This was published 9 years ago
Skyneedle 'should never have left South Bank': Stefan
By Cameron Atfield
Brisbane famous Skyneedle was almost lost to Japan more than 25 years ago, but hairdressing entrepreneur Stefan Ackerie's quick negotiating ensured the South Brisbane landmark would stay put.
Give or take 600 metres.
The Night Companion, which would later be called the Skyneedle, took pride of place at Expo '88.
Mr Ackerie's said he was pleased the Skyneedle would be retained in a new development at South Brisbane, even if he did have some reservations about the design.
The hairdressing king told Fairfax Media the sculpture, then called The Night Companion, was just days away from being shipped to Tokyo's Disneyland when he bought it in 1989.
Stefan Ackerie, pictured with his Skyneedle in 2008.Credit: Paul Harris
"That Skyneedle was going to Disneyland in Japan at 5 o'clock on a Friday," he said.
"I worked my butt off to save it from going there on Wednesday until Thursday, 5 o'clock.
"Had someone in Brisbane not bought it that day, it would have been a landmark for Disneyland in Japan.
"Can you imagine that?"
Pradella plans to make South Brisbane's Skyneedle the central figure of a new residential development.
Stefan's mission to keep the sculpture
Mr Ackerie said he put a lot "on the line" to keep the 88-metre sculpture in Brisbane.
"Where I lived, I was looking at it every night and when I heard it was going to Japan, I couldn't believe it," he said.
"I put on the line a beautiful house I had on the Gold Coast, one of the nicest homes in Australia, to buy that thing, so it does have a lot of meaning to me and, in a way, I feel it was one of the most beautiful sculptures in Australia.
"It's still one of the highest sculptures in Australia, so I feel very happy that it's still here."
Brisbane City Council has approved Pravella's proposal for a 208-unit development on the site, which would have the heritage-listed Skyneedle front and centre.
Mr Ackerie said he accepted the commercial reality that the sculpture would have to be crowded by units, because "without money, we don't function".
He sold the land, including the Skyneedle, to Pradella about a year ago.
"The only thing I feel, and I hope you appreciate what I'm saying, is would you rather it be a symbol in Tokyo Disneyland or where it is?" Mr Ackerie said.
"That's the choice we have.
"It's what it is, the circumstances are what they are, and I wish you and I could change all the things we don't like, but when I was a kid my mother taught me 'change the things you can, accept the things you can't change and have the wisdom to know the difference in between'.
"For me, it was to save it from going to Japan and, after that, it's out of my hands.
"The option between having it here with apartments close to it versus being in Tokyo, of course I'd rather have it here.
"But also, it should have been exactly where it was for Expo. It should never have left South Bank."
'It should never have left South Bank'
On that point, Mr Ackerie said he offered the Skyneedle to the South Bank Corporation free of charge, to restore it to its original location.
Its current Manning Street home at South Brisbane is about 600 metres west of the place where it shone its beacon during Expo '88.
"It was too big a job for them, but I think they made a mistake," Mr Ackerie said.
"One of the regrets I have of being on the South Bank board was not being able to convince them to move it there.
"It would have made South Bank more famous than it already is. It should have been where it was."
That led Mr Ackerie to reminisce about when the Skyneedle was first moved to Manning Street.
"When I bought it, the guy who owned the land next to me – Anthony Barakat, who was also a hairdresser and also Lebanese – would come and tinker in his land and I was there tinkering in the garden at Stefan's (headquarters)," he said.
"When I bought the Skyneedle, I was going to put it in the car park at Stefan's and I said 'Tony, do you mind if I use your land for a while? I need to put something on it'.
"He said 'oh, mate, no problem, mate, no problem, we're neighbours mate, no problem' and I didn't even think to tell him it was 300 feet long.
"So all the semi-trailers start arriving, the trucks and cranes, and I get this phone call from this woggy voice with a foreign accent: 'Mate! Mate! What you do to my land, mate? What are you doing? What you do to my land?'.
"I said 'Tony, calm down, I asked you if I could put something on it and you said OK'. He goes on: 'Mate, I'm trying to sell this land!' and I said: 'Well, I better buy it'."
Mr Ackerie said his $1.35 million offer calmed Mr Barakat down.
"He says: 'Oh, I better come around for coffee then'. So he went from wanting to kill me to coming over for a coffee," he said.
"That was the funniest phone call of my life. I can still hear his voice like it was yesterday."
A beacon, a rainbow and then a fire
When Mr Ackerie bought the Skyneedle, it still contained a beacon that could be seen up to 60 kilometres away.
He kept that beacon running for about a decade before he made his own mark on the Skyneedle.
"I promised the original designer that I would not bastardise it, or turn it into a sign or in any way be disrespectful, but it had white neon and I said to him I would turn the neon into a rainbow and that's all I'd do to it," Mr Ackerie said.
"But my instinct made me put a firewall in there."
That proved to be a wise addition as the Skyneedle caught fire in November 2006.
"Now the birds were sitting on the neon and as their feet were slipping they'd bite on the wire," Mr Ackerie said.
"They did that for so long that one day, when it had been raining for about a week or so, that particular day it cut right through it and that's what started the fire.
"But the fire was never going to hurt it, because of the firewall, so the fire was never as dramatic as it looked."
Even though he was no longer its owner, Mr Ackerie's enthusiasm for the Skyneedle showed no sign of abating.
"It's the greatest piece of art in Australia – there's nothing else that's 300 feet tall and they were going to sell it to Japan," he said.