Wilbur Turner is living the dream. He recently traded the bustle (and rain) of Vancouver for a quieter life in the heart of what he happily describes as “the Sonoma Valley of Western Canada.” At the centre of his new life is Clarance House, the bed and breakfast he opened earlier this year in the Okanagan Valley city of Kelowna.
He now divides his time between his day job as vice-president of a software company (he works from home), the B&B, and active involvement in Kelowna’s gay community. Turner says he’d been coming to Kelowna regularly for about a decade and fell in love with the area. He decided to move there and open a B&B aimed at the LGBT market.
The Okanagan, in south-central British Columbia, has a dry, almost desert-like climate. “We do get rain, but the summers are pretty warm. It’s usually in the high 30s, and I’ve seen the temperature up into the low 40s,” he says. The climate has made the Okanagan the centre of B.C.’s thriving wine industry. There are vineyards all over, and they are major attraction. Many, notes Turner, have excellent restaurants.
Clarance House’s ‘public’ space includes three bedrooms and a family room with a TV. There’s also a saltwater pool, a hot tub and a large backyard for guests to enjoy. Turner is hoping to attract people looking for quality accommodation in a tasteful setting. He had never run a B&B before opening Clarance House, but has been a fan of B&Bs for years. “I usually stay in B&Bs when I travel,” he says, explaining that he sees them as way of meeting people and discovering the communities he visits.
He is happily connecting his LGBT visitors to the local LGBT community. There are no gay bars in Kelowna, he explains, but there is an active gay community that centres on the Okanagan Rainbow Coalition. There are regular community dances, and an annual pride festival every year in mid-August.
Daniel Drolet is an Ottawa-based writer and president of Éclair Communications. He is a member of Travel Gay Canada.
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