One Hundred Acres
‘I couldn’t believe that such a pristine piece of coastline still existed.’ – Ken Latona
The land on which Friendly Beaches Lodge stands made itself known to Ken Latona in 1988, via two lines in a newspaper advertising one hundred acres of land for sale on the Freycinet Peninsula. Ken recognised the incredible opportunity of acquiring a piece of coastal property on the edge of Freycinet National Park and took immediate action to purchase it.
Cradle Huts was only in its second season, and for a time the land at Friendly Beaches lay dormant. But as the business grew in popularity, Joan and Ken saw the potential of offering their guests a different taste of the Tasmania wilderness and began to formulate plans for a second accommodated walking experience on the Freycinet Peninsula.
Friendly Beaches from above
The land and location were undeniably beautiful, and Ken and Joan were conscious of creating a piece of architecture that, as Ken puts it, ‘wouldn’t do anything to interrupt the flow of the landscape.’ Spending time living at the property had helped Ken to read the site and he began to conceptualise a building that would sit within the environment, rather than intrude upon it.
The land at Friendly Beaches was cloaked in a dry sclerophyll forest of kunzea, she-oak, acacia, eucalypt, and Oyster Bay pine, and was home to diverse native animals and birds. The naturally sloping block descended towards the beach, and the coastal location meant that weather conditions would bring everything from baking summer sun to powerful winds and winter storms. The site was also adjacent to a fragile wetland system and important bird habitat at Saltwater Lagoon.
‘Nothing else like it existed,’ remembers Ken. ‘A piece of dry sclerophyll forest, on the coast, relatively close to a major capital city… and there was nobody here apart from a few occasional campers.’
An extensive process of planning and approvals began. The environmental sensitivity of the site meant that the proposed structure had to satisfy stringent planning and environmental constraints – the buildings could only be constructed on already disturbed land, the Lodge could not be visible from the public beach, no utilities could be connected to the site, and the property would need to be managed according to National Park guidelines.
Ken and Joan set themselves to the challenge and began creating a ground-breaking design that would set the benchmark for holistic, sustainable architecture in Australia.
