A WELLINGTON Point family who bought a modest waterfront property for just $22,000 in 1969 have sold it 56 years later for around $3.5 million.
The property at 1 Main Rd – home to Oxley’s on the Bay restaurant and the adjoining kiosk – has changed hands for the first time in more than half a century, marking the end of an era for the Horton/Ives family.
The site was briefly listed for sale in December 2017 with a starting price of $995,000 but was later withdrawn.
The decision to hold off proved wise – eight years later, the family achieved a sale price more than triple the 2017 asking figure, reflecting Wellington Point’s remarkable growth and the site’s prime waterfront position.
The stellar sale means the property has increased in value by about 14,445 per cent over 56 years.
Adjusted for inflation, $22,000 in 1969 is equivalent to approximately $194,260 today.
Desley Horton, along with her husband, Robert, reflected on the decades her family devoted to the waterfront business.
The kiosk and hire boat operations represented “seven days a week, year after year” of hard work.
“There was a coke stove, bore and tank water, an outside toilet, and the rats ate all the potato chips on our first night there,” Mrs Horton recalled with a laugh.
“Over the years, we’ve sold countless fish and chips and ice blocks.
“It was on the market for only a few hours before there was huge interest.
“It is an emotional time for us. But for our family, it’s not about the money.”
The Hortons bought the original building from a brother and sister in May 1969, the same year they launched a hire boat business at the Point.
“We created a hire boat business with a wooden boat that my husband built, then two wooden ones that John Anderson built,” Mrs Horton said.
“Aluminium boats later created the rest of the fleet.”
In 1972, the hire boat operation moved to what is now Reserve Esplanade, becoming Hortons Boathouse and chandlery.
Two years later, the family founded the Trafalgar Bay Sailing Club to teach local children how to sail.
“The club was created to teach children sailing,” Mrs Horton said.
“At one stage, the fleet consisted of more than 10 sabots and Flying 11s.”
The kiosk was leased from 1972 and replaced with the current building in 1979, alongside the restaurant and two units above it.
Formerly known as Point of View, the restaurant took on its current name when the Oxley family assumed the lease.
“Wellington Point has always been a part of my family,” Mrs Horton said.
“My family used to camp on the beach before the Americans came.”
Her father once maintained the bay’s navigation beacons, travelling between them in one of the hire boats – long before the lights became solar powered.
Reflecting on more than half a century of family and community life by the bay, Mrs Horton said togetherness had always been at the heart of the Horton family.
“Even today, we live near one another,” she said.
“There is so much history here and that’s what keeps us at Wellington Point.”
Since the early 1900s, this prime piece of land has hosted kiosks, bathing enclosures, and gathering spots for beachgoers and campers, shaped by local families including the Johns, Galloways and Kratzmanns.
The buyer is understood to be a local investor, with both businesses currently leased by the same tenant.
