretching along for miles to the northeast, the water dotted with islands large and small. It’s the kind of view that you can look at for hours.

Fancy Free cottage has also had its roof replaced and last year got a complete exterior paint job. When you’re 140 years old, you need a bit of a facelift now and then.

We are looking forward to opening in May for another much anticipated summer season. One of the rituals of opening is hanging out the Fancy Free welcome sign. It’s a little plaque, a sort of tchotchke, made in nearby Westport years ago from a slab of wood cut along the grain.  Etched on it are words that are as meaningful today as when it was first made:

“Knock gently friend, whate’er betide,
The kettle’s on, so come inside.”

Come and visit- the welcome mat is always out!

-Tom and Pamela Gough