Oculis Lodge developer denies refund requests by backers amid significant project delays
After a year of permitting and construction delays, a proposed luxury glamping resort in Whatcom County is struggling to live up to its promises.
The Oculis Lodge was expected to be well on its way by now, with at least the first unit built by the spring of 2023 and the entire project — about 30 700-square-foot, private dome structures — completed in early 2024.
The glamping resort was branded as the “ultimate luxury lodging in the Cascade mountains,” to be built on a 2.16-acre parcel in Glacier, at the base of Mount Baker.
Oculis founder Youri Benoiston purchased the land from the Mount Baker Trailhead Group in May of 2021 for $225,000.
Benoiston did break ground on the project in early 2023. But as of this month, the first unit was still not finished.
“I don’t have any further remarks except to confirm that we’re making progress on the project,” Benoiston said last week in a statement to The Bellingham Herald. “We’re close to completing the first unit and are in the process of obtaining permits for the additional units. Personally, I find discussing the details of the building process less valuable, and I’m more interested in receiving feedback once we have a fully finished unit and can host our first guest/backers.”
The delays are drawing significant concern from the project’s more than 1,700 backers who helped fund the project with more than $1.2 million through an Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign that ended in December 2022, earning the project the title of “most funded lodging in Indiegogo history,” according to the Indiegogo website.
Backers were guaranteed priority reservations at the lodge by investing in the project. But after a year of delays and no scheduled reservations at the lodge, many backers have requested refunds, a request that Benoiston has denied.
“Some backers have insisted for refunds due to the delay, which, regrettably, we are unable to provide at this time due to the well-advanced stage of the project. The funds are actively contributing to the creation of the lodge,” Benoiston wrote to backers in a Dec. 26 update on the project’s Indiegogo page.
Benoiston provided almost monthly updates to backers throughout 2023, detailing progress reports for the first unit that often included photos and videos.
The December update included a video of the first unit getting hit with snowfall.
The most recent update states that the development team is expediting processes as quickly as possible but that “delays in delivering perks are not uncommon in crowdfunding, as unforeseen challenges often arise.”
Many backers responded positively to the update, saying construction challenges are understandable and they look forward to eventually staying at the lodge. Others expressed concerns that the update was vague and offered no expected timeline for completion.
“As previously mentioned, when the appropriate time arrives, we will present an option for individuals to exchange their perks with potential outside guests, allowing those wishing to exit to do so without causing disruption to the project’s progress. This is currently the extent of what we can offer without creating chaos in the advancement of the project,” Benoiston wrote.
Not all Indiegogo campaign contributions are eligible for refunds. In this case, backers requesting refunds are told to contact the campaign owner directly.
“Indiegogo is not able to mediate communication from a backer to a campaigner,” the organization’s website states.
Since approving a critical-areas review for the site and receiving an application for a single-family residential building permit in 2021, Whatcom County Planning and Development Services has not received any other applications for development, according to Jed Holmes, Whatcom County Executive’s Office Public Information Officer and Community Outreach Facilitator.
“The County continues to have conversations with the applicant but no additional applications have been received,” Holmes told The Herald.
This story was originally published January 7, 2024 at 12:00 AM.
