Conservationist Vincent Serventy's Pearl Beach home Creek Cottage sold
Creek Cottage, the Pearl Beach home of the late conservationist Vincent Serventy and his wife Carol, has been sold for $1.4 million.
The Serventy’s, who 30 years ago helped save the Great Barrier Reef from planned oil leases, bought the NSW Central Coast weekender in the mid-1970s for $22,000, moving there permanently in the 1990s from Hunters Hill. It came to the market earlier this year with $1.5 million hopes through Central Coast Realty agent Stuart Gan, but sold after the price guidance dipped to $1.35 million to $1.45 million.
Set on Diamond Rd, the four-bedroom home is 100 paces from the popular beach.
The home, described as a “once in a generation opportunity” is among the 12 sales secured so far this year among the 680 Pearl Beach houses.
The dearest was when Rebel Sports co-founder Robert Gavshon and his wife Jennifer pocketed $2.05 million for their weekender of the past decade. The Dover Heights-based couple upgraded last year to a $4.428 million house on the beach.
Serventy, known as father of conservation in Australia, died aged 91 in 2007.
Long before Steve Irwin, he spent almost seven decades as a lobbyist, writer, filmmaker and lecturer. He wrote more than 70 books, articles and lectures on conservation being in the forefront of battles that saved the Great Barrier Reef, the Franklin River, the northern hairy-nosed wombat and even the migratory wading birds of Botany Bay.
It was in the 1960s when Serventy wrote to then Nine Network boss Sir Frank Packer with a documentary suggestion.
Packer relocated Serventy and his wife to Sydney, bought them a four-wheel-drive and a caravan and Nature Walkabout, Australian television’s first environment program, was aired. He also wrote for The Daily Telegraph.
Serventy’s brother Dominic was a journalist who turned ornithologist and conservationist, co-founding the Western Australian Naturalists’ Club in 1924.
This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.