COuRTEsy OF FOGO islAnd inn 66 BCBusiness dECEMBER/JAnuARy 2018
TRAvEl
you may blink when you glimpse the Fogo
Island Inn from the gravel service
road: a pale slab oating like a rogue
iceberg on a stark chunk of rock about
16 kilometres o the northeast coast of
Newfoundland. Open the inn's mas-
sive red-knobbed front doors and the
interior—and the welcome to come-from-
aways—is ridiculously warm. There's
a riot of colours on nubby textiles, a
pot-bellied stove, weathered wooden
furniture. The lobby smells of wood €re,
clean hung laundry, home. I'm handed
a hefty bronze room-key fob, cast from a
caribou vertebra found on the property.
This is not your typical luxury hotel.
The place is so remote it's on the
cover of the book Remote Places to Stay.
But obscure it's not: since opening in
2013, the inn has won global awards and
been the subject of an excellent docu-
mentary, Strange and Familiar, about
its radical architecture. It could only
have been created by native Fogo Island
daughter Zita Cobb, a business veteran
with much more than commerce on her
mind these days.
Her aim is to revitalize the island's
economy while creating a world-class
eco-friendly travel and cultural destina-
tion. A Carleton University graduate who
was an executive at €bre-optic pioneer
JDS Uniphase Corp., Cobb cashed out
at age 40, and sailing around the world
didn't amuse her for long. The 29-room,
eco-conscious inn and its sister organi-
zation, Fogo Island Arts, are owned by
the non-pro€t Shorefast Foundation,
which Cobb created as an umbrella for
her dream. Art and commerce go hand
in hand, and together, all their activities
create "a kind of heartbeat that gives
nutrition to everything else," she says.
The spino jobs and economic activ-
ity are substantial. Almost everything in
the guest rooms (except the Starck for
Duravit heated toilets, presumably) was
made on Fogo Island: custom wallpaper,
rocking chairs, quilts (signed in stitch by
their makers; Rita Penton crafted mine).
These items, now made and sold in
vintage buildings restored by the foun-
dation, are so popular that fans order
them worldwide (Gwyneth Paltrow's
raves didn't hurt). There are no TVs in
the rooms, but Atlantic "television,"
endlessly coursing outside your seaside
window, is mesmerizing.
Every guest gets a tour of the island
from a local: Fergus Foley, a former
€sherman and retired "€sheries cop,"
is my guide. "When I €rst heard tell of
[the inn] and saw the project in process,
I thought the poor woman had lost her
mind," Foley says with an Irish-sounding
inection in his voice. "Many people on
the island did."
Now he's a believer who proudly
shows me Fogo's sights, from its
six communities of painted-wood
Newfoundland's Fogo
Island Inn oers luxury,
sustainability and social
enterprise at the other edge
of Canada
by Charlene Rooke
Rock Star
