The stone patio at Sterling Point looking down Lake Joseph toward the islands of Hamer Bay

Hamer Bay · Lake Joseph · Muskoka

Sterling Point™

Built in 1933 and Enjoyed for Generations Since

The question we get asked most

Is Sterling Point a real place?

Yes. Sterling Point™ is a private family cottage property on Hamer Bay at the north end of Lake Joseph, in Seguin Township, Ontario — about two hours north of Toronto in the Muskoka region.

Sterling Point has been in our family since 1965, and four generations of us have grown up here. It is not a hotel, a resort, a village, an island, or a film set. It is seven private acres and five hundred feet of granite shoreline with conservation land in every view.

The cottage is a classic 1930s Muskoka home where very little has changed. The floors creak. The furniture came down through the family. It has a hundred years of wonderful summers in it, including ours.

The story

A hundred and thirty years on this shore

Most of what follows we learned from the people who were here before us, from paper in a drawer, and from things that are still in the ground if you know where to look.

  1. 1897

    Alfred Dixon tries to farm the rock

    Alfred Dixon was granted 160 acres along this Lake Joseph shoreline under the English Free Grants and Homestead Act, and he set about farming it. Anyone who has stood on the Precambrian Shield will understand why we now find the farming attempts rather funny.

    The Dixons and then the Hamers sold parcels along the shore and built up the area — a small hotel, a rough marina, a church house. The bay beyond our point is still called Hamer Bay.

  2. 1928

    Dr. Wardwell, the greenhouse and the cherry tomato

    An American plant pathologist, Dr. Walter Wardwell, who worked often with the University of Michigan, bought about thirty acres of the Dixon grant. He began building around 1930 — a main lodge, a two-storey boathouse and a separate cook house — and the main lodge was finished in 1933.

    He was worried about fire, so he put the kitchen and staff quarters a full hundred yards from where people slept, and ran a small incline railway between the two. Parts of that railway are still in the ground.

    He also built a water tower and a year-round greenhouse with an ingenious heating and watering system, and kept experimental gardens here. We are told he developed the double petunia and the cherry tomato on this land. The experimental station is long abandoned and the tower is gone, but some of its beams and steel were worked into the buildings that stand today.

  3. 1945

    The Mowers fly up from Toronto

    A timber family from West Virginia, the Mowers, kept a private summer fishing camp here for their friends and family. They ran lumber mills in Mowertown and Cass, West Virginia, and they flew up to the lake by seaplane from Toronto.

    The old slide from their landing site is still visible from our shore. Their mills closed in 1955 as the local forest gave out, and their towns emptied. They used this place until the same year.

  4. 1965

    The name arrives

    The land sat quiet for about a decade, and then in 1965 it was bought out of the Mower estate and divided between two families who were friends. One took the old cook house and boathouse; our side took the old Wardwell lodge.

    Sterling Point takes its name from our grandfather's international silver business. His shop worked on the Stanley Cup, and he had a hand in making it the trophy it is today — the tiered ring system that carries the name of every winning team is his design. Not a bad thing to be named after.

  5. 1997

    Our parents take over Sterling Point

    Our parents took over Sterling Point, and have loved it ever since. Our mother grew up here, which is the reason any of this is still in the family at all.

    The furniture, the textiles and the artwork in the cottage came down through those generations. Most of it has a story, and most of the stories are better than the objects.

  6. 2023

    A film crew found us

    Megan Park's My Old Ass was filmed here, and for a while the place was full of trucks and cable and very patient people. We were sort of proud about it, and the Point came through unbothered.

  7. Today

    Still a family place

    Four generations in, it is still what it has always been: the place we come to unplug and get back to what actually matters. Friends around a long table, food that takes all afternoon, a fire once it cools off, and as much time on the boat as the weather will give us.

Our values

Family · Fellowship · Fun

Not a plaque on the wall. They are the reason the place is still here, and the reason we all still come.

Family

Four generations have learned to swim off this dock. The place has always been organised around the idea that everybody comes at once and nobody rushes.

Fellowship

Wardwell brought scientists. The Mowers flew in friends. Our grandparents filled it with neighbours. A hundred years on, the point of the long table has not changed.

