The 99-year-old artist and the $4.9 million roadblock: Breakthrough for Sydney coastal walk

Resisting offers from developers who just kept knocking, the late artist Ellen Waugh OAM agreed decades ago that Randwick City Council would be given the first right of refusal to buy her home in South Coogee after she died.

Razing her home would give the public access to the coast she loved and bring the dream of a continuous coastal pathway along Sydney’s southern beaches from Bondi to Malabar, about 650 metres and one steep, hot walk closer.

Until then, though, she wasn’t leaving her home. “I love it here … It is my home, and I could last another 20 years,” she said in 1997.

Asked by this masthead in 2013 about the arrangement to sell to the council, Waugh declined to be identified. “I just don’t want people knocking on my door, waiting for me to die, so it can go ahead.”

Ellen Waugh at home, aged 94. She died in January, aged 99. Credit: James Alcock

The artist and teacher lived longer than even she expected, dying six weeks before she turned 100 in January this year.

As a result of the agreement with the council, the sale of the property at 49 Cuzco Street, South Coogee, for $4.9 million was finalised in November. The home was blocking access to Seaside Parade, and the walk from Coogee to Lurline Bay required a 10-minute detour up a hill to Malabar Road.

The land was rezoned from residential to recreational in 2012.

Waugh’s parents built the house in the 1930s, and she lived there ever since. It was unimproved, except they added an indoor toilet.

Randwick Mayor Dylan Parker said a walkway connection named in honour of Waugh would improve access to the coastline for millions of people every year.

“By connecting the walk between South Coogee and Lurline Bay, we’re progressing our goal of uninterrupted public access to the coastal walk,” he said.

Parker said Waugh was a luminary of the art scene who cared deeply for her local community. “Naming this iconic walkway after her is a fitting recognition of an extraordinary legacy.”

Nephew Joseph Waugh said his aunt loved the coastline and had been critical of previous councils that had allowed concrete and glass homes to be built on the cliffs.

“We have photos in albums of her standing on cliffs that have been turned into concrete swimming pools. She loved the rock pools, and sketched them.

“She had an interest in conservation and all sorts of things, like going on weeding expeditions and bush regeneration.”

Waugh was eccentric, a pioneer, and involved in education. She photographed the US artist Christo wrapping the cliffs of Little Bay in 1969.

The house at 49 Cuzco Street, South Coogee, has long blocked the coastal walk.Credit: Nick Moir

A photographer from an early age, she also took along her camera to document progress and produced a series of colour slides.

They are among the very few colour images of Wrapped Coast that exist, and until a few years ago, had never been published.

Waugh travelled extensively, including going on an archeological dig in Uzbekistan.

“Everyone needs a crazy aunt,” said Joseph Waugh. His fitted the bill.

As a teacher, she spotted the talent of a young Brett Whiteley.

After a lifetime of interest in Aboriginal art and culture, Waugh bequeathed shares of about $1 million to Bangarra Dance Company and of the same value to AIME Mentoring.

A collection of 279 works of art and interesting objects she had collected was recently auctioned by Theodore Bruce. She gave Grace Cossington Smith’s The Bridge in Building to the National Gallery of Australia in 2005.

Little Bay was wrapped with more than 90,000 square metres of fabric for Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Wrapped Coast of 1969.Credit: Ellen Waugh

Joseph Waugh said his aunt stayed active until the last six months of her life.

“She kept a diary ... And there wasn’t a day when she wasn’t doing something. Sketching groups and life drawing classes … She took up Chinese brush painting, took up drums.

“She took her sketchbook everywhere,” he said. “Right to the last couple of years, she was dragging carers down to walk with her. According to bank statements, she was having coffee with them at Wylie’s Baths.”

She defied expectations of ageing. “People would jump to conclusions thinking she couldn’t do things. She refused to accept her limitations.”

When Waugh visited China in 2011, she was bemused by airport porters pushing wheelchairs at her. They told her she walked like a 60-year-old.

After an operation, she was sent to an aged care facility for rehabilitation. She discharged herself, walking out the door and returning home.

As she wished, Waugh died at home in the room next to the one where her mother had died.

The Ellen Waugh walkway will take Sydney a little closer to realising the dream of an uninterrupted coastal walk from Bondi to Malabar.

More information on the coastal walkway can be found here.

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