On The Bay speaks with the resort developer poised to put his touch on Blue Mountain Village.
Peter Freed is the founder and chief executive officer of Freed Developments. He’s the man behind a major consolidation of resort communities in the province and he’s focusing on destinations within driving distance of the GTA.
Newswires lit up in the fall of 2021 when Freed Developments announced the purchase of Skyline Investments’ Deerhurst Resort in Huntsville and Horseshoe Resort in Oro-Medonte, along with their surrounding development lands. The C$210 million deal also included the remaining development lands in the Blue Mountain Village.
Freed assembled the newly acquired properties with Muskoka Bay Resort in Gravenhurst, which the company already owned with its partners, and called the new subsidiary Freed Resort Communities Inc.
In early December ‘23, the company announced another C$300 million deal, backed by BlackRock, to purchase the remaining assets in Skyline’s resort portfolio. The acquisition established Freed as the largest owner-operator of hotel and resort communities in Canada.
Over the past 25 years Freed has been changing the face of Toronto with a growing list of mid-rise and high-rise developments across the city, including more than a dozen luxury condominiums and commercial buildings along King West and Wellington streets. Freed is now planning to put his touch on the Blue Mountain Village, finally completing what Intrawest started 25 years ago.
“The whole region just blew my mind. I mean, it’s easy to understand why so many people want to live or visit in this area.”.
Roger Klein: Welcome to On The Bay magazine, Peter. Your portfolio of developments in Toronto is beyond impressive. Is it true that you started out as a construction worker?
Peter Freed: My late father was a lawyer, like an old-school type of lawyer, an academic type of character, so I didn’t have any family business to go into. We didn’t have any family capital to go into business. At the time, I had expressed an interest that I wanted to learn how to build houses and he suggested that the first job I should get is that of a labourer on a construction site. So he got me a job as a labourer working for Geranium Homes on a site in Whitby. I was 19 years old and saw 20 houses get built. That was my break to get into the business. And then, fortunately I had another break where someone introduced me to Rudy Bratty who was a very large developer and I ended up starting my first construction company with the Bratty family and built 100 houses in Markham with them.
RK: When did you make the leap from building houses to assembling land and developing larger projects?
PF: Well, the transition from construction, like building houses, into development started taking place in the late ‘90s. I was fortunate enough to meet Leo Goldhar, who’s the father of Mitch Goldhar. Mitch Goldhar is the chairman of SmartCentres. You know, they develop all the Walmarts across Canada. So Mitch’s father, Leo, taught me the development business and he was my first investor in development. I started doing land assemblies and rezonings and that type of thing in the late ‘90s with Leo Goldhar as my financier, as my investment partner.
RK: Who has been the most influential person in your professional life?
PF: The most influential person for me was Francis Greenberger, who owns Time Equities out of New York. He’s a self-made billionaire. He started financing my development projects 20 years ago. He was my partner at Muskoka Bay, we built it together. I ultimately bought him out last year. But he financed my Thompson Hotel development and a whole bunch of my downtown developments and really gave me the freedom to develop the visions that I had. You know, he’s just a very, very interesting man who is in his seventies now and he was just incredibly supportive and influential in many different aspects of my life.
RK: All of your projects appear to be quite unique from an architectural perspective, which one are you most proud of and why?
PF: My favorite project was the Thompson Hotel and condominium project. That’s one of my favorite projects, but I have a few. You know, we’ve probably developed 30 projects in Toronto. We worked with Philippe Stark on a project called 75 Portland. Stark is a world famous designer based out of London, England. We brought him into Toronto to help us with that project, it was his first project in Canada. And the Art Shoppe project at Yonge and Eglington which is an entire city block. We worked with Karl Lagerfeld on that project and he designed the lobbies, and he had also never been to Canada.
RK: What is your first memory of the Southern Georgian Bay Region and Blue Mountain? What was it about the region that made an impression on you?
PF: The first time was as a kid with my parents and some friends who had a home here and we spent the weekend skiing. I was probably 10 years old. But prior to buying the lands in the village, I was spending a lot of time driving around the area and driving up Mountain Road, where the Scenic Caves are, and just breathing in the air and appreciating the views. The whole region just blew my mind. I mean, it’s easy to understand why so many people want to live or visit in this area.
RK: You’ve had great success as a developer but now you are getting more involved in resort hotels and hospitality. What’s the attraction for you and your company?
PF: When we developed Muskoka Bay, we developed and built a golf course. And when I developed the Thompson Hotel, we owned a hotel. So by virtue of the hospitality-infused, lifestyle-infused developments that we were doing, we evolved into the hospitality business as well. For about 10 years, we had 500 full-time employees in our hospitality department, but we weren’t even mentally in the hospitality business yet, it was just a byproduct of our large-scale real estate developments. We ultimately realized that the hospitality lifestyle components of our developments was really what was defining our developments and separating us from the pack. Now we’re truly both a hospitality and development company and we have 2,000 full time-employees in our hospitality department, which is very rare.
RK: If you ever decided to retire, which area would you choose, Muskoka or Southern Georgian Bay?
PF: My version of retirement is not staying in one place and I would say that my version of retirement is spending as much time as possible in Ontario spread out over the Georgian Bay Area, Muskoka and just in Ontario in general. I mean Huntsville for example, where Deehurst is, it’s just so beautiful. Whenever I visit these properties and I have some real time there, my shoulders drop two inches. I just relax instantly. I’m in a different frame of mind. You just feel better.
RK: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done for fun?
PF: Well, I have a pretty good balance in my life and I have two boys, 11 and 13 years old. My wife and I have the absolute pleasure of putting most of our energy into them. So my top priority is my family. I’ve spent 35 years building up all my businesses and stuff, but it’s my second priority to my family. I love just exercising and doing other, you know, relaxing things. I play golf with my kids at Muskoka Bay, I do a lot of walking with my wife and our dog, I ski a little bit with my kids at Horseshoe. That’s really it. I keep it simple.
RK: LEGO blocks or Monopoly?
PF: I love the game of Monopoly, but I’ve certainly spent a lot of time playing with Lego too, because I love building things. So you know, I gotta go fifty-fifty.
