Gull Lake - Artistic Impressions

Cottager
The
Lake country living & lifestyle
July/August 2013
The Hula
Hut
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Home is Where The
Hula Hut Is
BY ASHLEY PREST
Photos by Artistic Impressions
The Hula Hut is aptly named.
It’s a round rendition of a
surfer’s shack and a Hawaiian
hut rolled into one.
P
aradise - we all search for it in our hearts, in our surroundings and sometimes travel the
world over to find it.
Ken and Merrilee Vanstraelen have found theirs right here in Manitoba in a little
round cottage at the water’s edge of Gull Lake named The Hula Hut.
On your way to Grand Beach, you’ve cruised right by. Off the proverbial beaten path, cottages
curl around the large body of water that is Gull Lake and front a cosy little community.
The Vanstraelens could have nestled their family anywhere in the world, as Ken’s company
Freedom Concepts has taken him to numerous international destinations. But this is where they
chose. Close to home where the heart is and, these days, where their two grown children are.
The Hula Hut is aptly named. It’s a round rendition of a surfer’s shack and a Hawaiian hut rolled
into one.
“It’s our little paradise,” Ken says. “The dream is here. If I lived in California, I don’t think it
would be the same.”
The couple met at a social in Hazelridge, Man., in 1982 when they were 18 years old.
The three-bedroom Hula Hut at Gull Lake is 30 feet in diameter and about 600 square feet. The Vanstraelens replaced grass with sand.
The Vanstraelen family brings some tropical vibe to their Gull Lake dock with its tiki umbrella. (L to R): Ken, Blake, Gabrielle, Merrilee and pup Griffin.
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Now together for 31 years and married for 28 with their 50th birthdays
this summer, Ken and Merrilee are parents to Blake, 20, and Gabrielle, 22.
The kids have spent summers scampering around the sandy beach,
learning to swim in the lake and diving off the dock. Many adventures and
grown-up gatherings have been held aboard the M.S. Merrilee, a “party
barge” named by Ken for his wife that tops out at 30 miles per hour.
Boats are often named for queens, aren’t they?
“She’s my queen,” Ken says, hugging his wife.
“What a very, very sweet man,” Merrilee says, beaming.
The couple shine together in their beach-front retreat, so fitting as the
name Vanstraelen originates in Belgium and means “sun rays.”
If you look up, The Hula Hut’s ceiling has a design that looks like the
sun’s rays branching out. On the way out of the property, a custom-made
wrought-iron gate with a huge wave on it bids you ‘Aloha.’
••
Ken’s company is called Freedom Concepts, a name that has meaning for
both his clients and his family.
“It’s a bike business, but it’s really the health-care business,” he says.
The bikes are custom-designed to provide mobility for mentally and physically challenged individuals aged 18 months and up. The company has 10
models and 10 configurations customized to the person using the bike and
are sold all over the world.
Bike building went from a hobby to a business for Ken in 1998 after the demise of his former California-based roller hockey business. When the roller
hockey boom ended, Ken started Freedom Concepts with a Winnipeg head
office and manufacturing facility and a branch office in Costa Mesa, Calif.
“(The California office) is very tiny, but it was The House of Tiki. I use
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to go there to buy tiki stuff,” says Ken, who bought the building and large
volume of tiki statues, hula girls, wall plaques and other beach merchandise
when the former owner decided to close his business.
“It’s this round quonset from the ‘30s that’s got lime-coloured walls inside
and all bamboo (accents).”
Merrilee says many display items and decorations in The Hula Hut at Gull
Lake originated from that store, as well as Ken’s business trips to California
and Florida.
“My favourite things in here that make me smile are all these funny little
tiki guys we have everywhere. This one says, ‘Ooga Booga.’ They make me
laugh.”
Amid the layers of The Hula Hut’s display items there’s little Hot Wheels
cars with surfboards on them, erasers shaped like flip-flops, limited-edition
tiki mugs, beach signs and a beach-themed bathroom with seashell-shaped
soap.
If you look up in The Hula Hut, it’s the surfboard collection that draws the
eye. Perched atop the three-quarter walls that separate the three bedrooms
from the family room/kitchen area, there are at least eight surfboards from
vintage to fancy to rare.
