TWO OLD LADIES IN BONDI

Who are these old ladies and what binds them together? The first one, a fixture of renown at Bondi, is a gracious old art deco building, the Bondi Beach Astra Retirement Village, or as she is known locally, just The Astra; the other is myself, an elderly pensioner, resident in this prestigious building. Only a decade separates our ages. So how had our lives become entwined?

On migrating to Sydney from Queensland over 60 years ago, I had initially settled at Bondi and other surrounding Eastern suburbs. But subsequently navigating my life through marriage, motherhood and after-dramas in the outer suburbs, I had never dreamed I would be returning to Bondi to spend my twilight years. However, in a maze of unexpected events and surprises, life’s twists and turns upended my suburban domesticity and drew me ever closer to the city.

And so, in the process of downsizing yet again, I, the elderly pensioner, had stumbled across an unpretentious advertisement in a real estate ‘for sale’ column in the Sydney Morning Herald, which in those days was still a hallowed broadsheet. One item in this column was a unit in this building, the Astra, situated right opposite Bondi Beach. The price seemed ridiculously low, in the $375,000 range. I scanned it again, and wondered why I, who in my younger days had shared a flat at Bondi with two schoolteachers from the Isle of Man, had never heard of this complex. But as I tracked its history, I discovered that in those days the Astra was a hotel, admittedly falling into disrepute, a far cry from its present status as a retirement village.

What I didn’t realise was that, as such, a deferred management fee, payable on exit from the property, accounted for the depressed purchase price. But under the terms of my contract, it was still a bargain in an ideal location.

Inspecting the unit, I stepped through the door into a light-filled space, with two big picture windows framing views of the ocean extending to Tamarama. Let me say, that en route to this inspection I had succumbed to the temptation of buying a pair of shoes. Would you believe, it took me longer to buy the shoes than to snap up this unit which is now my home? My family and friends all approved of my latest venture into real estate. When my younger daughter first visited she said, ‘Mum, if I lived here I would sit beside these windows all the time’.

So these two old ladies, the Astra and I, bonded immediately and have remained inseparable ever since.

As I delved into the history of this grand old Art Deco dame, I discovered that we shared some similar memories of the human propensity to fall by the wayside.

Some years previously, with an urgent need to earn a living, I had catapulted from a bland suburban environment into a career in the criminal justice system, specifically, the NSW Department of Corrective Services. This collision with what, hitherto in my life, had been an alien community, quickly embellished my newly acquired university degree with a more dubious underbelly.

Similarly, the other old lady, the Astra, had also navigated many changes which, skittering at times on the edge of respectability, belied her elegant, imposing exterior. Indeed, her transformation from a classy hotel to a retirement village tracks a turbulent history that frequently plunged into murky recesses of human villainy. And even now, in the rosy bliss of her latest revival as a retirement village, the Astra still rumbles with petty internal disruptions that blight her semblance of harmony. But even more ominous are the constant external threats emanating from the rapacious tentacles of property developers who view this haven for retirees as an obstruction to lucrative financial deals.

‘That’s where Dad used to take us on Sundays to learn how to eat out’, my friend who had grown up at Bondi, exclaimed. In past times the Astra had been a social magnet for all comers, including newlyweds: ‘Oh, that’s where we spent the first night of our honeymoon’, a woman confided at an elite North Shore club when I was a speaker there. And locals upgraded their Sunday dinner to dine in its restaurant.

It transpires that this Bondi icon had risen like a phoenix from the rubble of an establishment of extremely doubtful reputation. And from time to time in subsequent years, in spite of her many transformations, her reputation had demonstrated a penchant for relapsing into the rubble. and rabble?

Located opposite the beach, the Astra stands on the site of the first building that overlooked the southern end of Bondi Beach, the Cliff House Hotel. Originally build circa 1880, this hotel was demolished in 1922, following a series of events not deemed respectable for Bondi, which was then striving to promote itself as an up-and-coming destination.

Trove website catalogues its fall from respectability: breaches of the Liquor Act; an infamous riot occurring at a Dance Hall opposite resulting in many black eyes (the founding musician lived at the Cliff); a charge of murder, the result of a struggle between two men, the act subsequently deemed accidental; incidents ascribed to hotel residents, such as deaths, which, although not suspicious in themselves, contributed to further macabre speculation and another resident was deemed bankrupt. All in all, not a squeaky-clean image. To counteract this unsavoury reputation shrouding Bondi Beach, an application was lodged to establish the Bondi Hotel, with locals asserting that they could not ask middle-class persons to go to the Cliff House Hotel, which was ultimately consigned to demolition.

Seven years after the demise of the Cliff, a new building in the European style, The International Hotel, was built on the site. With a roof garden, a ballroom and a palm court where an orchestra played, this classy hotel was a favourite with locals and country visitors. But sadly, the high price tag of its development sent the then owner spiralling into bankruptcy, when the world plummeted into the Great Depression.

In 1937 another family, the Oldfields, took control of the hotel, naming it the Astra, and under their stewardship it flourished. These were the glory days when the Astra was up there with the Hotel Australia, Ushers and the old Wentworth, Sydney’s finest destinations.

For a brief time during the Second World War, the building was commandeered by the Government for the Air Force and British Wrens. One of these Wrens, leading Wren Radio Mechanic Dinah C. Weston, kept a diary which a descendant has made available to the Astra. Much of the diary from August 1945 until January 1946, is devoted to recording the trials of their journey by ship to and from Australia.

Dinah has included a photograph of The Oldfields Hotel Astra, describing their accommodation as ‘wizard quarters’ that overlooked lovely Bondi Beach. In fact, it appears they spent little time in their quarters, which were really just a base for their stay in Sydney. Employed at a radio workshop in Leichhardt, they endured rattly tram rides on the old toast-rack trams. However, their days off and leaves were spent exploring as much of the country as possible. By the time she returned to the United Kingdom in January 1946, Dinah had enjoyed a fantastic working holiday while billeted at the Astra.

After the War, the Astra’s life as a social magnet resumed. In 1959, starring an international cast, the film, Summer of the Seventeenth Doll, was shot in parts of the Astra. Anne Baxter, one of the stars, appeared in her role as a barmaid in the beer garden.

Just to spice up its location, my unit is situated in the old beer garden, where scenes from the film were shot. Respectfully, I observed a minute’s silence when Ernest Borgnine, the male Hollywood lead, died.

In 1967 the Astra was sold, and it again changed hands in 1973. It was then that her reputation began to slither down into the rubble of her Cliff House Hotel genesis. Council was getting complaints that hotel patrons were disturbing the peace of the neighbourhood. Harmonious orchestral music was replaced by the loud rhythm of rock bands. Rumours of drug dealings shrouded her in questionable activities. Bondi was awash with immigrants from the Cook Islands and the Land of the Great White Cloud, and eventually, in 1982, the owner applied to Council to convert the old girl into an apartment block.

Ultimately, council approval was given to convert the Astra into a retirement village with strata apartments, zoning the land for occupancy by over 55s. In preparation for this transformation, the contents and fittings of the old hotel were auctioned in March 1983 and in 1984 the Bondi Beach Astra Retirement Village was officially opened by the then Premier. She became one of the first strata retirement villages in the state.

And to preserve her elegance, Council declared that her facade be heritage listed.

And yes, we two oldies are still in league today.