Historic Kangaroo Island beachfront holiday home Rocky Point listed

Historic Kangaroo Island beachfront holiday home Rocky Point listed
Staff ReporterDecember 7, 2020

Rocky Point, a Kangaroo Island home, has been listed for sale for the first time in over a century.

Rocky Point has been in the hands of the wealthy pastoralist Dutton family since 1918.

They've hung on to the six bedroom home for five generations.

Over that time the home and its Mad Mile Track location, dissecting seven kilometres of white sandy beach, has inspired a number of renowned artists and authors to create some of their best works.

The likes of artists John Olsen, Arthur Boyd and Sir Russell Drysdale, as well as writers such as Patrick White, Alan Moorehead, David Malouf and Robert Hughes have written in the visitor book over the years.

Rocky Point was even stayed in by Princess Diana's father, The Earl of Spencer.

Australian poet David Campbell wrote about Rocky Point.

"A house that Paul Cezanne would love, set on a limestone cliff above, on the white beaches and the sea, blue days in careless reverie go by. Like Greeks we fish for food”

Many locals refer Rocky Point as Government House due to the number of Vice Regal parties held at the property.

It was in the early 1900s when prominent South Australian Supreme Court Justice sir John Gordon visited the untouched stretch of coastline off Adelaide's south coast.

He commissioned the limestone clifftop retreat which went on to become the first holiday home built on Kangaroo Island.

He saw Kangaroo Island's potential as a private and secluded getaway, a place to do nothing, or something.

The home with pavilion-style living features stone walls that keep the house cool in summer and warm in winter.

Rocky Point spans 365 metres of rare beach and clifftop frontage all the way down to the high tide mark.

Klemich Real Estate agents Oren Klemich and Penny Riggs are marketing Rocky Point with planning approval to extend the home.

This article first appeared in The Weekend Australian. 

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