Legendary golfer, Greg Norman, aka The Shark, was on-site in Peachland last Friday to survey his new design and construction progress of the Ponderosa Golf Course. Management executives from Treegroup Developments and members of the Greg Norman Golf Course Design team walked the course in the brisk autumn air. It was a clear day and easy to see some of the spectacular views that the new design will feature, overlooking Lake Okanagan and the waterfront town of Peachland. The site promises terrific views for both golfers and homeowners alike at what many are saying will be the finest Okanagan golf course community.

The golf course construction has been moving along briskly, with completion expected in 2012. Along with the new golf course, road infrastructure for the new home community has been progressing as the Ponderosa village centre and new golf club facility sit adjacent to the new course. Pre-selling of initial real estate including single family and multi-family new homes is expected to begin in 2011. The new homes at Ponderosa in Peachland will be a welcome addition to the Kelowna real estate market as they are expected to provide great value, sustainable features and offer a variety of housing options for different markets including young family buyers, retired empty-nesters and vacation home buyers.

Rising up from the waterfront to Pincushion Mountain, historic Peachland is one of the most desirable locations to live in and purchase Okanagan real estate, graced by amazing views and a close-knit community atmosphere. As part of the town of Peachland, the Ponderosa new home community will capture the style and character of the region in its architecture as well as its culture, embracing a healthy lifestyle and offering year round recreational amenities.

When Greg Norman first visited the Ponderosa site in 2008, he described it as a gem. His team referred to the Peachland region as a combination of Lake Tahoe and Napa. By all recent accounts, Ponderosa promises to be one of the finest golf courses in Canada, and offer the best new home opportunities in Kelowna and Okanagan real estate.

As summer turns to autumn in the Okanagan Valley, vintners from scores of wineries are carefully tending to this year’s harvest of sun drenched grapes. And as wineries gear up to produce this year’s vintage, the valley is preparing for its annual wine harvest celebration.

The Okanagan Fall Wine Festival is the only festival in North America that celebrates the harvest. Now in its 30th year, the festival showcases wine and food from around the valley while paying homage to the agricultural traditions that produce some of the best wines in the world.

Okanagan Valley real estate comes with easy access to more than 120 wineries, hundreds of brands and varieties of wine and four festivals that match the Okanagan seasons.

Fall is harvest time and this year’s festival features 165 events from Vernon to Osoyoos. For 11 days starting September 30, wineries, restaurants and caterers will team up to produce countless pairings of Okanagan wine and fine food.

Individual wineries have their own quaint events, while grand celebrations are held in key locations, featuring selections from many wineries, throughout the festival. From the All You Need is Cheese event on September 30 in Kelowna, to the Grand Finale Consumer Tastings on October 8 and 9 in Penticton, there are major events being held in every city along the valley’s length.

Have you ever wanted to kick off your shoes and socks and squish some grapes between your toes? Check out the grape stomp at the House of Rose Winery. Want to try wine with captivating art? The Evans Gallery and others are holding wine tastings with artist meet and greets.

There’s a nearly endless variety of things to do during the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival. There’s wine and chamber music, or jazz if that’s your thing. You can try wine with chocolate, wine with cheese or wine with just about anything else you can think of. From multi-course dining with Okanagan wines to vineyard tours and sampling after, there is a wide array of things to do during the wine festival.

The Peachland new home community of Ponderosa, is centrally located in wine country, just minutes south of West Kelowna. It’s the perfect place to live, with easy access to scores of wineries and all of the events held during the four annual wine festivals.

Unlike most Okanagan real estate being built today, the Ponderosa community will have its own vineyard and winery – a reminder of the agrarian roots that run deep through Peachland and the Okanagan Valley.

To learn more about the Okanagan Fall Wine Festival and its events, check out www.thewinefestivals.com

Anticipation has been building all summer in Peachland regarding the progress of the Ponderosa new home community and Greg Norman golf course construction. In order to provide easier access to community information as it progresses, and take expressions of new home interest, Treegroup Developments has opened a new community information centre in the Peachland IGA mall on Highway 97.