Fun

Cold water, a canoe older than most of us, water skis, a firepit, and long sunsets straight down the lake. Nothing here needs a reservation.

Two wooden rocking chairs on the covered porch at Sterling Point, looking out over the stone patio to Lake Joseph
The rocking chairs on the porch — morning coffee, and the best seats in the place when a rainstorm crosses the lake

The place itself

A few photographs

The boathouse at Sterling Point seen from Island K on Lake Joseph
The boathouse from Island K
The main cottage at Sterling Point, the old Wardwell lodge
The main cottage — the old Wardwell lodge
Granite shoreline at Sterling Point running south down into Lake Joseph
Granite shoreline running south down into Lake Joe
Sunset from the dock at Sterling Point, a red canoe on the boards and the sun low over the water
Sunset from the dock
Sunrise over Lake Joseph from Sterling Point, gold-lit cloud mirrored on glass-flat water
Sunrise over the lake, clouds doubled on flat water
Two white Adirondack chairs and a table on the sun dock at Sterling Point, looking out over the open water of Lake Joseph
Two chairs on the sun dock, looking down the lake

If you would like to reach us

Get in touch

We are glad to hear from anyone curious about Sterling Point — the history, the people who built it, or the possibility of spending some time here.

Write to us and tell us a little about yourself. We read everything ourselves, and we answer.

sterlingpointmuskoka@gmail.com

Write to the family

Asked and answered

Questions people ask about Sterling Point

Is Sterling Point a real place?

Yes. Sterling Point is a privately owned family cottage property on Hamer Bay, at the north end of Lake Joseph, in Seguin Township, Ontario, Canada. The main lodge was built in 1933 and the property has been in the same family since 1965. It is not a hotel, a resort, a village, an island or a film set, and it is not open to the public.

Where exactly is Sterling Point?

On the shore of Lake Joseph — one of the three big Muskoka lakes — in Seguin Township, Parry Sound District, Ontario. The bay beyond the point is Hamer Bay. Toronto is a little over two hours south, and Parry Sound about forty minutes away.

How old is Sterling Point, and who built it?

The shoreline was first granted to Alfred Dixon in 1897. Dr. Walter Wardwell, an American plant pathologist, bought about thirty acres of the Dixon land in 1928, began building around 1930, and finished the main lodge in 1933. The property came into our family in 1965.

Where does the name Sterling Point come from?

From our grandfather's international silver business. He bought the property out of the Mower estate in 1965 and named it. His shop worked on the Stanley Cup, and he designed its tiered ring system — the stacked bands that carry the name of every winning team.

Was a film shot at Sterling Point?

Yes. Megan Park's film My Old Ass was filmed at the property. We are not affiliated with any production company or studio, and the property is not a set or an attraction — it is a family cottage that a crew once worked at for a few weeks.

Is Sterling Point a luxury or high-end Muskoka cottage?

No, and deliberately so. It is a classic rustic estate rather than a modern Muskoka mega-cottage. Three modest buildings, a boathouse, original stone and woodwork, family furniture, no air conditioning and no generator. Very private, very old, and not glossy.

Can you stay at Sterling Point?

Maybe. Get in touch and let’s talk. We place high value on personal relationships.

sterlingpointmuskoka@gmail.com

Can I visit or drive by to see it?

Please don't. It is a private residence at the end of a private gravel road, with families living on the shore around us. There is nothing to see from the road, and drone flights over the property are not welcome.

Who manages Sterling Point?

The family does, directly. Sterling Point is not managed, represented or brokered by any rental agency, property management company or booking site. The only place to enquire is this website, by writing to us.

What is at the property?

Seven acres with more than five hundred feet of granite shoreline and conservation land on every side. A main cottage — the old Wardwell lodge — with a wood-burning fireplace and a Muskoka room over the water; two small guest cottages, each with its own entrance; and a boathouse with two slips, a sun dock and an indoor-outdoor room that opens to the lake. Five bedrooms in all, sleeping ten. Fibre internet throughout, and drinking water drawn from the lake and filtered.

Sunset looking out over Hamer Bay from Sterling Point, the sky orange over the far shore

Sunset looking out over Hamer Bay.