Toronto's hottest new beach isn't on the shores of Lake Ontario—it's in a small, second-floor meeting room at the Briton House Retirement Centre on Mount Pleasant.
It looked like a Thai beach: an expanse of turquoise water and pale, soft sand. It sounded like a Thai beach: crashing surf, swishing palm trees, chirping birds. And it certainly felt like a Thai beach, with temperatures inching to 30 degrees. But it was not a Thai beach. It was a small, second-floor meeting room at the Briton House Retirement Centre last Thursday afternoon.
The turquoise water and beach huts were screened onto a mural stretched across two walls. The crashing surf played on a looped soundtrack. The sand was from Milton, Ont. And the heat came from the just-installed Soleira Sunlight Simulator, a Swedish technology that allows Briton House’s 200 residents to battle winter depression and soak up some warmth with less-intense UV rays.
The Soleira even offers a range of sun settings: “Bali,” which casts the orange-juice glow of a sunset; “Mauritius,” which begins with a gentle sunrise and cycles through the day; and “Miami,” which is really bright and really, really hot.
Six seniors—four in sunglasses, one asleep under a straw hat—flopped in beach chairs and caught some simulated rays. None minded the artifice. “I think it’s a rather fine place for a luncheon with my grandsons,” said Pat Morrow, 89, an enormously stylish woman in silver flats and a silk scarf, who moved into Briton House last August. “I think the sand and some cold beer would suit them very well.”
Seated next to Morrow, looking very much the beach tourist in khaki shorts and a red, dragon-adorned robe, 82-year-old Jack Litchfield agreed. “It’s fun to go barefoot; I like to feel the sand tickling my soles.” But, looking around, Litchfield conceded that there was one integral piece missing from the picture: “Where are all the bikini beauties?”
