Reading this nudist colony story in the Canadian National Post newspaper makes the reporters look like Beavis and Butthead go wild at the local nudist colony.
The media is fascinated by nudist resorts. It seems more and more reporters are writing about and filming our industry than ever before.
I have never been to the Four Seasons nudist campground before nor has any guests ever mentioned staying or belonging to that nudist club.
Two reporters from the National Post newspaper did a story on the campground. It is not very flattering. If what the reporter writes is true, I wouldn't want to go there either. In my experience with the press, I find a lot of what they write is exaggerated or not true, so I do not know what to believe and I will reserve judgement of the nudist park in the story.
The reporter should have gone to a nice nudist resort with his wife and he would have had a completely different, positive experience.
Here is the story:
"Nude dudes: A weekend at a nudist colony
Guelph, Ont. • National Post cartoonist Steve Murray and I recently spent two days at Four Seasons - no, not one of the properties in the luxe hotel chain. This Four Seasons is a hotel, campground and nudist colony situated on 150 acres of former farmland acquired by Hans and Lisa Stein in 1968. My wife, probably wisely, decided to stay at home in Toronto.
Early on in our visit, we talked to Hans, 79, and Lisa, 75, to find out how a former German dental technician and his mate find themselves running a nudist colony in rural Ontario.
...You have to show people that the inside of a nudist club is different from what they have in mind."
The Steins are talking to us in the 120-seat dining room. Believe it, the Four Seasons is quite a spread. In addition to the dining room, there's a restaurant called Scandals, an indoor swimming pool, a sauna, tennis court, boutique, paddle boats, fitness centre and a brand new $2.5-million septic tank, all of which serve the 18-room hotel and some 100 trailers that have been converted into one-storey homes on streets with names like Sunset Strip and Paradise Lane. The population of this town within a town is roughly 150.
...In the United States, nude recreation was a $440-million industry in 2007, more than double the $200-million in 1992. Canadian nudist resorts aren't faring as well: Four Seasons, in fact, is up for sale (the Steins won't disclose their asking price but say they have a "more than generous offer" on the table). Bare Oaks, in Sharon, Ont., was sold recently, and Glen Echo Park, in the Oak Ridges Moraine, was put on the market last summer for $1.7-million. No buyers yet.
The problem is that nudist colonies just aren't drawing the Facebook crowd. "It's not a problem for young people to take off their clothes, it's that young people don't want to be members," says Lisa, also blaming the empty dining room on gas prices. "Kids are in soccer, gymnastics, they have commitments. They don't have the time."
I came to Four Seasons with an open mind, but my $55-a-night room closed it quickly. The purple carpet is old and frayed, cobwebs hang from the windows, dirty curtains cover thin cardboard
walls and the television gets only one channel, which plays non-stop porn.
...Paul Rapoport, editor of Going Natural, the Federation of Canadian Naturists trade magazine, told me recently that nudist colonies are actually less sexualized than shopping malls - and that Four Seasons is more freewheeling than most naturist communities: "Nudity is a vulnerable state, but if you accept that vulnerability there's a different connection. The nudity at a social gathering at a nudist club enforces a bond. In fact, there's more of an erotic charge when someone is wearing clothes - imagination is a big part of eroticism."
Nude, Steve and I venture forth and discover an array of body types at the pool. Nobody gawks. I arrange the massive white towel that I've brought on a broken lounge chair, settle in...
...After this edifying talk, Steve and I, now clothed, drink Budweiser at the outdoor bar, where no one is nude and everyone drinks heavily. We play pool, watch porn and then go to bed.
On Saturday morning, we are back in the hot tub, nude. An uncircumcised man of about 40 with a dragon tattoo on his back joins us with his girlfriend, a novel by Carl Hiaasen and a joint. We nod hello...
..."Volleyball!" screams his companion, swinging a plastic bag filled with bottles of Blue.
She is 40-something, six feet tall and wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She has been barred from the Four Seasons - though on this day she has snuck in. She is drunk out of her gourd.
"I want to play volleyball," says the woman, who moved here with her family at 17.
"You don't have any players, or a ball or anything," says the man.
He asks us to take her off his hands, and she leads us into a trailer to meet another couple, who are both clothed. (The biggest drinkers here all seem to be wearing clothes).
..."Look how stoned he is," she says, when her 25-year-old son enters the trailer and grabs two bottles of beer. The kid, who lives in Newmarket, has massive arms and wears a black tank-top tucked into shorts. The man takes the kid's car keys. Their other son is a cop.
...Back at the bar, we run into the 22-year-old son of the man in the golf cart. He asks if we want to get high.
"I hate this hard-drinking old swinger's scene," he says, although Hans and Lisa Stein swear that's not the atmosphere in their club...
Steve and I walk her back to her room, which takes some effort. Then it's back to the bar, where Steve delights the crowd with a romping dance with Lisa Stein. It was an eye-opening weekend and, while nudism seems like a great utopian ideal, the denizens of Four Seasons seem to be sullying the Steins' original vision. All things considered, I think the next trip Steve and I take should be to that other Four Seasons. I think I can even convince my wife to join us there."
For the full story
click hereIf what is written is true, the campground should be ashamed of the broken lounge chairs dirty rooms, non stop porn, and drug use. They say the younger generation isn't going to nudist resorts any more, that is not true. They are not going to their resort. Maybe the dirty rooms has a lot to do with their occupancy being down.
If that was my first nude experience, I don't think I would have ever tried it again.
I have always known that you have to compete with regular hotels. People are not going to go nude at rundown naturist resorts.
A perfect example of how you have to run a good resort whether you are a naturist resort or not is here in Palm Springs. Year round we have one of the highest occupancy rates of all hotels in Palm Springs. We have been open 13 years. We buy top of the line beds, have invested in a state of the art salt water pool and jacuzzi, have the best high pressure poolside cooling system in all of Palm Springs (and that is not an exaggeration), have free wifi and many more amenities.
There was another larger nudist resort in Palm Springs. From reading tripadvisor reports, they had old saggy beds, showed pay per view adult movies in the rooms, and had a low occupancy rate. They went bankrupt last year.
People just won't go to a place that is not nice just to go nude.
Now if you want a nice fun, relaxing place where you can go topless or nude sunbathing, give us The Terra Cotta Inn clothing optional resort and spa a call at 800-786-6938. Visit our site at
http://sunnyfun.comHope to see you in sunny Palm Springs!
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