A Second Home That’s Far Away From It All

When Cailey Heaps wants to get away from it all, one place comes to mind: the island of Newfoundland in Canada.

Although she spends most of the year in Toronto, where she runs the real estate brokerage Heaps Estrin and raises her three children — 17-year-old Mimi and 13-year-old twins Declan and Pippa — the craggy, saltwater-sprayed eastern coast of Newfoundland has long held special appeal.

“It’s this very romantic, peaceful part of the world where it feels like time moves at a different pace,” said Ms. Heaps, 47. “I can go there for three days and feel like I’ve taken a two-week holiday.”

In 2021, she was considering buying a country house within an easy drive of Toronto, but the siren song of Newfoundland beckoned. Diving into the listings, she was surprised to find one with a pair of the most quintessential Newfoundland saltbox houses she’d ever seen.

The two white houses, built in 1912 and 1914, were on a property in Salvage, a tiny coastal town with a population of 108, along with three red sheds, a small cemetery and an outhouse at the end of a dock with a hole directly above the water. The parcel was across the harbor from the center of town, on Burden’s Point, but highly visible, and it had been on the market for years. It had even been the subject of news stories focused on worries that the houses might be torn down.