Who owns Melbourne’s beach boxes: Famous owners and criminal connections that swirl around city’s ultimate status symbol
From sports star owners and comedians, to notorious criminals — the city’s iconic beach boxes have become the ultimate ‘status symbol’.
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Melbourne’s iconic beach boxes are the ultimate “status symbol” for the city’s upper class, with some costing more per square metre than the average Manhattan apartment.
High-flyers are willing to splash close to $1m for their own small shelter in Victoria’s millionaires playground of Portsea, while most in Brighton fetch between $300,000-$400,000.
Inside the much-photographed colourful shacks has been revealed in new photos, with the small sheds going from as little as $500 in the 1960s to fetching eye-watering six-figure sums.
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Top-end real estate agents say the beach boxes have been “status symbols” since the 1960s — and even earlier — with their appeal to cashed-up families is only enhancing.
Peninsula Sotheby’s International Realty managing director Rob Curtain said some “cost more than the median house price of some areas” and JP Dixon’s eponymous director, who brokered many of Shane Warne’s Brighton property deals, said their cache dated back 60-plus years.
“Those who own one have bragging rights over those who don’t,” Mr Curtain said.
A Portsea box sold for between $910,000-$1m in 2018 and a Mt Martha box went for $650,000 in 2021.
But buyers wanting to snap up a bargain can look to Werribee South beach where a Cunninghams Rd box sold for $180,000 this month or Frankston, where a box sold for $165,000 in 2020.
With the average 4.8sq m Brighton box costing $72,916 per square metre, a $350,000 property on the famous foreshore is almost $50,000 more expensive per square metre than the average-sized 68.74sq m Manhattan apartment (median AU$1.61m, $23,803 per square metre).
However, Victorian owners don’t actually possess the boxes, but rather purchase the right to lease in perpetuity the Crown or council land they are located on.
WHO OWNS THEM?
Although many boxes been passed down through generations, it’s not only old money that owns them.
Melbourne’s newly-rich, celebrities, scandalous figures and even notorious criminals are among past and present owners.
Basketball star Joe Ingles, a member of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic bronze medal-winning Australian basketball team who also plays for the National Basketball Association’s Milwaukee Bucks, is understood to be among the Bayside beach box owners.
Barristers, construction and property industry head honchos, high-flying public servants, medical figures and artists are among others on the list.
Real estate mogul Peter Shellard, whose dead body was found gagged and bound with dog leads, rope and electrical cords in 2005, previously owned a Brighton box.
Five years ago, the Purana Taskforce moved to confiscate a $10m property portfolio – including a Mornington Peninsula beach box – allegedly controlled by the so-called Melbourne drug kingpin and Carl Williams’ associate Rocco Arico.
Actor and comedian Stephen Curry and his family, including The Dish star Bernard, purchased a Rye boat shed three years ago.
Former JB Hi-Fi owner Richard Bourishas sold his Rye beach box for $380,000 in 2020.
Mr Curtain said beach boxes connected to power supply were most in demand, with the sheds close to carparks, shops and toilet blocks were also popular.
A scene from the hit Australian television show Kath & Kim was filmed at the Brighton boxes, with the characters Trade and Prue, portrayed by Gina Riley and Jane Turner, discussing renovating one of the shacks.
Prentice Real Estate’s Michael Prentice said some box owners “have spent considerable money refurbishing and making them into a lovely beachside retreat”.
Some boxes have bars and kitchenettes installed, while others have generators.
“They create wonderful memories, they are part of the fabric of the coast,” Mr Prentice added.
“I would say that it’s the cheapest beach front and bay-view property money can buy.”
His father and colleague, Michael, sold boat sheds for about $500 in the 1960s.
Marshall White Bayside director Matthew Pillios listed a Brighton bathing box in 2019.
“Every time I get one, there is always so much interest, you get a lot of high-profile people looking at them,” Mr Pillios said.
There are about 1860 beach boxes, with some of the larger models also known as boat sheds, across the state.
Mornington Peninsula Shire mayor Steve Holland said the municipality’s 1306 beach boxes were “a significant and iconic part of our foreshore landscape and culture”.
Cr Holland said 16 of the municipality’s beach boxes have sold since July 1 last year.
“The lowest sold for $80,000 and the highest sold for $590,000,” Cr Holland said.
“It is not a requirement for people to disclose what they sold the beach box for, so this would only be an approximate.”
Mt Martha and Dromana each have more than 240 beach boxes, Rye 199, Mornington 149 boxes, Mt Eliza 111 and Rosebud 98.
Portsea boasts 84 boxes, Safety Beach 54 boxes and McCrae and Capel Sound have more than 60 boxes each.
In contrast, there are only 11 boxes in Sorrento, 31 in Tootgarook and 41 in Blairgowrie.
The council is unable to disclose the boxes’ owners due to the Privacy Act.
There are more than 100 bathing boxes in Melbourne’s Bayside, with most in Brighton, four in Sandringham, three in Black Rock and one west of Beaumaris Yacht Club.
A Rosebud beach box is the ideal seaside office for Chris Montgomery and his business partner Jesse Bentley.
The pair, who operate zero waste and environmentally-friendly product retailer Activated Eco, purchased two beach boxes to renovate and sell “on the side”.
In 2021, they bought Beachbox 77 which was “falling apart”.
After obtaining planning permission to build a new 18sq m box complete with a kitchenette, Tasmanian oak hardwood flooring and panelled internal walls, they have listed the property with $180,000-$199,000 price hopes.
“Jesse and I both work from home but we sometimes work out of the beach box, it is nice to fire up the laptops and look out at the water,” Mr Montgomery, a former boilermaker, said.
Close to a water tap, public toilets, restaurants and a supermarket, the box is a great spot for Mr Montgomery and his family, including daughters Evie, 3, and Phoebe, 7, to join Mr Bentley and their friends for barbecues and playtime.
Brighton Bathing Box Association secretary John Rundell says there is a strong sense of camaraderie between the owners of the iconic foreshore buildings.
“It’s a very sociable thing down at the bathing boxes, it is a community,” Mr Rundell said.
“If you run out of beer, you wander down to the next box and someone will give you one from their Esky.
Mr Rundell, who purchased his bathing box during the 1990s, joked that it was “just a very expensive storage shed”.
“But compared to a holiday house in Lorne or Portsea, it’s much more affordable,” he said.
Out of the less than 100 Brighton bathing box owners, 90 belong to the association.
Mr Rundell said he did not believe the boxes were “elitist” but that many remained in the one family for decades.
“It’s like landed gentry, they pass them onto their children,” he added.
Nick Johnstone’s Brighton bathing box is painted in the distinctive red, blue and white colours of his beloved Western Bulldogs.
As director of a local real estate agency bearing his name, Mr Johnstone has sold several of the boxes located near his own.
“I think they are a status symbol and they are very tightly held,” Mr Johnstone said.
“The most expensive one we sold was about $370,000 plus GST.”
With Bayside Council not planning to build any more of the boxes, he said it was likely the existing structures dotted along the foreshore would go up in value.
Mr Johnstone uses his box to store equipment such as paddle boards.
He said that when his two children – now young adults – were growing up, it was a top spot to enjoy time with relatives and friends.
Owning a Brighton bathing box was one of Mr Johnstone’s childhood dreams.
“I used to go down to and think, ‘Gosh, I’d like to own one of those,” he said.
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