ISLAND OF PURE WONDER
How a sandbank on the Nerang River was reshaped to become one of the Gold Coast’s most exclusive enclaves
IT doesn’t get any more exclusive than this enclave in the centre of the Nerang River. Less than 40 houses sit on Cronin Island, the man-man offshoot of Chevron Island, making its mansions among the most prized real estate in the entire city.
While less-known than Hedges Ave, the famous “millionaire’s row”, Cronin Island’s Southern Cross Dr has quietly made a name for itself as the home to some of the city’s most expensive properties and biggest sales of recent years.
In June 2021, No.16 Southern Cross Drive sold for $7.3m while No.17 sold a month later for $8.9m.
Another, the six-bedroom No.14, has been on the market for more than two years and has an asking price of more than $13.75m.
It’s the latest chapter in the tale of an enclave which has been home to some of the Gold Coast’s richest and most powerful people, as well as the scene of a key business figure’s very public downfall.
The story of Cronin Island dates back to nearly a decade before it was constructed to the creation of its neighbour – Chevron Island.
Chevron Island was the dream of developer Stanley Korman who, in 1957, snapped up Wedgewood Island, a sliver of land to the west of Surfers Paradise and built what is today known as Paradise Island. After finding success, he set his eyes on Goat Island, a small piece of land in the middle of the Nerang River which real estate kingpin Laurie Wall sold to him.
More than 400 people attended the development’s opening in March 1960.
By the late 1960s, Chevron Island had some of the most highly prized real estate, though its streets were still relatively sparse of houses.
Aerial photos from the era show the future Cronin Island unconnected to Chevron Island and untouched by development.
But it didn’t last for long and, with the opportunity for more real estate, it was bought by developer Hooker Rex which began selling its 39 lots in 1969.
It was the same year that the company began to develop the nearby Paradise Waters precinct.
Prices for the south-facing canal blocks were $10,000 to $12,000, with the eastern and western-facing river blocks selling for $16,000 to $18,000.
The north-facing sites were the most expensive, priced at $18,000 to $20,0000
Real estate agent Tony Hancock, who was operating in Surfers Paradise during the late 1960s, said there were few takers.
“I tried to convince many of my old customers to buy,” he told the Bulletin in 2001.
“They’re now kicking themselves because they didn’t.”
Through the 1970s and 1980s, Cronin Island became a semi-secret base for rich-lis
ters. It made history with the first $1m sale on the Gold Coast, in 1985. The property went for $1,015,000.
Among those were developer John Bartlett, who was one of Queensland’s richest men in the 1980s.
The man behind some of Nerang’s biggest developments and the famous Bartlett’s Liquor Barn, a popular riverside pub, put his house on the market in late 1985.
Rod Roberts, of PRD Realty, said that the house could break Gold Coast price barriers if sold.
“As far as I know, no one has ever paid $1.5 million for a home on the Gold Coast but
this is one of the best in the area,’’ he said.
The mansion successfully sold for $1.35m to Japanese developer Shuji Yokoyama, president of Daikyo Kanko, who built the Palm Meadows precinct at Carrara.
By late 1987, Cronin Island was rapidly becoming popular with buyers, as values skyrocketed on the back of a “drastic” shortage of land.
Max Christmas Real Estate figures showed prices in the enclave had shot up 75 per cent in a single year.
Some of the buyers planned to demolish the existing houses in favour of building bigger mansions, similar to the wave
of mansions which replaced the Mermaid Beach shacks on Hedges Ave in the 1980s and 1990s.
Among them was the Japan-based Mr Yokoyama who demolished the Bartlett house to make way for an $8m, 2314sq m, eight-bedroom mega mansion which he planned to live in during the three months he spent on the Gold Coast each year.
Mr Yokoyama said that he chose the Cronin Island site, opposite Paradise Waters and next to Chevron Island, because it is “the best spot, the best residential area’’ on the Gold Coast.
He told media at the time that he wanted to advertise Australia to the VIPS of the world by using his mega mansion in the city.
The late 1980s weren’t all glitz and glamour at the island though.
In what shaped as quite a scandal, the Gold Coast City Council targeted an illegal brothel which was alleged to be operating inside one of the island’s houses in mid-1988.
NEXT WEEK: RISES AND FALLS ON CRONIN ISLAND.