Freshwater Surf Life Saving Club: Proposed $10m makeover to include ‘Museum of Surf’ and 163-seat restaurant
A proposed $10m refurb of an ageing Sydney surf club will include a museum featuring the king of surfing and a new restaurant on the beach. Here is your first look at the plans.
Manly
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Details have emerged of a proposed $10 million-plus makeover of a historic and ageing Sydney surf life saving club.
Freshwater SLSC, one of the earliest surf clubs formed on the northern beaches – in 1908 – wants to include a Museum of Surf as part of the radical refurbishment.
It also has plans for a 163-seat restaurant, open during breakfast, lunch and dinner, as well as a new daytime cafe for 63 patrons.
The club boasts strong links with surfing after Hawaiian Olympic swimming champion Duke Kahanamoku attracted crowds while demonstrating his surfboard riding skills at the beach in December 1914 and January 1915
His original board is permanently displayed in the current clubhouse on Freshwater Beach that opened in 1935.
The popular Kahanamoku was in Australia in 1914 to give swimming exhibitions. The NSW Amateur Swimming Association also arranged for him to give an “exhibition of breaker-shooting and board shooting” at Freshwater, the Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time.
Some believe that exhibition helped popularise the growing sport in Australia. He also gave surfing exhibitions at other Sydney beaches, including Cronulla over the summer of 1914-15.
The Duke also held a tandem surfing exhibition with Isabel Letham, 15, from Chatswood, at Dee Why Beach. Letham is now regarded a pioneer of female surfing in Australia.
Proposed plans to update and add to the art deco-style building have been lodged with the state government’s Sydney North Planning Panel.
The club wants to include the museum, which will feature the Duke’s board, as part of a new muti-purpose hall.
As well as the restaurant and cafe, which will replace the current kiosk, the DA also includes upgraded public changing rooms and toilets. New training rooms and a larger gym would be built along with increased storage for surf life saving equipment.
Details in a 47-page Statement of Environmental Effects, lodged with the DA, reveal that the existing building was “ageing and requires upgraded and additional spaces to serve the needs of the surf club members and the wider community”.
“A new rear extension and internal works are proposed to meet increased demand whilst maintaining the heritage significance of the club” the report stated.
“A new museum is also proposed which will recognise the history of the surf club which is interwoven with the heritage of the Freshwater Beach”
The current rear extension of the clubhouse, built in 1986, would be partially demolished.
“It has been nearly 40 years since the club was last extended and upgraded. Since then, membership and the demands on the club have grown” according to the report.
The new restaurant, with a verandah, was proposed at the rear of the building on the second floor, “toward the north-west”.
On the second-floor of the clubhouse, two balconies facing the beach would be replaced by one large balcony while the member’s lounge would get a new balcony, orientated to the
south-west. On the third-floor, the existing viewing area and open deck of the clubhouse extension would be removed. The north-west facing balcony adjoining the caretaker’s apartment would be replaced by a new deck enclosed by a timber shade screen.
40 acres at Dee Why, two convicts and home units
These days almost all of the land between Pittwater Rd and Dee Why Beach is occupied by unit blocks but in the early 1800s it was a different story and it was not until the early 1900s that the area was developed.
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From being a 20-year-old raw recruit to dangling 150m above the ground and running the NSW Ambulance helicopter fleet, northern beaches paramedic Cameron Edgar has spent decades saving countless lives.