Southern Ocean Lodge owners say insurance is biggest hurdle to Kangaroo Island rebuild

The owners of KI’s world-famous Southern Ocean Lodge hope a rebuild can kick off in 2021 but say they’re worried about a potentially major hurdle.

Insurance is the biggest hurdle towards Southern Ocean Lodge rising from the ashes, but its owners say they’re still hoping to start work on a rebuild this year.

James and Hayley Baillie, co-founders of Baillie Lodges, which owned the award-winning Southern Ocean Lodge, hope to begin work late in 2021 and open the new accommodation in late 2022 or early 2023.

The company is working with US-bsed KSL Capital Partners and Mr Baillie said securing insurance remained the “single biggest potential impediment” to the luxury lodge’s rebuild at Karatta on the island’s southwest coast, after it was destroyed by fire in January 2020.

The remains of Kangaroo Island’s world-famous Southern Ocean Lodge, which was lost in January’s bushfires.

“We actually worry about insurability in general even though the accrual risk is vastly lower due to new safety measures and significantly reduced fuel loads,” he said.

The last remaining structures were removed in August, as managers John Hird and Alison Heath teamed up with island residents and industry friends to clear the site in “Camp SOL” weekends.

Ms Baillie said they planned for the new lodge to be in the same place and designed by Adelaide-based architect Max Pritchard, who also designed the original accommodation.

“With the views of the Southern Ocean and coastal wilderness, it’s a pretty magic spot and would be hard to beat,” she said.

Baillie Lodges founder James Baillie. Picture: Supplied

“2020, for all its other challenges, has seen the incredible regeneration of Kangaroo Island and its tight-knit, resilient community.

“Nature’s rebound a year on is nothing short of miraculous, with the carpets of green shoots we now see across the landscape surely symbolic of the island’s regrowth and better times ahead.”

Ms Baillie said the company would include new design measures to counter bushfire threats, also including a buffer zone between the lodge and surrounding wilderness, with low-rising naturally fire retardant native plants.

Baillie Lodges co-founders James and Hayley Baillie. Picture: Supplied

Sunshine the kangaroo sculpture, who was still standing at Southern Ocean Lodge after the fire. Picture: Supplied

The Baillies have partnered with South Australian organisation 57 Films to share the new lodge’s story.

57 Films director Paul Ryan and photography director Isaac Walgos have already travelled to the island to interview them as they walked through the scorched landscape.

They will return frequently to record build developments.

The film will also feature sculptor Indiana James who created ‘Sunshine’ the kangaroo, who was made from reclaimed tractor parts and greeted guests in the lodge’s great room.

Sunshine was discovered still standing after the fires had obliterated the building and its contents, and the film is named Sunshine Rising in his honour.

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