Proposed tea house to add unique flavour to West Kelowna Wine Trail
The proposed Settled Kettle tea house off Boucherie Road in West Kelowna hopes to offer Tipsy Sipsy, Tee Time-Tea Time and other options to the city’s popular Wine Trail.
It still has many hoops to go through before it gets built but made a big leap forward with West Kelowna city council Tuesday, April 10.
Most councillors supported the application going to the Agricultural Land Commission to allow what is essentially a restaurant on agricultural land.
“It would primarily be a tea house for formal tea servings but I have other programs,” co-owner April Reimer told council. “I have a Mommy and Me program where moms could come and have a tea party with their little ones, building a community with other moms and creating special memories.”
Other ideas include a once-a-week outing for residents of nursing homes who could come and “relive the good old days.”
The Tipsy Sipsy program would invite wine tour operators to include the Settled Kettle on their route along the wine trail where customers could stop for something to eat and sip a different kind of beverage.
“I would be enhancing the area and not be in direct competition with the wineries but highlighting them,” Reimer, who is the wife of NHL goalie James Reimer of the San Jose Sharks said, noting wine would also be on the menu.
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The property in question is about half an acre at 2901 Boucherie Rd., which currently has a house and other buildings on it. It was a homesite severance in 2002, meaning it’s still in the Agricultural Land Reserve.
City of West Kelowna staff opposed forwarding the application to the land commission mainly because it could create a precedent for other severed properties to convert from residential to commercial use.
But most councillors fully supported it, in part, because the land will never be farmed and could be filled up by building a new house with a pool or a bed and breakfast.
Reimer’s plan is for a 2,700 square foot, Victorian style tea house.
“There’s no agricultural growth happening there now,” she told council. “I would like to increase that with gardens and trees and vegetables and fruits as well as a greenhouse on the property growing tea leaves so it could be a demonstration of agritourism – how tea is made, how it’s produced. It could be a field stop for schools and, again, create some more experiences and culture in the community.”
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It's across Boucherie Road from the western-themed Hatching Post craft brewery.
“There’s already 12 wineries on the Wine Trail,” Coun. Garrett Millsap said. “This is something unique. Something different for our community. You can only go to taste wines so many times over and over. It’s nice to have some other things to do.
“I think this provides a really neat tourism concept to our community. I think it fits the form and character of the neighbourhood as well. We see the Hatching Post directly across the road that is a one-of-a-kind building and this will even enhance it by adding a Victorian style building right across the road from a saloon so, when you come down the road, it’s going to look really neat.”
If the land commission accepts the use, the land will still have to be rezoned before the tea house can become a reality.
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