To date, over 500 registrations have been received indicating an overwhelming number of people interested in purchasing a new home at Ponderosa. The excellent response is not unexpected as Ponderosa will deliver a wide range of product types for every budget and lifestyle including townhomes, condominiums, single-family homes and more. The new Greg Norman signature golf course that will wind through the community has also been positioned as one of the best in the country. As Okanagan real estate communities go, Ponderosa is one-of-a-kind, with it’s fantastic views, easy access to the Peachland waterfront and the existing town services of Peachland.

The Discovery Centre is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10AM – 4PM daily.

For more information check out the attached link to a recent newspaper article in the Peachland View.

Living in Peachland comes with many natural fringe benefits including the awesome spectacle of the spawning of freshwater Kokanee salmon. Perhaps the best place in the Okanagan Valley to see Kokanee spawning is at Deep Creek located in the south end of Peachland and running through Hardy Falls Regional Park. Deep Creek is an important Kokanee habitat and it teams with scarlet red fish every fall.

Thousands of visitors descend on Deep Creek every year to witness this incredible circle of life. Hardy Falls Regional Park features a meandering path through the Deep Creek gorge, where seven wooden foot bridges span the creek and offer a close view of the salmon below. Interpreters from the regional district’s park services are available every Saturday and Sunday, September to mid-October to take visitors on free tours through Hardy Falls National Park.

Landlocked thousands of years ago, Kokanee are smaller relatives of mighty Pacific salmon like Chinook and sockeye. Native to inland lakes, Kokanee spawn each fall by swimming up creeks and rivers to lay their eggs in cold, mountain fed waters. This is just one of the many spectacles of nature that make Peachland a special place to live in the Okanagan.

Aside from featuring the Okanagan’s longest public beachfront, Peachland and the 400 acre new home community of Ponderosa, feature many kilometers of nature trails that meander by creeks, through wilderness and even take you to the summit of Pincushion Mountain. Imagine living in a new home that features a spectacular view of Lake Okanagan at your front door and access to alpine nature trails from your back door.

Historically the Peachland area has been home to adventurers, European pioneers and First Nations peoples who were drawn here by the incredible natural abundance, the close proximity to the lake and the temperate climate. Today, living at Ponderosa gives you all the amenities that come with being part of the vibrant town of Peachland, as well as Ponderosa’s new Greg Norman Signature golf course, a premium winery, luxury hotel, farmers markets, a year round outdoor skating rink and amphitheatre. Ponderosa, the premier Okanagan real estate opportunity, offers authentic Okanagan living and a wonderful balance between community and nature.

On a recent tour of the Okanagan with MP Stockwell Day, Bill Berisoff reported in the Peachland View newspaper as follows: "Up in the valley in Peachland another world-class project is underway, the Ponderosa Golf Course currently under construction under the guidance of legendary PGA golfer Greg Norman. In a few short years this region will be home to a truly international caliber golf course that may well be the finest in our country. I know from meeting with many Peachland residents recently there is excitement in the air regarding the potential of this new golf course, and the opportunities it will create for the Peachland community."

Along with a world-class Greg Norman golf course and golf academy, the 400 acre new home community of Ponderosa will offer a wide variety of Okanagan Valley real estate options including golf course homes, town homes and condominiums, many with spectacular views and all located within the quaint waterfront town of Peachland. Additional community amenities include a premium winery, luxury hotel, outdoor amphitheatre, village centre with central plaza, cafes, restaurants and an innovative year round outdoor skating rink.

Owning a piece of Okanagan real estate comes with a connection to Lake Okanagan and there is no place where that is truer than in Peachland. There is a natural connection to the water in this peaceful town.

Residents don’t have to live beside the lake to have lakefront property. The views from decks are spectacular. You can smell the clear, refreshing waters everywhere. Drive down the mountain and you see the lake, drawn to its captivating beauty.

