Phone Enquiry ID: 35263

This is the dream Tony Muguira has lived for 23 years, and this is the story of how he came to build this home with 200-degree views of the Coral Sea on the northern edge of Dolphin Heads, QLD. But 24 years ago, his family and friends thought he was a bit crazy, and I’ll get to that story after a brief description of the home.
Located at 70 Admiral Drive, this architect-designed home feels open and spacious, inviting you to follow the breeze and the views out onto the 56 sqm deep-covered balcony overlooking the Coral Sea and the southern Whitsunday Islands. The living areas stretch across one, upper level and include a modern kitchen, office, formal and informal lounge areas, three bathrooms and four bedrooms. The ground-floor level houses a 2-car garage and a separate one-bedroom apartment with its own kitchen, shower and laundry. Behind the home a curving swimming pool is gracefully set among tropical gardens.
With a porthole near the entryway and the open lounge area stretching onto the deep-sun-protected balcony and Coral Sea down below, it feels for all the world like a cruise ship that never leaves land and offers the comforts of home with all the nearby amenities that come with living near the city of Mackay–Caneland shopping centre, fine restaurants, movie theatres, and the Mackay Entertainment and Convention Centre. Tony had this dream of building a home right on the water, and he wanted conditions to be ideal. He searched for two years before finding this rugged 1,504 sqm lot with property rights extending to the high tide. When his friends and family found out how much he paid for this weed-and-rock-filled lot–enough to buy an average home anywhere else in Mackay–they said he had gone mad. Then he had to pay an excavating company thousands more to remove tons of rock, dirt, weeds and trees to create a level place to build a house.
But choose wisely, he did. If you look at a map, you will see that the Australian shoreline angles off to the west all the way up to Cape York, creating nothing but open water and gorgeous views of the Coral Sea for this north-facing property. Because the house faces north, you can see both the sunrise and the sunset from the balcony–especially in the winter when the angles of the sun are just right. In addition, because the property faces north, it is naturally sheltered by hills to the east and southeast, blocking the strong south-easterly winds that buffet hilltop homes overlooking the open ocean to the east. And while these stronger winds are blocked, beautiful breezes still circulate, creating natural air conditioning especially in the beautiful winter months, May through October.
This is a nature outpost where you can witness the Coral Sea with its many moods throughout the day and through the seasons of the year. It is an ever-changing spectacle abundant with fish and seabirds such as cormorants, darters, sooty oystercatchers, and crested terns. Occasionally dolphins swim by, and every September humpback whales arrive in the waters between Dolphin Heads and Brampton Island, often providing spectacular views even to those standing on the beach. Every spring the mackerel run, chasing bait fish to the surface while crested terns swirl overhead, feasting on the fish leaping from the water. It’s a spectacular sight.
Birders enjoy photographing the cormorants, crested terns, and darters that feed along the beaches. In the lush open spaces, they find cockatoos, corellas, galahs, kookaburras, and plumed whistling ducks. In the night or just before dawn, the startling cry of the eastern curlew occasionally pierces the dark.
Popular water sports here include fishing, kayaking, paddle boarding, outrigger canoes, and sailing. This creates a quiet waterfront experience where the dominant sounds are those of the wind and waves. Occasionally a motorized boat will pass by, but this is a rare sight in this quiet community. For those wanting to enjoy motorized boating, the Eimeo boat ramp is just 2 km around the bend.
Tony and the Architect: The Vision
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Next Tony needed a design and approached Architect Larry Sanders of Sanders, Ellick & Partners. He told Larry to design a modern home that would be spacious, open, and conducive to indoor-outdoor living–a family-oriented home centered around a spacious kitchen with a large island and granite benchtops. He also asked him to design a home that would offer privacy–quiet and sheltered from the public eye. Larry set about designing the ideal home for this location–strong yet graceful, sparing no expense when it came to details. The pitch of the roof is set at the ideal angle to weather storms. The sheltered area outside the front door is large to provide shelter to guests coming and going. The overhang around the covered balcony extends out to provide maximum protection from rain and sun. The foundations are sunk down to bedrock. The house itself was built using hardwood timber, steel-reinforced concrete and was finished with Granosite.
One day after the stakes marking the corners of the house had been driven into the ground, Tony stopped by to see the progress. To his surprise and even a bit of shock, the house layout had been rotated 1.5 meters clockwise. Tony went to the architect and said, “Larry, what’s up with this? The house has been rotated on the property and you didn’t even ask me.” Larry smiled with a twinkle in his eye. “I’m sorry, Tony, but I knew it was the right thing to do. I’ve turned the house to face true north, and it gives you just a bit more privacy from the road and neighbours to the west.” Tony laughs to tell the story now. “I’m so glad he did that,” Tony says. “He was right of course.”
In this way, an inspiration became an architect’s vision became a builder’s reality, and Tony moved in with his wife and baby daughter, Katrina. Soon daughter Sarah was born, and the girls brought life, love and laughter to this beautiful home. They thrived in local schools and spent hot summer days in the pool. Now, somehow, 23 years have passed, and both daughters have travelled south to Brisbane to attend university.
Passing the Mantle
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To everything there is a season, Tony observes. “There was a time when I wanted nothing more than to live here in this house by the sea,” he says. “Now that my daughters are gone, there isn’t much holding me here. It’s time to pass this home on to someone who will love it as much as we have.”
Tony’s eyes rest on the sea, and he knows he will miss this view he’s enjoyed for so many years. He speculates on who will own this home next: “Maybe it will be a family with young children. Or maybe it will be a retired couple who would love to have a place in the sun where friends and family will visit often. This house was made for people. It was built for family.”