Locals and tourists to Lake Illawarra would all be familiar with the historic two-storey California Guest House at Reddall Parade. It’s unlike any other building in the street.
This impressive edifice was the brainchild of Mr Albert Orange. Albert and his business partner Gunthorpe set up the Rural Land Company, and in 1927 bought 103 acres of land at Oak Flats from the Clout brothers. It included everything between Government and Leamington Roads at Oak Flats today.
In those days Oak Flats was just that; flats full of oaks and not much else. The land had mostly been used as a run for cattle, with the odd ‘holiday house’ on the lake foreshore. Many investors from all across the state purchased building blocks at the first land sale at Oak Flats in 1925, with a view to one day building a holiday home or permanent home on the shores of beautiful Lake Illawarra.
Of course, then the Depression hit. Some owners had to sell, some had to settle for living in tents or primitive shanties. They survived somehow off fish caught in the lake, and by trapping rabbits.
In 1927, with no crystal ball, and no idea of the future stock market crash that would instigate the Great Depression, Albert set about his plans. He had high hopes for his Panorama Estate, the name he gave to the land bought from the Clouts. He surveyed and released blocks for private sale.
The holiday season in 1927 saw over 2000 holidaymakers camped on the shores at Lake South. At night, crowds would gather with flare lamps and lanterns to go in search of delicious lake prawns that could be scooped out with a bucket.
The sand hills at the lake were up to 70 feet high, depending on the winds. Locals and tourists would spend hours skiing down the sand hills on cardboard or Masonite off-cuts. In later years, some of that sand was used as infill during the construction of the steelworks.
Albert had the idea that Oak Flats would become a tourist mecca. In 1929, to cash in on the bumper tourist trade, he built a two-storey guest house on the lake foreshore, on what is today The Esplanade. He called it Illawarra House. It offered sumptuous furnishings, modern bathrooms, lounges and a music room, a radio player, gramophone and excellent meals.
To accommodate the hundreds of visitors he expected to stay, he commissioned a ferry to transport travellers to and from the railway station at Albion Park Rail. The Lady Albion was a 36ft, 70-passenger ferry built at Albert’s request at Middle Harbour, Sydney. The Lady Albion was registered through a firm Albert established, the Illawarra Ferry Company, and it was captained by William Green of Albion Park.
Holidaymakers who arrived at Albion Park Rail by steam train could hop aboard the Lady Albion from the Koona Bay wharf, and be ferried across the lake to Oak Flats. Albert constructed another jetty adjacent to his Illawarra House to offload the passengers. The foundations of this jetty can still be seen today. The Lady Albion took passengers on tours and excursions around the lake, visiting the lake entrance and Gooseberry Island, which at the time housed a dance hall.
Those carefree years all changed with the onset of the Great Depression in the 1930s. Albert was forced to sell his Illawarra House.
The Chambers family purchased it in 1936. They had come to Lake Illawarra in 1932 to operate a bakery that had come up for sale in Reddall Parade. All bread was made by hand and baked in a wood oven. Deliveries were three times a week to Albion Park, Marshall Mount and Oak Flats.
Tom Chambers had local man Jack Day dismantle the Illawarra House at Oak Flats, transport it in pieces to its new home at Reddall Parade, and rebuild it. Tom and Beulah renamed it the California Guest House.
The guest house today is a private residence. On the floor inside you can see where it was cut in half for transport in 1936. The wall in what was the common area is littered with holes created by flying darts that missed their mark, probably after too many beers.
At Oak Flats, Albert tried to sell his Panorama Estate blocks. Land sales were slow. Unemployed men squatted with their families in tents and rough dwellings made from old fruit boxes covered with hessian and a thin coat of sand and cement.
There are few reminders of Albert’s time at Oak Flats; the crumbling jetty foundations near the original site of the Illawarra Guesthouse, and four streets in Oak Flats that lie on part of the original Panorama Estate; Malin Road, named after his wife Nellie’s family, and David, Gordon and Eleanor Avenues, named after their three children.
To find about more about the history of Shellharbour City, visit Shellharbour City Museum’s online platform, discovershellharbour.recollect.net.au
