Ode to the Original Beach House

The old Aussie beach house is a magical thing. These homes bridge the joy of new holidays, with the enchantment of summers long past and wrap it all up in salt-raw timber and the faint smell of damp. They come with cupboards full of mothballs, scratchy woolen blankets, and treasures from a lifetime spent by the ocean. What is it about these ramshackle homes that mean we forgive so much, and love them even more? How do four walls become troves of family stories and sand? 

Oh my, the sand. Whether you're at a summer spot for a night or a month, it’s bound to be everywhere. A proper beach house should embrace the beachy essence rather than fight it. Expect footprints tracked across the kitchen floor, tiny trails of grit around the bath’s plughole, and, of course, those persistent grains that always find their way into your bed, no matter how much you try to keep them out.

The first beach house I knew was in the small Victorian town of Point Lonsdale. My grandparents bought a boxy house in 1970 and began building around it, as well as on top and down the back, until it was charmingly wonky covered in shingles and filled with grass matting. Christmas lights were strung in the windows one December and never taken down. The garden held plum and peach trees, waves of nasturtiums, and the scent of the sea. I called my grandparents Buzz and Grama, and they called the house Shenzi. It held 45 years of Christmases, sunburns, BBQs, and mozzie bites before Grama sold it in 2015. I haven’t been back, as it was knocked down the next month. Which when you think about it, is the perfect way to enshrine thirty summers of rememberings.

The next beach house was ours — or at least, my mum rented it, which in beach house language is the same thing. Also in Lonnie, this house was old old, with a wide Victorian verandah under a corrugated iron roof. At ten, I didn’t realise it was a time-traveller’s TARDIS, where we bounced between 1930s beds, 1900s linoleum, and Sixties shag carpet out the back. What it didn’t have was a TV — or an inside toilet. Us kids didn’t care. Instead, we had a block the size of two tennis courts and more climbing trees than we knew what to do with. Twilight was the most special time. We’d play ‘Kick the Can’ as the sky blushed pink while Mum and her friends would stoke the barbie with eucalyptus leaves, as ice clinked in their G&Ts. The heat of the day still lingered in the ground as we raced around the yard, with the rattling of the gumnut-filled can skidding across the dirt would be followed by whoops and bellows. This house wasn’t knocked down, but I’ve never gone back. Which means these memories remain preserved.

Then there are the rentals of the past ten years. My little family and I love opening the door, wondering which version of summertime will greet us. There have been disasters, yes (let’s not discuss one shady shack on the Mornington Peninsula) but there have also been some true gems. Like the tiny home beside a church so close to the sea we could pop back to use the loo. In the evening, the three of us sat at its rusted outdoor setting, eating prawns bought from the back of a boat, while the cicadas pitched in chorus. We were only there for five nights, but I still give its fence a nod each time I pass.

I know that house will go too, one day. Like all of them. And that’s okay, which is something I’ll teach my daughter as well. Because everyone says goodbye to a beach house, whether you’re handing the keys back after a week, or selling it after fifty years. Much like a great summer, a beach house is special because of its impermanence. It isn’t a home to be lived in forever —It’s a place to create forever memories, today.

~ This article was first published in Escape magazine ~