I find myself standing in the lounge of this cute stone and mud cottage and thinking of all the people that have sat before the diminutive fire place just a stone’s throw from the sand of the secretly popular Myponga Beach. They have all listened to same sounds of the waves clearly present for me today and shared the tang of seaweed, sea and salt on the breeze as it pushes the curtain. As children they played, fished and swam and its ever the same still.
Back in 1854 the two brothers Hewett commenced to build on this site completing the dwelling around 1856, four years before the Jetty was built which was opened with great fanfare in February 1860. When one of the two, the enterprising Heber Hewett won the mail contract in 1867 he used a room of the cottage as the Myponga Beach Post Office. He had his Father’s wanderlust it seems; the elder Hewett had ventured from Devon to McLaren Vale and onto Myponga Beach by circa 1853, the two young brothers Eldad and Heber, tousle haired boys following along; Heber sold the dwelling and left the area for Port Pirie in ’72 with a family of his own.
In 1870 the purchasers Thomas Stacey and his wife Betsey became the proud new owners of this piece of a growing state. The cottage an important place in the Myponga Beach community was held by the family till just after 1955 when Betsy Stacey passed and left it to her two Daughters who themselves sold to Rex and Lillian Hall just a few months later. Lillian spent what to many is a lifetime in happy ownership. Surviving Rex she is a wonderful example of what it is to gracefully accept advancing age and the experience it brings and she has decided it is time for her turn at the stewardship of her cottage in its quiet cove to come to an end after 57 years.

Rarely do I find a better history of ownership than with this lovely cottage nestled in a truly special little nook of a bay on the Gulf Saint Vincent less than an hour from Adelaide. Not only has it survived, it remains in use after some 157 years or so. Oh yes the stout little cottage has seen some additions come and go and the Myponga jetty much lauded at the time has itself come and gone but here the cottage stands, living proof of those early years in our state for you to share. You can now take up the staff of ownership and continue with the work first commenced by two young men who, no doubt with thought and a sense of progress placed the first stone on the earth in this very spot. Perhaps you will see something else in the site, the choice is yours and a wonderful site it is but its history will remain.
Of five main rooms the cottage consists of a cement block, eat in Kitchen added in Lillian’s early time there, and the four original rooms variously used as post office and home but more recently a lounge and three bedrooms. A garage and a bathroom complete the layout. There is a crack or two, mere wrinkles on the face of almost a hundred and sixty years of life and love but the walls stand stout, the roof keeps all within dry and it remains a happy family retreat from the city with the ever present beach and it’s waves to this very day.
Adjoining vacant block is now sold, dont miss this last chance for the cottage! Offers Invited & Inspection is strictly by appointment with the sole agent First National Copley, phone Jeff on 0407 606 746 or Gail on 0407 77 33 99.