That wasn't such an ordeal: 13,000 square feet with an elevator, a wine cellar and a 14-seat movie theatre. Last night, though, he slept in his brand new Fox Harb'r mansion, far from his main residence in Calgary.

Lucky? This ex-factory worker and former navy swabbie who once walked the beat as a cop in Hamilton, and is now worth an estimated $700 million? The burly guy with the Grade 9 education pulling onto the landing strip where the private jets bring in billionaires, CEOs and sport legends from all over the continent - and where one of Joyce's five aircraft sits refuelling? With business interests and four sumptuous homes scattered across Ontario, Nova Scotia and Alberta, Joyce, who has his own pilot's licence, always seems to be jetting off somewhere. 'I've had a helluva ride in life,' he concedes, gliding around a turn. And the alcohol's tang perhaps just adds to the beauty of the moment for him, wheeling his guests through this paean to luxury he's built not 20 km from where he grew up dirt poor and fatherless. The Timbits king drives any way he wants at Fox Harb'r Resort, his 400-ha personal fantasyland. Even less so if you're the avuncular guy responsible for putting a Tim Hortons doughnut shop within reach of every patrol car in Canada. But when the road is on a privately owned, $60-million-plus golf club and resort 10 km from the village of Wallace, on the province's northeast shore, the cops don't care. Drinking and driving on public roads is illegal in Nova Scotia. In his right is a family-sized plastic cup full of vodka, tonic and ice.

RON JOYCE DAINTILY cradles the wheel of his 2002 Mercedes convertible - one of his eight cars - in his left hand.

Wendy wheel of fortune 2002