“I started my surfboard collection by accident in Florida. I was looking for
a surfboard for a bar at our house in the city. It started with this one (green)
board right here,” he says, noting the board was customized by the first owner
with a hula girl painted on it and a hidden heart behind her.
“The story is how the shaper (the person who built the board) was in love
with this girl and the girl passed away and he paid homage to her with this
board.
“I just fell in love with how each surfer guy added so much character to the
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boards. It’s awesome. I just got into buying a
board any place I might be.”
He’s tried surfing, but admits he mostly
“paddles a lot.”
“Being a prairie boy, I try to catch waves but
I don’t catch many.”
He points to another board called a “popout
board,” which was one of the first ‘production’
boards that looked like wood but was epoxy
resin and popped out of a mould so it was affordable for the “weekend warrior” surfer.
On this day, he was planning to unwrap six
other surfboards he bought from Florida during the past seven years, had shipped to Winnipeg and brought to The Hula Hut at Gull
Lake.
••
Entrepreneur, inventor, collector.
Tanned with sun-bleached hair wearing
board shorts and flip-flops, a wide grin and
easy-going demeanor, that’s Ken.
“Kenny is a prairie surfer dude,” Merrilee
says, affectionately. “He goes to California a lot
and people can’t believe he’s from the Prairies.
They say he looks like he’s from Huntington
Beach (Calif.).
“Sand is in his blood.”
Sand is also on the couple’s land, as three
years ago they pulled
up the grass and put
down sand in front of
their cottage.
With the tiki tables
on the deck, Adirondack chairs facing sunward and the sandy
beach leading to the
water, a slash of silver heading out over the water completes the property.
It’s a 1.2-metre wide, 24-metre long dock
(four-feet-by-80-feet) made of aluminum
shafts from 3,200 defunct roller hockey sticks
left over from the end of the roller hockey rage.
Ken built it in 2002 in 14 sections he can
pull out of the water and pile in the yard behind the cottage in the winter.
“I had to do something with all those
sticks,” he says with a laugh. “But what sets the
tone here is that tiki umbrella on the end of
the dock.”
••
Built in the 1960s, The Hula Hut was a onetime rental property where the Vanstraelen
family stayed one summer, fell in love with
it and bought when it came up for sale for
$80,000 in 2001.
Visitors to Gull Lake for years, they previously stayed with friends and were always
watching for something they could call their
own.
The cottage is 30 feet in diameter and about
600 square feet.
“It was so kid-friendly here,” Ken says.
The couple has gone to great lengths to pre-
The 80-foot dock is built
from the aluminum shafts
of 3,200 roller hockey sticks.
serve the cottage’s vintage feel, but they joke
they’ve added some of the comforts of home.
“We have the big-screen TV here,” Ken says
with a laugh, indicating a 14-inch TV/VCR
combo that was surely state-of-the-art about
15 years ago.
“He didn’t want the kids to be glued to the
TV,” Merrilee explains.
But one look inside the movie drawer provides the real reasons as it’s stuffed with VHS
tapes of old Elvis flicks, any number of beach
movies and Walt Disney classics such as Lilo
and Stitch.
A stereo beside the TV tinkles with a joyful
blend of jaunty Hawaiian music with plenty of
Beach Boys and other surfer CDs nearby.
“It’s all the original furniture, except for
maybe the odd table,” Ken says, noting the cot48
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tage isn’t heated and has no air conditioning.
There are also the odd ornaments.
“This one is kind of scary,” Merrilee says,
lifting one with a grimacing tiki god’s face on
it.
“It’s a fun-in-the-sun, beach boys, surfer
dude, surf shack, tiki hut. That’s the combination – it’s tiki-kitsche in here!”
The cottage has lots of orange, yellow and
green with a definite ’60s and ’70s feel to it.
“We re-did the floor about four years ago.
It’s vinyl, but it looks like wood,” Ken says.
“It was supposed to be a one-day job, but it
took me seven 12-hour days with my daughter
scraping (the old carpet off the wood underneath).”
A labour of love, to be sure, just like everything in The Hula Hut. C
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