House sale to continue ‘disappearing act’ of Main Beach beach homes
One of the last remaining beach homes at Main Beach could be swept away after being sold for a multi-million dollar figure.
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THE ageing but very solid building that is the Gold Coast’s most northerly absolute beachfront house could be poised to be swept away by what might politely be termed ‘progress’.
The 3573 Main Beach Pde house has been sold after quietly being marketed wearing an $8 million tag.
Just what it has sold for, and who has bought it, are being kept under wraps.
Likewise, the eventual fate of the 1970s-built two-level abode’s 458sq m site isn’t being disclosed but it’s suggested the buyer, or buyers, intend that it will make way for their retirement home.
The immediate neighbour to the north is the tennis court for Golden Sands – the suburb’s most northerly beachfront apartment tower.
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On the southern side sits the newish and rather large home of hotelier Bruce Donnachy who, over 12 years, put together two titles spanning nearly 900sq m at a cost of $7 million.
The sale of No. 3573 marks the end of an era for one of the city’s more low-profile property families – that of the late Bruce Small.
The ‘Bruce’, in this case, was the one who made his mark at Couran Point on South Stradbroke Island – not the Bruce ‘Kelly’ Small who followed his mayoral dad Sir Bruce into canal-estate development.
Bruce and wife Margaret bought the Main Beach property from former Hawthorn AFL player and aerobic fitness pioneer Brendan Edwards.
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He purpose-built the concrete-slab property in the 1970s and opened it in 1980 as a home for a Club Pacific holiday health retreat, complete with 10 ensuite bedrooms, bunkroom, and basement gym, sauna, and surf-jet massager.
The Smalls, after acquiring it 33 years ago, transformed the ‘club’ into a family home fronting the sand.
The likely demise of the house continues a four decades-plus run of longstanding beach homes at Main Beach disappearing.
Such houses used to run cheek-to-jowl from where the Kapalua building stands at the southern end of the beachfront to Golden Sands.
They’ve made way for not only towers and boutique multi-level apartment buildings, but luxury beachfront residences.
The latest of those is under way close to the Small home – a tri-level holiday home for Super A-Mart founder John van Lieshout.
He bought a 963sq m site for $9.01 million in 2009 – the sellers had paid $13.45 million in 2006 – and used the 1930s home on the site as an escape for many years.
The 2006 deal equated to $13,966 a square metre.
The Small sale looks to be at a bigger rate – even at $7 million it’s $15,283 a square metre.
Meanwhile, another ‘indicator’ of beachfront land prices at Main Beach is in the wind.
The Poppas low-rise site next to the Ocean Isles apartments is wearing a sold sticker, with the contract apparently worth north of $10 million.
That would represent a square metre rate in excess of $16,000, a figure that in part might reflect that the site carries approval for a luxury 14-level tower.
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