Take a stroll down Beach Avenue and it becomes clear why townsfolk call the community ‘Peachland on the Lake’. All summer long, the lake is home to sailboats and power boats, water skiers, wakeboarders and tubers.

Peachland’s jewel is its waterfront. A two-kilometre waterfront walkway is now under construction that will become a walker’s paradise along the town’s lakeshore – 11 kilometres of pebble beaches, most publicly accessible. Numerous docks are available for boat parking or the as the launching point for a dip in the lake. The Peachland Marina has one of the few marine gas facilities on the west side of the lake and residents and visitors can rent boats and personal watercraft.

The municipal day wharf downtown is the perfect place to moor a boat for a short stay in Peachland. From there it’s just a short walk to the many small shops and fine restaurants along Beach Avenue. The town maintains three boat launches along the lakeshore and there are miles of beach available for sunning and swimming.

Built on a mountainside, Peachland gently hugs the lakeshore, giving a real sense of lakefront property everywhere one goes. This is where a connection to the lake is natural and Okanagan real estate is at its finest.

If Okanagan wine tours are on your to do list, Peachland is the perfect place to start. The valley has many wineries along its 177 km (110 mile) length, and Peachland real estate is located dead center.

Ponderosa’s new Okanagan homes are well located in Peachland for winery day trips to Vernon in the north and Osoyoos to the south. You can walk through a vineyard, tour a production facility, taste the many varieties of Okanagan wines and even learn how the valley’s wines became internationally recognized.

Thirty years ago, Okanagan wines came in two varieties (red or white), were bottled in jugs with screw caps and the jugs often came glued inside a wicker basket. The jug wines were sweet, cheap and came with corny names like Hot Goose and Fuddle Duck. Times have changed.

In the late 1980s, free trade meant increased competition for Okanagan wines. There were just 14 wineries operating in all of B.C. and vintners took a gamble, ripping out their hardy French hybrid vines and replanting their vineyards with traditional noble vinifera grapes.

Today there are more than 120 wineries in the Okanagan Valley, which is now the second largest wine producing region in North America – a distinction that has earned the valley the moniker Napa North.

Long gone are the jugs and screw caps. Today, Okanagan wines hold their own on the international stage, winning numerous awards for merlots, chardonnays and ice wines. In 2008, West Kelowna’s Mission Hill Family Estate winery won the International Icewine Trophy for producing the world’s best icewine. The same year, Kelowna’s Summerhill Pyramid Winery won a gold medal in France’s Chardonnay du Monde competition. And 2009 marked the eighth year in a row than an Okanagan winery was awarded the Canadian Winery of the Year title from Wine Access magazine.

Okanagan wine tours can start with North America’s largest organic winery, Summerhill, and its famous pyramid, where every bottle of wine is transformed by ancient geometry. Travel 15 minutes to Mission Hill, in West Kelowna, with its stunning view of Lake Okanagan and its Terrace Restaurant – named one of the top five winery restaurants in the world by Travel and Leisure magazine.

Head south from Mission Hill to Peachland and then drive into desert country. You’ll find numerous small estate wineries with delicious offerings and quirky names. Discover Blasted Church, Burrowing Owl, Tinhorn Creek and Twisted Tree – wineries each with their own unique story. Just 20 minutes south of Peachland is the former Scherzinger Vineyards, which rebranded itself into high sales with its new name, Dirty Laundry.

Today the valley has regions for Okanagan wine tours that offer day trippers the chance to experience collections of wineries in one area. There’s Summerland’s Bottleneck Drive, the Naramata Bench Winery Association outside of Penticton, the Corkscrew Drive group near Okanagan Falls and the widely-known Golden Mile Bench, home to a handful of wineries in the semi-arid Oliver area.

Own a piece of Peachland real estate and experience the authentic Okanagan. Ponderosa’s centrally located, new Okanagan homes are the perfect place to begin a winery tour adventure and to wrap up a touring day on a peaceful deck, enjoying the view and sipping a great vintage or two.

