And, anyway, for a secret, it certainly has had a lot of publicity lately.

The new spa, with 18 gorgeous treatment rooms, opened in April. Since then it has been featured in Elle magazine as one of "Canada's Top Six Spas," has been profiled on a TV series called Spectacular Spas, which has been carried on Global and the Life Network, and has been written about everywhere from the Toronto Star to Homemaker's magazine.

But while it's closer to Ottawa (about a three-hour drive) than to Toronto, few here seem to know about it.

"We have our regular clientele, local people, who watched the whole four-year process of the spa being built," says co-owner Madeleine Marentette. "And then we have mostly clients from Toronto, and some from Ottawa. But we'd really like to see more from Ottawa."

Actually, after sinking their life savings, "soul, blood, sweat and tears" into the place, Madeleine and her husband, Wayne, are very happy to see customers from just about anywhere.

How they came to be ensconced in a castle-style home, next to a castle-style inn and spa in rural Bancroft, a place that seems far more utilitarian than romantic, is quite the fairytale story. In a nutshell: Back in the '70s, the night before Wayne Marentette was to begin a degree in psychology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ont., he intervened as a woman was attacked, was attacked himself, then run over and left for dead. He had a life-after-death experience. After two years in hospital, he decided to devote his life to helping others, foregoing a formal education for life experience.

Madeleine, a Toronto interior designer, met Wayne when she took one of his courses in self-awareness. "I sat up at the front of the class and fell in love with him."

From the time they met in 1988, their dream was to open a retreat. They travelled for three years, from Nova Scotia to the Napa Valley, to try to find the right spot.

"We were coming home, tired, from one of these trips when Wayne said, 'I bet it's right in our own backyard,'" says Madeleine. "By the time we got the taxi home from the airport in Toronto, Wayne was remembering the little town where we'd bought supplies when we were camping at Silent Lake Provincial Park.

"It was a Sunday night, so nothing should have been open, but we called a real-estate company in Bancroft. The agent who answered the phone said 'You're not going to believe this, but I'm only in tonight because I'm processing a new listing, 100 acres on a lake.'

"We saw the property on Monday and bought it Tuesday."

In 1994, they opened a five-room inn on the property, which they called The Brides' Gate Inn. Now, 14 years after the inspiration, with a young son and with pretty much all their savings spent (Wayne had a settlement from his attack, Madeleine did well in Toronto's real-estate boom in the '80s), they've opened their spa, plus eight more rooms, with four-poster beds, fireplaces and in-room whirlpools.

"It's been very scary," admits Madeleine. "We've spent $4 million. The spa addition was supposed to cost $800,00 and it cost $2 million. You get to a certain point and you can't go back.

"Our entire life, soul, blood, sweat and tears are here -- all of it. We're living on air. We're hoping this is the last tough year."

If all of the expert surveys and forecasts for spas are correct, they should be OK. In fact, it seems that once again, the Marentettes might be in exactly the right place at the right time, as spas steam over other resorts for the leisure dollar, with even greater growth potential in Canada than in the United States.

"The average occupancy rate for inns without spa facilities is about 60 per cent," says Madeleine. "But Canadian resort spas' occupancy rates are 90 per cent, and Ste. Anne's (perhaps Ontario's most successful spa, near Cobourg) surpasses that."

Studies also show that spas are winter-proof.

"Our peak season as an inn has been July to October, then we would hit a slow season and just bear down and hope to get through it," says Madeleine.

"Our occupancy rate was 35 to 39 per cent in an average winter. Already this winter, since we added the spa, it has gone way over 60 per cent. It's been an amazing response. We've been amazed and relieved."

Brides' Gate Inn & Grail Springs Spa

Where: Five minutes south of Bancroft, about a three-hour drive from Ottawa. You can take Highway 7 west to Madoc, then go north on Highway 62 to Bancroft. A faster, but trickier, route is to go to Renfrew, then through Dacre, Griffith and Denbigh to Bancroft. At Bancroft, head south on Highway 62 just a few kilometres to a right-hand turn onto Bay Lake Road (marked with a sign to the inn).

Contacts: 1-877-553-5772 or www.grailsprings.com

Specialties:

Counselling: Wayne Marentette offers private consultations and seminars, with a specialty in bereavement counselling.

Fresh Goat's Milk and Honey Body Polish: Milk from a goat farmer just 45 minutes down the road is massaged into the skin to rehydrate and soften.

Mineral wrap: Grail Springs has a licence from a Florida company to do mineral wraps that are reputed to detoxify, firm and slim. Not surprisingly, they're their most popular treatment.

Kings' bath: The spa offers baths for two, side-by-side massages.

Therapeutic touch: Nurse Mona Oakley loves to draw up a special "menu" for clients' particular needs. The spa is now even getting referrals from local cancer clinics.

Price range: From $159 for regular suites, midweek, to $325 for the luxury loft, peak season. Spa services range from $65 for a seaweed bath to $225 for a 21/2-hour Himalayan Treatment (based on Ayurvedic medicine).