How Aussie island's '70s-style apartments became a luxe ‘house hotel'
They're an inquisitive bunch, these Lord Howe Islanders.
In the turquoise waters off Ned's Beach, chunky kingfish and their silver drummer mates dart and dive around us, nudging our legs and beating us to small yet perfectly formed waves. Later, when snorkelling in the island's postcard lagoon, more stickybeaks arrive; a dozen or so sooty terns that form a circle centimetres above our bobbing heads.
'What are they doing?'
'Just having a look, I reckon,' our laid-back dive boat captain replies. But even he shakes his head when a wayward squid hits the deck after making a giant leap for squidkind from the watery depths.
The fact that this World Heritage-listed island's birds and much of its sea life are protected may partly explain why the wildlife here seems so, well, in your face.
Or maybe shrinking violets just don't make the evolutionary cut in a place as ruggedly beautiful as this coral-ringed dot halfway between Australia and New Zealand that's also home to the broodingly formidable Mount Gower; giant banyan trees in the evocatively named Valley of the Shadows; and the ancient oddball that is Ball's Pyramid, the world's tallest sea stack that juts out of the water like a dark claw. It's the sole haven for another long-term islander, the Lord Howe Island stick insect, or 'tree lobster', rediscovered in 2001, long after being presumed extinct.
Lord Howe's dominant traits of stoicism and beauty have long fascinated islander Tim Maxwell. So when he and his father, Michael, debated over many chats – 'we needed to get this right' – how to transform their '70s-style apartments near Ned's Beach into a standout retreat, they took clues from the island itself.
'We weren't interested in a building that would eventually need updating,' says Tim. 'We wanted to create something solid, timeless and of enduring beauty and quality that would be here for future generations to enjoy.'
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