Check out www.okanagan.com to see how Peachland’s Ponderosa is perfectly located for Okanagan wine tours.

Peachland View April 23 2010 - New Ponderosa Map / Score Card Revealed
Billion Dollar Tee Time Coming Soon

In 2009 Peachland celebrated its Centennial. Heritage buildings and a historical charm continue to draw visitors and homebuyers to this vibrant waterfront town, just five minutes from West Kelowna. Here’s how it all got started.

The story of Peachland really began in the early 1800s with the push north from the Pacific Northwest in search of furs. Within a few decades, trails blazed through the wilderness were used heavily by prospectors driven by the allure of British Columbia gold. Over time, homesteaders began to arrive in the Peachland area and it was they who discovered the true gold of the Okanagan Valley, orchard fruits, notably peaches.

Alexander Ross led an expedition in 1812 up the Columbia and Okanagan Rivers to establish a fur trading post in the B.C. Interior. The group established Fort Kamloops and named Trepanier and Jacque Creeks in the Peachland area.

Twelve years later, Tom McKay blazed a similar trail from Fort Okanogan in Washington State to Fort Kamloops. The trail became known as the Fur Brigade Trail and it cut through the Okanagan Valley by way of Garnet Lake to Deep Creek and then along an upper bench in present day Peachland northward.

Furs were gathered from natives and sent down to the trail to Astoria, Oregon, where they were sent by ship to England.

At the time, Peachland did not exist, but the area did have a stopping point on the Fur Brigade Trail. May Springs (located near the Loan property on Princess Street) provided a rest stop with fresh water for fur traders and, later on, for gold seekers heading north to the Caribou gold fields.

In 1884, Charles Lambly established the Lambly Ranch beside Trepanier Creek. The ranch stretched from the lake back into the gorge (where the elementary school now sits) and was home to hundreds of cattle and an orchard where peaches thrived.

Three years later, Gus Hewitt formed the Camp Hewitt Mining and Development Company, which began mining on the south side of Pincushion Mountain. Hewitt also built a wharf on the lakeshore where steam boats could offload supplies for his mine. The wharf was located at the present day location of Renfrew Road and Hwy. 97 and, together with a camp near the mine, became known as Camp Hewitt.

In those early days, steamboats would make two stops in the soon-to-be Peachland area: Lambly’s Landing and Camp Hewitt — two place names that preceded the name Peachland. W.A. Lang, who became Peachland’s first mayor, opened the first general store in the area next to Hewitt’s wharf and a saw mill quickly took shape next to the store.

In 1888, J.M. Robinson, his wife and a party of his friends arrived in southern B.C. for a holiday, packing in with horses. With all the gold mining activity in the Boundary Country, a bit of prospecting added to the pleasures of their trip to the Okanagan. Robinson and some associates were interested enough that they formed the Canadian and American Gold Mining Company, and purchased Gus Hewitt’s mining interests (the Gladstone Mine).

The Gladstone Mine soon petered out, but Robinson happened upon the Lambly Ranch and had a taste of Okanagan peaches. The snack gave him an idea and soon Robinson purchased as much land as possible. He formed the Peachland Townsite Company and promoted his new town in Manitoba. By 1898, a one-room schoolhouse opened and a post office was set up with the post mark Peachland.

Today the Okanagan Valley region is the fastest growing area of British Columbia. Visitors and new residents are drawn here by the sunshine – over 300 days per year, the longest golf season in BC, the second largest wine region in North America, several major ski resorts and amazing watersports on the numerous fresh water lakes. Okanagan Valley real estate is some of the most precious in the world, and Peachland, situated right next door to West Kelowna, boasts over 11 km of public beach front, the longest in the valley.

Rising above the quaint Okanagan Valley town of Peachland is Pincushion Mountain, so named for a fire that swept through in the 1800s and left blackened tree trunks in its wake. Its summit is the highest vantage point in town, offering a panoramic view of nearly one third of the valley, with Kelowna’s upscale Mission district to the west and the vast vineyards of Naramata to the south.

