Our Story
I’m Fox and he’s Lake. This is the story of how a difficult season became a dream for a place to learn, grow, breathe, and belong.
Fox by the Lake now has three strands. Each one comes from lived experience, not a business exercise.
A place for therapy
Counselling, walk-and-talk support, and space to process life with the steadiness of nature around you.
A place to learn
Accessible education, neurodivergent support, and hands-on learning that respects how different minds grow.
A place to switch off
AI and automation used thoughtfully, so technology gives time back instead of taking more from people.
The Journey
The first version of the dream
A future to build towards
In 2021 I was going through a divorce, relocating to be closer to family, and trying to rebuild life with my four year old daughter. Anxiety and depression were very real. I had lost my best friend, but also the dreams and hopes tied up in my marriage. The idea of building a cabin became a future I could move towards.
I have always been a bit of a hippie: sustainability, zero waste where I can, ethical choices, and raising my daughter outside in the mud. She was our mud-and-glitter child, sitting in puddles and digging holes in a tiara. I wanted others to feel that same beauty in nature.
My background is teaching and working with neurodivergent individuals. In my mind’s eye I could see a space where learning was accessible, hands-on, patient, and not boxed into one narrow idea of success.
I started studying psychology and counselling because I wanted the space to be more than educational. I wanted it to be somewhere the soul could grow too: a place for walk-and-talk therapy, for working with your hands, getting dirty, unwinding, and feeling the tranquillity of nature.
In 2022 I met Darren, who became Lake. Part of why I fell in love with him was how much we both valued family, downtime, memory making, and life beyond work. He was sold on the idea, and the name came from us: Fox by the Lake, not Fox and Lake.
Darren is not naturally an outdoor man. He is a total tech guy, passionate about innovation and artificial intelligence. But he understood the need to belong, to switch off, and to protect mental health. His strand is using automation and AI to help people reclaim time, not lose more of it.
That is how our story is continuing. A place for therapy, a place to learn, and a place to control the switch off are weaving together into Fox by the Lake: our new adventure, built around growth, belonging, and hidden potential.
Written by Laura Fox, Managing Director
The word by matters to me. We are not an ‘and’, as though one of us is a continuation of the other. We are by each other’s side: supporting, separate, whole. In the future, when we are old, I hope we sit side by side and look at what we created.
Our Story
Whether you are here for personal support, learning, or healthier ways to use technology, the invitation is the same: come as you are, and grow from there.
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