Get to Know Us
Hi friends! We are husband and wife duo, James and Klaudia Bultje, the faces behind Timber Ridge Event Centre.
We met through mutual friends in high school and our “high school sweetheart” status was finalized when we got married after 4 short years of dating. We are both very adventurous and have a passion for the outdoors. We knew it was meant to be when we found a second half who is equally as crazy and willing to participate in adrenaline pumping activities. From skydiving to bungee jumping, to long treacherous hikes scaling mountains and cliffs. We often find ourselves unable to relax and always working on the next project. We wouldn’t have it any other way and love to work together to create and overcome new goals. James is a carpenter and the brains when it comes to executing our vision for our property. He has built a 100% off grid home on the far side of the property and continues to grow our space by building a 40×80 pavilion in the same functioning way for the venue. I (Klaudia) have been in the business/ customer service industry as soon as I could start working. I spent 7 years working for Shoppers Drug Mart, working my way up in various roles and eventually finding myself in management. I love the business field and pursued that pathway in post secondary. We are a great dynamic duo, and by putting both our skills and knowledge together, we can provide you with the beautiful venue we have today, with the highest level of service.
Our Property:
The great news came in 2019 that we were the new owners of this dreamy farm property. When Covid hit, we decided to dedicate our time to give it the TLC it was lacking from not being used for many years. We were both working full-time and lived in a trailer on site off-grid. This sparked our interest when we started building our dream home after hours, to recreate a 100% off-grid homestead. When we celebrated one year at the property in our new home, we couldn’t help but admire all the green space and how all our visions of this dream property were coming to life. We are both family-oriented people and when we started having the conversation of starting a family, we both knew that Klaudia going back to a 9-5 was not the route we wanted to take. From my childhood dream career of being a wedding planner (Klaudia), stemmed James’ great idea to push me pursue my dreams but one step further with him. We had an abundance of space and with the property’s history of being the old Ridgetown Raceway, we knew we already had such a great set up to reopen the property for public use in a new way and couldn’t resist trying to bring the property back to life. Three years later, we are ready to share the beloved space with you once again.
Our Vision:
When we were in the planning process of our wedding, we noticed that Chatham-Kent was short of venue options for individuals looking for an unconventional, budget friendly, all-in-one location that wasn’t full of limitations. Our goal is to be able to provide just that for you. We want to provide a space that you can utilize and tailer it specific to your unique needs or give you the option of a completely hosted experience without the huge expense. We would love to see our beloved property that we worked so hard on to be used to create special memories for others as it has for us. After cleaning up the property and seeing the big green space, we knew we wanted to build some sort of shelter. So we worked hard for 2 years to obtain a building permit to provide you with the pavilion that is there for enjoyment today. Although we reached our goal to provide a covered option, we don’t foresee ourselves stopping anytime soon to keep making improvements and adding additions to the venue space. We have many plans for the property still and many ideas of different events we would like to bring to the community. This new business venture is providing the opportunity for Klaudia to be a present stay at home mom with our kids like we always prayed for, and we hope to be able to be busy enough to create the opportunity to have James to be a stay home dad as well. Both working full time at the venue to offer many fun events and creating many great connections with you through your hosted events, is the ultimate vision for us.
