星报通讯社/安省历史最悠久的天体营业权持有人公开征求买家，最期望新园主是天体运动爱好者。
座落大多伦多地区北端皇帝镇(King Township)的格连．艾高园(Glen Echo Park)1955年建成，园主夫妇玛莉和爱德华．托多鲁斯基(Mary and Edward Todorowsky)过去两年，只在天体运动爱好者圈子内求售，6月底将会公开征求买家，售价170万元。
玛莉表示，夫妇俩根本不想卖，只因自己已经75岁，丈夫也80岁，如今最希望找到适当人选接手。
他夫妇俩当年在市北发现那片被弃置的100公顷林地后，决定将其建成梦想的伊甸园。内有人工湖、网球场和排球场，还加上一个水池，开幕当日有40个家庭一起庆祝。
会员人数下跌
1995年时的会员人数上升至350个家庭，但过去10来，爱好天体运动的人数不断下降，如今会员人数只及高峰期的一半。
北美洲的天体主义者都已逐渐步入暮年，出售天体营地已经不是新鲜事，近年来，大多伦多地区已有4个天体营推出市场求售，Ponderosa最近已售出，New Forest(现已改名Bare Oaks)去年12月易手，Four Seasons和Glen Echo则已放盘数年。
美联社最近一项报道指，美国的年轻一代，已愈来愈少愿意在一个社区内奉行天体运动，裸体示人。其实，30多年前天体主义已经式微。
负责该园卖买事务的经纪莫理逊(John Morrison)表示，托多鲁斯基夫妇亦已向国外，尤其是欧洲有兴趣的买家招手，因为欧洲的天体主义现时方兴未艾。他们亦会向北美洲的天体主义者会所、营地和附属机构招手，在天体主义者杂志卖广告。
Interest sags in nude retreats
Jun 04, 2007 04:30 AM
Robyn Doolittle
Staff Reporter
Nestled among the rolling hills and lush forests of the Oak Ridges Moraine, 100 acres of Eden is up for sale, on the northern tip of the GTA.
A man-made lake, tennis and volleyball courts plus a pool adorn this rustic campground, which families have flocked to for more than half a century. This blissful escape from city living could be yours for the eminently reasonable price of $1.7 million.
There’s just one catch – to buy it, ideally, you’d be a nudist.
ANDREW WALLACE/toronto star
Mary and Edward Todorowsky want nudist buyers for Glen Echo Park.
Dating back to 1955, Glen Echo Park in King Township is Ontario’s oldest nudist camp. And the owners would like to keep it that way.
But after two years of trying to sell the property to someone within the nude community, Mary and Edward Todorowsky say they’ll be opening it up to bids from the public at the end of the month.
“It needs to be the right people. It’s not that we want to sell. We love it here. It’s beautiful. But we’re getting older. (My husband) Edward is 80,” Mary, 75, says. “These days I normally wear a shirt to cover the saggy bits.”
After discovering an abandoned logging site just north of the city, the Todorowskys built the resort themselves. About 40 families joined them for the grand opening.
Membership rose to a high of about 350 families in 1995. However, interest in naturism drooped in the past decade and Glen Echo has shrunk to about half its peak total.
The sale is part of a broader trend across North America: The original nudists, or “naturists” as many prefer to be called, are getting on in age.
Four resorts around the GTA have been on the market in recent years. Ponderosa was sold recently, and New Forest – now called Bare Oaks – changed hands this past December. Glen Echo and Four Seasons are both up for sale.
A recent Associated Press story said fewer and fewer American youths are willing to doff their clothes within a community whose heyday ended more than three decades ago. Is it that Generation Y is just too anal to roam in the buff with naked geriatrics? Stéphane Deschenes, president of the Federation of Canadian Naturists, says it has always been this way.
“Nudism – as it used to be called – has always been for people a little older. But I think it has more to do with 20-year-olds not being comfortable with their body. You’re thinking about partying, sex, hanging out with friends. (For us) being naked isn’t sexual. It’s about better experiencing nature. Wait until you’re married and have kids. You’ll think of your body in a whole different way.”
Trying to determine the number of current Canadian naturists is difficult, says Deschenes, 41, the new owner of Bare Oaks. He says you don’t have to be a member of a club to be a nudist.
Deschenes points to a survey conducted by the federation in 1999, which he says found that 2.7 million Canadians identified themselves as having a “naturist mindset.”
That means, he says, they were willing to visit clothing optional beaches or visit nudist resorts. Another 3.5 million Canadians said they enjoyed skinny dipping.
“There’s a huge market and demand out there for this,” Deschenes argues.
Two summers ago, Deschenes placed a $1.2 million bid on the Glen Echo property. The Todorowskys were originally favourable to the sale, but the deal went sour.
He may have been the last chance at keeping the historic park nude. If Glen Echo isn’t sold by the June 30 deadline, it will most likely go to a buyer for conversion to a conventional campground.
“Which is why we want it to go to people like us,” Mary says. One stipulation of sale would allow the Todorowskys to live on the property for at least another three years.
“It’s a great piece of property on the Moraine in King Township. So there would be a big demand from people who would want it to build a residence or use it for a non-nudist camp,” says John Morrison, vice-president of sales at Cushman & Wakefield LePage realtors.
But for now, the Todorowskys are looking for nudist buyers from abroad.
An advertising flyer mentioned Glen Echo being for sale as a “naturist camp” but had no nude photos.
“It was sort of a dilemma whether you put bodies floating around in the lake instead of the beautiful property and buildings,” Morrison says chuckling.
