The little-known story behind the legendary Secrets on the Lake

George and Aldy Johnson were high school sweethearts before getting married and moving to the Range and setting up Secrets on the Lake.

Their opulent lakeside treehouse accommodation is renowned around the world. 

But Secrets on the Lake owners George and Aldy Johnson’s dream resort almost never saw the light of day. 

They originally moved to the Blackall Range to set up a farm but, just after establishing it, their land was resumed and lies beneath what is now Lake Baroon. 

It wasn’t until their neighbour sold them his property that they were able to pivot and build their romantic destination.

Inside the famed Secrets on the Lake retreat at Montville.

Now Secrets on the Lake at Montville, where guests sleep perched high under a rainforest canopy, has hit the market for the first time, with price expectations of over $20m.

A sale would close a remarkable chapter for the couple who met at Dalby High School in the 50s and originally came to the Blackall Range for a farming life.

“We had 50 acres down in Lake Baroon Pocket,” said Aldy. “We went there, because we wanted to, I guess, escape the normal life, and grow things. We didn’t do too badly. 

“We actually ended up with about 650 kiwifruit vines that George looked after really beautifully. And they would’ve been a very good proposition. We beat New Zealand, and everywhere else onto the market. But it only just got to that point when they got us to leave and resumed our property. And it’s now under water.

“But we had a good friend who was a neighbour, who had 180 acres. His name was Steven Wise, and he was a blacksmith. They resumed 100 acres of his land. He personally wanted to leave the area, and he sold us what he had left. That was in 1984.  And that’s where we are now. 

Before starting on the property the couple headed north to investigate the luxury resort market.

“Eventually came back here and worked out how we wanted to make them. We had architects try to design them, but we ended up having to design them ourselves, because we didn’t like anything they were coming up with. 

“So until we actually had come up with this vision, and that took a while, we weren’t really able to start building the tree houses themselves until about 1995. So we opened in 1997.”

Aldy said in all her experience, she had not seen anything like Secrets on the Lake anywhere else in the world.

“And we get told all the time that there’s nothing like them,” she said. “We have people who travel a lot, come and stay, and they just say that it’s been quite unique.  So we understand that they’re quite special.  

“We really wanted them to be places where people could escape to, because people don’t get away a lot from families and couples need to go and connect.   

“George is a thinker and he won’t move until he knows exactly how he wants it to be. And the result is this amazing resort.”

Aldy said a decision to sell was never going to be easy to make but the time had come. 

“George and I are just quite elderly now. We have a ball-park figure in our head, and we’ll only sell it if we get what we think it’s worth. 

“Its position is what’s iconic, I think. Right on a lake. Beautiful mountains around. And set in the rainforest. It’s right where they used to have bunya nut festivals for 60,000 years. It has an energy that’s hard to describe, and we often think it’s to do with that.  

“George has spent all his time making everything beautiful. It doesn’t matter what it is, it’s going to be something that he’s poured his heart and soul into when it’s built. 

“I would love someone to carry on the actual business, because lots of people love coming here. We have lots of people who want to get married here. We have some beautiful staff that actually look after people really well. So the ideal thing for me, would be for someone to be able to take that over, and carry it on into the future.

“I have still loads and loads of ideas of how to make more money, to build extra things. There are all kinds of ideas that people could run with, that we’ve never got to complete, and they’re all on our business development plan. Been there since 1995, or 1996, and it’s still current.” 

George and Aldy feature on the national encore edition of the Nine Network’s My Way which goes to air on Saturday October 22  at 1pm on Channel 9 and 9Now.