KING OF THE BEACH

The Gold Coast has said farewell to a tough-as-nails old innovator who grew up on the beach and made it his world, spotting the hidden potential where others only see the surface glitter of the strip

Don’t judge a book by its cover. The gruff manner and weather-worn exterior of Peter Neumann masked a Currumbin born-and-bred innovator who could see and understand things others could not.

Along with his family, he looked at the redevelopment stage of history the Gold Coast has now entered and saw opportunity in high-rise development – but not in the way most would think.

The Currumbin-based Neumann companies have been involved in development, but instead of looking skyward Neumann looked below the land’s surface to the wealth still lying in minerals locked in the sand, hidden by a century of construction overhead in Surfers Paradise and other parts of the Gold Coast.

Peter Neumann died on April 1, age 79.

He had grown up understanding the beach and the ocean. He and his siblings – Robert (who became Gold Coast mayor in the 1970s), Margaret, John and Bruce – spent their childhood on Currumbin beach.

Peter was a body surfer – probably the best around in his day, according to his brother John – and a stalwart of the Currumbin Vikings Surf Life Saving Club. With so much love for the sea, it was inevitable that he eventually became a devoted surf fisherman.

“He never left Currumbin. He couldn’t understand why anyone would ever leave,’’ John Neumann said.

“He was a deep thinker, an innovator. He came up with some brilliant ideas. He was also a grumpy old bugger but he was cheeky and inoffensive. People didn’t take great umbrage at what he said.’’

Peter was also “definitely left of centre, like our father was’’, John Neumann said, despite the family’s extensive business interests.

Neumann would have “never ever’’ contemplated running a business on borrowed money, but conversely believed in a nation going into deficit to fund infrastructure.

In his work life, Peter Neumann the beach miner and managing director of Currumbin Minerals – which John said only ever held one lease – had specialised in reworking the mounds of tailings left behind by other mining companies incapable of extracting all the rutile, zircon and other minerals and rare earths from the leases they had mined along the east coast, from Byron Bay up to Rainbow Beach north of the Sunshine Coast.

In his career with the Neumann Group of Companies, he also became managing director of Neumann Developments and was a director on the boards of Marbordo and Sand and Gravel, was on the boards of Nucrush and Nucon until February 2009 and served on the River Sands board until February last year.

According to John and to Peter’s daughter Mardi, Neumann recognised that developers now wanting to knock down old high-rise buildings to build new residential towers and resorts would have to dig deeper for foundations and to provide multiple levels of underground car parking.

That was where opportunity lay buried – and still waits as the city goes through renewal. That was where Neumann would go. He would take the sand dug from beneath new construction projects and extract the minerals at the company’s Currumbin processing plant.

And that was what led him to the old Miami Ice site on the Gold Coast Highway, a block from the North Burleigh Surf Club.

Peter Neumann had lived and breathed the Neumann Group of Companies, with its beach-mining, steel engineering, development and sand-and-gravel operations.

When he learned the Miami Ice site was for sale, his first instinct was to have a look but he did not make any offer, since he had no way of establishing what the quality of minerals was in the sand below.

Besides, as John and Mardi said, what was left of the old iceworks building – made from two wartime army huts – was riddled with asbestos.

But the site did not sell so he returned, found out how much the owner wanted and made an offer, with a rider that the vendor would have to deal with the asbestos.

The sale went ahead but by now Neumann had a much bigger plan. The site would become a family legacy. “We’ll do our bit to pay homage to the Miami Ice icon,’’ Mardi said.

With a crane on site and work well underway, Neumann’s legacy will rise 17 floors – according to the Miami Ice website – with penthouses at the top and just two units on each level down to the ground floor, where plans include a restaurant and a tribute to the site’s history, incorporating some of the old iceworks machinery.

“It would be his final project,’’ John Neumann said.

But the apartments were not be sold. Instead they would be rented out, but whether for permanent or holiday letting – or a mix of both – has yet to be determined.

The Neumanns’ father Alfred, a cabinet maker and builder, arrived at Currumbin from Laidley in 1922. He made a living by building homes for locals and met his future wife, Kathleen, at the Currumbin hotel where she worked as a cook.

The couple wed and had five children, living the dream on Currumbin Hill. “Somehow they managed to arrange all the children three years apart,’’ John said.

“We could look out and see the surf. That was our playground.’’

Mardi chimed in: “They had five kids but were wealthy,’’ then laughed and added: “Because they had a cow … and chooks, and a vegetable garden.’’

All the children had gone to Currumbin Primary School.

“Dad would tell colourful stories,’’ Mardi said. “He had to walk so far, and the teacher would line all the boys up and they’d get a cane across the hands for all the things the teacher had missed during the day.’’

Because there was no secondary school on the Gold Coast at the time, when he was old enough Peter was sent to board in Brisbane, where he went to Brisbane State High School. He lived with the Sutherland family for four years and became lifelong mates with their son Ian, who also became a Currumbin lifesaver.

After that, Peter went to Gatton Agricultural College.

“He never really used (the diploma) with farming much, but he learned a lot of things associated with repair and maintenance of farming equipment, so he returned and joined us as a very capable person while we were in the developing stages of our business,’’ John said.

Repairing machinery grew into a passion for design and innovation.

“HE NEVER LEFT CURRUMBIN. HE COULDN’T UNDERSTAND WHY ANYONE WOULD.’’