Wollstonecraft home of Ted Hopkins, the late Mr Luna Park listed
The late Ted Hopkins, was an electrician at Adelaide's Glenelg fun park in 1930 when he was given the job of dismantling the rollercoaster and bringing it by barge up to Milsons Point, Sydney where, in 1935, Luna Park was established.
His former Wollstonecraft home, not far from Luna Park, is now on the market having been in the family for 75 years.
The cottage on 800 square metres at 15 Milner Crescent has been listed through Danny Grant of Ray White Lower North Shore with $1.7 million price hopes.
“He chose this house so he could be close to his work and his family has stayed here for three quarters of a century,” Grant said ahead of its 9 November auction.
Hopkins was at Luna Park until 1969, when Leon Fink took over.
He become park manager in 1957 after the death of the original manager, David Atkins.
Luna Park opened on 4 October, 1935, just as the Great Depression was lifting, on the site used by contractors who built the Harbour Bridge.
The 1896 Gavioli organ was bought in 1950, around the time the aging Phillips brothers from America sold Luna Park to Hopkins and Atkins.
"It was my life," he said in 1989 about one of the most famous landmarks in Sydney.
Every winter, when the park closed for maintenance, Hopkins would head overseas to buy a new ride.
