HOLIDAY LAND FOR THE WORKING MAN
In 1963, Brisbane plumber Neil Victorsen forked out $700 for a block of land so he could build his dream holiday home at Palm Beach - next weekend, his family say goodbye to their holiday castle
IT was the credit squeeze of the 1960s when developers on the Gold Coast began slashing prices and offering “holiday land for the working man”.
It was an era in land prices that gave no second chances to speculating buyers, a time when blocks of land were going like hot cakes – for as little as $100 from Paradise Point to Palm Beach.
The Gold Coast in the 1960s was a special time and place and Brisbane plumber Neil Victorsen had dreamt of owning a slice of paradise since he first set eyes on the Gold Coast in the 1940s.
Regularly travelling to the shoreline with his family, Mr Victorsen said it was in his blood to build a home in the southern part of the Coast.
And in 1962, The Truth newspaper in Brisbane advertised “holiday homes for the working man” with terms of purchase offering £50 deposit with an interest rate of 5 per cent, a price half of the pre-credit squeeze value or “whatever deposit suits you”.
So the plumber from Coorparoo became the proud owner of 69, Twenty-Sixth Avenue in 1963 and has never looked back – until now.
A labour-of-love and worth all its salt, the family’s holiday home will go under the hammer next Saturday.
Now 82 and ready to part ways with his home, Mr Victorsen said he was one of many who lived in Brisbane and spent his weekends with his family on the Coast.
“We were dedicated to building the house so we never travelled anywhere but to Palm Beach after buying it and during the 10 years we spent building it,” he said.
The three-bedroom, twobathroom home remains on its original 622sq m block at the northern end of Palm Beach – not a brick out of place. “We used to go down every single weekend and spend time building it, with any spare cash we had,” he said.
“The decision to purchase the land at Palm Beach was something my wife Bev and I never regretted.
“At the time it seemed like a lot because Bev and I were still setting ourselves up in life but we knew $700 for a block in Palm Beach was too great to miss.
“We heard years later, that the developer, Laurie Wall, was in financial difficulties and had exchanged the land development at Palm Beach for a large apartment building in Surfers Paradise.”
During the decades spent at Palm Beach, the father-of-two recalled disappearing before first light to catch the tides for fishing, returning to work on the house before heading off for a second fish in the evening.
“I was up before the kids and the last one in bed and it became a regular routine,” he said.
“It was a real art form fishing off Burleigh rock because you would get your line caught on the rocks and lose your bait.”
Five years after the initial purchase, Mr Victorsen poured the footings and two years later he put down the main floor.
These were the first steps towards the Palm Beach holiday home.
Mr Victorsen who has rented his handmade holiday home out for the past 15 years, is now taking offers for $500,000 and over.
“We had no idea the area would develop as it has,” he said.
“It was mostly a residential estate when we finished building.
“We had originally planned to build a fibro shack but our neighbours were putting up brick homes.”
The kitchen dining area had a table eight foot long with bench seats that became a tight fit during Christmas lunch.
“We would spend the school holidays at the holiday house and would have all the family over,” he said.
Mr Victorsen said when he first began building he could see across to Currumbin and said there was barely a house in sight.
“It was two lanes to the Gold Coast and there were only four other houses in Palm Beach at the time,” he said.
“Most of the people building there were doing it for the same reason we were, as a holiday house on the weekend.”
Gold Coast historical society spokesman Bob Nancarrow, 72, said Palm Beach was the poor cousin of Burleigh and was overlooked for its swamps and railway that ran through the middle of it.
“The line ran from Ernest
IT WAS TWO LANES TO THE GOLD COAST AND THERE WERE ONLY FOUR OTHER HOUSES IN PALM BEACH