Paradise Waters: Exclusive property enclave branded a ‘white elephant’
It takes millions of dollars to secure a waterfront mansion on Paradise Waters. But it’s an exclusive area which was tagged as a “white elephant” for an incredibly surprising reason.
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IT takes millions of dollars to secure a waterfront mansion on Paradise Waters.
Built on the Nerang River between Main Beach and Surfers Paradise, the enclave was one of the Gold Coast's first canal estates and has been home to businessman and celebrity hairdresser Stefan Ackerie, former motorsports champion Mick Doohan, developer Jim Raptis and Mayor Tom Tate.
Despite this, the entire estate was once regarded as a failure and dismissed as a “white elephant”.
Today’s Paradise Waters was yesteryear’s failed subdivision in which nobody wanted to buy property.
The story of Paradise Waters begins more than 60 years ago when it was part of Macintosh Island.
Macintosh Island was originally known as Hope Island after early resident George Hope, who in turn renamed it after his brother-in-law, Captain Macintosh.
The land was bought in the late 1950s by developer and future mayor Sir Bruce Small who planned to dredge the Nerang River to build his new subdivision on 15 acres of reclaimed land.
But Sir Bruce, who was already busy building his own Isle of Capri project, never got around to breaking ground and sold it to real estate kingpin Laurie Wall for $70,000.
Mr Wall made a profit off the land before onselling it to developer and former NSW MP Alex Armstrong in 1965.
Mr Armstrong had dreams of building his own canal estate but was strongly advised to abandon the project, declared by locals at the time as a “white elephant” where nobody would live.
Stung by this criticism, Mr Armstrong sold the land for $740,000 to developer Hooker Rex which ultimately began building Paradise Waters in 1970.
The entire precinct was designed around every one of its blocks having waterfront living, with all traffic in and out being funnelled through Admiralty Drive.
Even from the beginning, its parcels began selling for significant amounts of money during an era dominated by big sales in the canal estates of Sorrento and Isle of Capri.
Long-time real estate agent Lucy Cole recalled its early days in 2014.
“It came into the news because it was where the most expensive parcel of land sold in that time,” she said.
Among the big names who moved into the estate in the 1980s was Mr Wall’s protege Max Christmas, who hired future major developer Soheil Abedian to build his home, completed in 1987.
Mr Christmas himself sold many of the neighbouring houses for prices between $300,000 and $600,000 amid a slow housing market in the mid-1980s.
At the time, he declared he would “stake his reputation” on the property market bouncing back as he put the entire $24m of units inside Atlantis East and West on the market.
“There is a strong movement by purchasers toward correctly priced waterfront homes in the Surfers Paradise region,’’ he said in 1985.
“We have also had volume sales of homes at about $150,000 (15 sales) and of home units in the $100,000 to $120,000 price range (21 sales).
“I’m as confident as I’ve ever been in my life.
“I haven’t time to be going around making false statements. I will sell these in 18 months and I’ll put my reputation on it.’’
The area boomed into the 1990s and 2000s.
But like other rich-list enclaves, the global financial crisis hit the area hard in the late 2000s and housing prices and real estate sales dried up almost overnight in 2008.
“Paradise Waters was one of the hardest hit areas during the (financial crisis) because a lot of homeowners there are business owners and they run multinational companies and interstate businesses and use the Gold Coast as their base,” Ms Cole told the Bulletin in 2014.
“Some of them might have been heavily financed and when the (crisis) struck there were a lot of mortgagee sales which crucified the area.”
Paradise Waters bounced back in the 2010s and today is again commanding some of the city’s highest prices and appearing on top-100 sales lists for the entire state.
While selling like it's the 1980s, the prices are now significantly higher.
In August, Walter Elliott, 82, sold his vast vacant waterfront block at 85 Admiralty Dr for $8m to Maree Anderson, smashing the record for vacant land in the area.
In July, the giant six-bedroom, six-bathroom, seven-car garage house at 30 Seafarer Court sold for $11m.
Mr Armstrong died in 1985, 20 years after he sold Paradise Waters, but lived long enough to see it go from a white elephant into one of the most sought-after destinations.
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