FAMILY ENDS 100-YEAR ERA
THE Busby family once owned all of the Tugun beachfront and would spend two weeks travelling by horse and cart from Toowoomba for summer holidays. At the weekend they sold the last two blocks for a combined $5.2 million. “Surfers Paradise and Burleigh were paddocks,” said Col Busby, whose great uncle Herbert started the family buying spree in the 1920s.
THE Busby family once owned all of the Tugun beachfront. At the weekend they sold the last two blocks for a combined $5.215 million.
The properties at 628 and 630 Pacific Parade are today surrounded by large palatial homes.
It is nothing like what it was in the 1920s when Herbert Busby bought from Flat Rock to Wagawn St and back to the foot of the Tugun hill.
His great nephew Col Busby, who sold the last two blocks on Saturday, said back then it was a paddock with horses.
He said it took the family two weeks of horse and cart travel from Toowoomba to use their beachside holiday home.
“Surfers Paradise and Burleigh were paddocks,” Mr Busby said. “It was amazing just how little there was between those two areas.”
When Col’s father was growing up Herbert started divvying up the land, handing portions to other family members, and two parcels to the Catholic and Baptist churches.
“There were a lot of vacant blocks all along the front from my first memories of the area,” said Mr Busby, now in his 70s.
He remembers spending eight hours a day in the water, lathering olive oil on himself to tan more when sunscreen was not used, and wearing “budgie smugglers” that were much larger than modern standards with a “modesty skirt’ at the front.
Despite the sentimental value of the properties, Mr Busby said the land tax on homes worth as much made it unsustainable to keep them in their current form.
Ray White agent Troy Dowker said the properties were bought by two groups.
“The majority of groups were interested in both of the properties,” Mr Dowker said.
One of the buyers plans to redevelop a beachfront home while the other was unsure what he would do, he said.