It is here, just below the summit’s unprecedented vista of mountain and azure lake waters, that a new, billion-dollar community is being built. Far from a cookie-cutter Okanagan real estate project, Ponderosa will gently exist among hundreds of acres of fir and pine forest, offering unparalled recreation opportunities in a natural setting.

Located in the centre of the Okanagan Valley, Peachland is a year-round paradise featuring 300 days of sunshine, 11 kilometres of accessible beaches and small town charm. It’s just 10 minutes from the urban conveniences of West Kelowna and perfectly situated for drives to golf courses, ski hills, orchards, vineyards and more than 100 wineries.

Starting construction this year, Ponderosa will be a community within a community, complimenting charming Peachland while offering a mix of housing opportunities, and all surrounding a new, Greg Norman designed, signature Okanagan golf course.

Inspired by the unique mountain terrain of the site, the Ponderosa Golf Course will be championship calibre that offers both challenge and playability.

“Our goal is to create a golf course that mimics the unique characteristics of the site as well as the surrounding familiarity of the town,” says Lee Marshall, design associate with Greg Norman Golf Course Design.

Known in golf circles as The Shark, Greg Norman is one of the most prolific international players in golf history. He was the number one ranked player for 331 consecutive weeks and maintained active membership in the U.S., European and Australasian tours. Playing many of the world’s greatest golf courses over his 25-year career led to an interest in golf course design.

In 1987, Norman established his design company and it has completed more than 70 golf courses on six continents. Award winning in design, many of Norman’s courses have been awarded the Audobon Society Award for environmental stewardship.

“Because each design bears my name, I personally make it my mission to get involved with every step of the golf course design process, from walking the virgin site, to planning and construction, to opening day,” says Norman, who called the Ponderosa land, “A magnificent site.”

During a visit to the Okanagan, Norman commented, “It’s like Napa Valley meets Lake Tahoe.” Vancouver-based Treegroup Developments Corp. is developing the Ponderosa real estate community in the Okanagan, and CEO Norm Porter invited Norman in 2008 to check out the existing 18-hole course. One helicopter ride convinced the golf legend of the site’s championship potential.

The Ponderosa Golf Course has been a Peachland icon and regional favourite for more than 30 years, offering unique terrain and lake viewpoints. With the addition of hundreds of acres of new land, Norman has been given a blank canvas to create a dream course. Norman’s design company has come up with a 7,100-yard course that uses the challenging elevation changes of the site by strategically placing the course among the existing slopes, benches and forest. Multiple tee areas, bunkering and landscaping will help define the course, creating a memorable and exciting experience for all levels of players.

The result will be a signature course gently wrapped around the base of Pincushion Mountain offering unprecedented lake views in a natural setting. Ponderosa will feature a mix of hole lengths and challenges, from a peppy 199-yard hole, to the forest-lined, 653-yard fairway next door. Wrapping up the experience for Ponderosa golfers will be the 532-yard 18^th hole, situated on a ridge running parallel to and offering awesome views of, Lake Okanagan.

Golfers will begin and end their Ponderosa experience at the world-class clubhouse, situated in the heart of the community’s new village centre. Within walking distance will be a vineyard and winery, luxury hotel, shops, restaurants and golf academy. Nearby will be the central plaza, featuring an amphitheatre and year-round, outdoor ice rink.

Built with pedestrians in mind, the Ponderosa community will feature miles of walking trails, linking residents and visitors to the village centre from all residential areas and out into the natural preserved areas, including up to the lookout at the top of Pincushion Mountain.

More than 2,000 housing units will be built at Ponderosa, one of the Okanagan Valley’s largest real estate projects, from resort-oriented condos to single-family and multifamily homes that will cater to all ages and income levels. Homes will feature sustainable, energy-efficient designs with year-round liveability in a thoughtfully designed community.

The new Ponderosa Golf Course is scheduled to open in 2011.