The queen of Tedder Ave, Main Beach

The city has lost a Main Beach matriarch who helped create the vision and reputation for the famous Gold Coast street.

She was the queen of Tedder Ave who helped build Main Beach.

Back in 1974, Tedder Ave boasted nothing but a butcher and a convenience store in the space where Hot Shott Kitchen now stands, and the closest high-rise was in Surfers Paradise.

There was a service station at the top of Woodroffe Ave and The Buddha Sticks surf shop … and not much else.

And then Helen Nugent came to town.

The mother of four saw an opportunity in this sleepy seaside suburb to develop a business and a building that would change the landscape of the city.

Perched on the corner of Tedder and Cronin Ave, it’s still the first shop that greets visitors, and for decades it was the place to be for anyone with good taste.

Helen Nugent, the 'queen of Tedder Ave'

While today it houses a pharmacy, in 1974 it was called Tedder Place Interiors, and it became the premier design house not just for the city, but for visitors from our southern capitals searching for a stylish beach escape, and even international investors, including Japanese property giant Daikyo.

In fact, by the 1980s, she built a second, bigger premises, where a real estate agency now stands.

How do I know so much about Helen Nugent? Well, she was my Aunty Helen, part of the reason I ended up in this city.

She was my father’s little sister and an absolute icon for a little teen from Texas.

By the time I moved here, in the early 1990s, she had built the most amazing three-storey, dual block home at 48 Peak Ave, she had appeared in every interiors magazine and was regularly overseas designing first, second, third homes for corporate scions.

But what was most incredible to me, and still is, is that she built not just her business, not just Tedder Ave, but the reputation of the city and especially Main Beach from the ground up.

Six years before she came to the Coast, Aunty Helen lost her husband to cancer, widowed with four children aged five and under.

While she was encouraged to stay at home, in Brisbane, on a widow’s pension, she wanted more for her children … and more for herself.

She started as a secretary for her local parish priest, but soon found work with Joy de Gruchy and her Craftsman’s Market in Brisbane, which has its own archive in the Queensland State Library.

Tedder Ave, Main Beach. Picture: Kerri Shaw

Recognising her flair for design, Aunty Helen and Ms de Gruchy joined forces, along with Gai Morrow of the Arnotts Morrow biscuit family, to launch Tedder Place.

“Mum found that block on Tedder, and everyone thought she was crazy to put an interior design place there among the beach shacks, but she had a vision,” said Caroline, my cousin.

“She could see that the Gold Coast was becoming popular, that Main Beach was close to the beach, close to Southport and Surfers, and would be the next big suburb … and that if new homes were going to be built, an interior designer would be useful.

“She never left Main Beach. We used to live behind the shop, until we could move into the new home she built at 27 Tedder – which was featured in the Bulletin and Sunday Mail for its design – which she later turned into a clothing boutique and cafe, then she built the big house on Peak, and finally moved into Marquis on Main.

“She loved this suburb and worked closely with (former councillor) Dawn Crichlow, advocating for the streetscaping that became that signature Main Beach village feel. She knew this place was special, and that’s why she never stopped investing in it.”

Indeed, she built it … and the people came.

Tedder Ave Main Beach Alfresco dining, Lisa Gole in back of Mercedes-Benz with dog

Over the last few years her health deteriorated and she sold her shops, but she remained, as always in Main Beach. Until last week when, at age 87, her reign ended and she passed away peacefully.

“She never complained and was always so strong,” said Caroline. “She had to be for her children, but also because that’s just who she was.

“But there was so much kindness and generosity with her strength. So many of her clients became her friends.”

And then, of course, there’s her family, her four children Peter, Caroline, Anna and Maria and her seven grandchildren

For me, her niece, I’ll never forget how much of a cheerleader she was when my now-husband and I bought our first property, or the advice she freely administered as we built a house in Kingscliff, and even now our home bears so many hallmarks of her design ethos.

She was the connection to my own father, who died shortly after we moved here, and I wonder if maybe, somewhere, they are together again … along with her own husband she lost 55 years ago.

And there is no doubt that she will be missed in Main Beach.

Long live the memory of the queen of Tedder Ave.