New owner drawn to Lennox Heads’ “low-key appeal”.

If any further proof was needed of the wildest property bubble in Australia’s history, the 18 mill sale of a joint in Lennox Head, once a hardscrabble town of surfers and blue-collar workers, is probably it. 

The “seaside masterpiece” at 44-52 Blue Seas Parade, Lennox Head, which looks right into the guts of the famous righthander, is “the best property on the east coast, in terms of what it offers in terms of 8.5 acres sitting on one of the most easterly points of Australia with panoramic ocean and coastal views,” selling agent Nick Bordin told the Australian Financial Review.

The vendor, retired software developer George Farley, bought the land in 2012 for a little under three-mill and built the five-bed pavilion style home.

He was chasing twenty-mill, but settled for an undisclosed amount between seventeen and eighteen mill. 

But the value wasn’t so much about the house, pretty as it is, but about the…land. 

Software developers ain’t dumb.

Farley got council approval to create a sub-division of eight luxury homes alongside the main house so, likely, the new owner will bring in the dozer and the cranes ala Owen Wright’s $30 million Byron Bay development.

Two years ago, the director-headliner of retro-surf movie Breath, Simon Baker, shucked his seventeen-mill mansion in Sydney for a cement block and timber beach shack a few hundred metres from Lennox Point. 

Baker, who is fifty-four, bought the two-bedder at 23 Dress Circle Drive, Lennox Head, for almost three-mill following the breakup of his marriage and the subsequent sale of couple’s Bronte house for seventeen-mill; a place they bought in 2015 for six-and-a-half mill. 

His Lennox joint, a sleepy eyed derelict, is one of the last remaining original houses in Dress Circle Drive, the modest holiday homes having long given way to man’s urgent need for compounds and monoliths. 

“This is the ideal site to make a terrific new statement,” advised the selling agent. “It stands on an elevated 505sqm medium density allotment within strolling distance to the beach, cafes and all of Lennox’s amenities. This is a rare real estate offering that will bring fantastic rewards to those wishing to upgrade, knockdown/rebuild or develop the site and capitalise on such a tightly held setting.”

Surprisingly deft on a surfboard, Baker grew up in Lennox before treading the boards in Sydney, Los Angeles etc.

“You can’t deny the power of this landscape,” Baker told 60 Minutes while standing with reporter at Lennox Point. “It’s got this intensity and whether you like it or not it will have an impact on you.”

A cursory jog through Lennox’s recent property sales reveals it ain’t Byron Bay’s poor sister any more. 

Mill and a half for a townhouse, two mill to be near the beach. If you don’t have generational wealth or are at least four rungs up the property ladder, you ain’t buying. 

Rent forever kids, although one thing money can’t buy is a deft rock jump.

 

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"On Friday, October 13th, we will close our doors for the last time and bid farewell to all of you."

Tears in Byron Bay, Los Angeles and across the Pacific and slightly to the south in Tokyo after the shock announcement that Banks Journal had closed its famous brand after nine years in biz.

“I’m writing to everyone who has lovingly supported Banks Journal since we embarked on this journey back in 2014,” writes Rama McCabe, whom we’ll talk about shortly, and who created the brand along with his Byron Bay pal Tim Cochran and some Japanese investors. “We started this project to merge style and function with a sustainable approach to design and development. We were fortunate to have a unique perspective on coastal living, inspired by our Japanese and Australian heritage.

“We’ve come a long way from our original office in Bondi Beach, Australia, and we wouldn’t have had this opportunity without each and every one of you. From the incredibly talented individuals we’ve had the pleasure of working alongside, to the retailers who always believed in us no matter what, our factories that went above and beyond to provide us with beautifully made products. Last but not least, to all the people who have one of our products hanging in their closet, you’re the friends, family, and supporters who have turned the dream of creating Banks Journal into a reality.

“On Friday, October 13th, we will close our doors for the last time and bid farewell to all of you. Our hope is that you will continue to support our incredible retail partners until the last Banks Journal products have left their shelves, and that you will find an everyday journey with our brand in your life.”

The chisel-jawed nymph Rama McCabe started off at Rip Curl, swung over to Globe, then O’Neill, Critical Slide for a while before joining a Japanese-Australian gang to form Banks Journal.

I remember in 2006, in Fiji, when the then-famous surfer Nathan Webster described me and Rama as Big Dez and Little Dez.

I was thrilled more than Rama, he better looking and dazzling in the water, me, shark-nosed, thin-lipped, flamingo legged, belly fat, but thirty pounds heavier and maybe six inches bigger where it matters. (Height). Sorta same haircut gave us a vague similarity, which I milked.

Over the years I got Rama to design various surf trunks, the high point being our Bill Cosby and Black Enuch trunks, short in the leg, gentle on the hips, grippy on the thigh. Works of art, I think, through sales were slow.

It’s a been wild couple of days for Rama.

His brother Pritamo, the head judge of the WSL men’s tour for the last five years, has just been replaced by Brazil’s Luiz Fernando Steffen Pereira following the near mutiny of Gabriel Medina, Italo Ferreira and Filipe Toledo after they weren’t gifted victories in every event on tour.