Boomerang Farm: Transformation plans for Mudgeeraba golf course

The Mudgeeraba property that’s home to the picturesque Boomerang Farm golf course is set for a significant transformation. FIND OUT MORE

The Mudgeeraba property that’s home to the picturesque Boomerang Farm golf course could be set to fly as a fun destination.

Stevie Filipovic and Jonathan Leishman, one a restaurateur and Boomerang Farm neighbour and the other in the property game, have bought the 82.5ha holding for $8.4m.

The deal comes 30 years after Zimbabwean brothers Rob and James King set out to develop the nine-hole course and to later add a booming weddings business and a bike trail.

The new owners are keeping their cards close to their chests over their plans for the ‘Farm’ but the word from golfing regulars is that they are show glowing passion for the property.

They already have started renovation work on the main building and reportedly want to also make enhancements to the tree-lined golf holes.

It’s also suggested that they are out to take a ‘something for everyone’ approach which will take in such things as music, arts and a kids’ playground.

Boomerang Farm at Mudgeeraba is for sale.

An insider says a tentative plan for improvements has been prepared, one that could take up to five years to complete.

An indication of what’s ahead could be drawn from the success of Barns Lane Farm on the Sunshine Coast.

Jonathan, executive director of Brisbane property group Churchill and who previously worked in a major family transport and marine business, was one of the founders of the agritourism destination.

It’s set on 6.8ha and sets out to deliver visitors a paddock-to-plate experience.

Barns Lane is close to Coolum, which is where he met Stevie at a function and went on to becomes mates with him.

Stevie, who’s been described as a ‘conceptualist’ in the property field, became a restaurateur seven years ago.

He has Light Years nosheries in Burleigh Heads, Byron Bay, Newcastle and Noosa but is winding back his interests to concentrate on the Boomerang Farm.

Co-owner James King with manager Rita Jones.

That’s hardly surprising as he lives down the road from the Farm at Panchos Mexican restaurant, which he bought three years ago.

Stevie has been eyeing the Boomerang Farm since 2022 and he and Jonathan undertook months of due diligence before gaining an option to buy it.

It seems sellers the Kings, along with a Japanese co-owner, did a fair bit of homework before deciding they were selling to people who would both keep and enhance what was their pride. The Farm golf course, roundly termed ‘a hidden gem’, is set over 20ha and borders Mudgeeraba Creek.

The course many years back, on the heels of its opening, was described as a typical piece of Australian bush art.

The clubhouse was an old dairy shed complete with corrugated iron roof on which the King brothers installed a sprinkler system to keep the place cooler in summer.

Meanwhile, the Boomerang Farm is Jonathan’s second investment in the Gold Coast in three years.

His Churchill entity and the Steer group paid $13m for the former Ashmore Seafood and Steak property at Ashmore and are reworking plans for the site.

Stevie describes himself as an intermittent social golfer, while Jonathan plays off 14 at Royal Queensland in Brisbane.

Doubling up

Noel Holmes, a retired Coolangatta accountant with a penchant for property investment, could be set to profit for a second time on a tower site that sits behind the town’s main street.

Noel, 75, is out to sell a triangular 2746 sqm parcel he bought from the Baptist church for $650,000 25 years ago and on-sold six years ago for $2.9m.

New owner Canberra’s Willemsen group took the high road with plans for a 26-floor retail and apartment building but aborted the idea and sold the land back to Noel for $3.2m in 2018.

That plan’s been modified to an 18-floor tower with a large retail area and 68 apartments.

Noel’s previous investments have included the Café Dbah site at Point Danger, today home to luxury tower Awaken.

Cash to spare

Zelle Pullich, who last year set a Paradise Waters record of $19.3m for a house sale, has bought back into the suburb and left herself with plenty of change.

Dr Zelle’s big sale was of a property called North Point in Commodore Drive, a house that sits on a 1570 sqm site and has been referred to as king of the river.

Her new buy is an $6.85m two-level house in Admiralty Drive that looks across the Nerang River toward The Southport School.

Previous owners include developers Steve Solomons, Jim Raptis, and the Sunland group.

Bon voyage

Greg Lund, a member of a family with a long history in the Gold Coast marine industry, has set out to ‘sail away’ from his home on the dry side of Mermaid Beach’s Multi-Millionaires’ Row.

Greg, these days running a consultancy business, bought the home, on the corner of Peerless Ave nearly, 16 years ago for $2m.

He tried to sell ‘by negotiation’ four years ago but this time around is trying the auction route.

The property comes with a couple of water features – ocean views from the first floor and a gas-heated pool.

Greg, whose family built a ship-lift operation in Hope Island’s John Lund Drive in 1990, describes himself as gaining his education in the International School of Hard Knocks.

Originally published as Boomerang Farm: Transformation plans for Mudgeeraba golf course