Page 40 - 04_May-2025

by Caroline Barlott
photography
Bluefish Studios
JAMES
KEIRSTEAD’S
LIGHTBULB
MOMENT
HOW A HOT TUB MOGUL IS REWIRING THE FUTURE OF HOME BUILDING
JAMES KEIRSTEAD’S LIFE-LONG PASSION FOR
entrepreneurship started in the fourth grade, when he
decided to expand a single paper route to three with the
help of his twin brother, John Keirstead. They shovelled
snow in the winter, mowed lawns in the summer, always
working together.
15 years later, the twins officially became business
partners when they opened their own hot tub store in
Richmond, B.C. after a few years working in different hot
tub shops. It was the ’90s after all, and hot tubs were the
ultimate status symbol.
The brothers knew the industry would continue to
grow so they partnered with other entrepreneurs to buy
Blue Falls Manufacturing, a hot tub manufacturer, which
they gradually expanded into 30 countries, making their
flagship product Arctic Spas a household name in
middle-class suburbia. In 2009, Keirstead also acquired
a company that designs hot tub controls — the electronic
brains of the hot tub that connect and manage all the
plumbing equipment. But as Keirstead’s company kept
innovating these controls, the manufacturer kept
jacking up production costs, which led to Keirstead’s
next big move in 2011: He purchased a factory in
Edmonton to make the controls themselves.
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