Queenslander home crucial in global telecoms history for sale
Norikoo homestead is now located at 22 Jarema Dr, Mudgeeraba
Historic Norikoo homestead, a 120-year-old original Queenslander, is a grand dame with a big claim to fame.
Originally located in Bauer St, Southport, Norikoo formed part of a Federal Government complex known as the Trans Pacific Cable Station.
The period home was relocated to Mudgereeba after the Southport cable station was decommissioned.
The house was the largest and most imposing of three buildings that made up the complex and is believed to have been the home of the company’s general manager.
In 1902, the cable station played an integral role in the establishment of the telecommunications industry in Australia, with the transmission of the first telegraph from overseas to Sydney passing through the Bauer St complex.
The home features lots of rare red cedar.
The Pacific Telegraph Cable line continued to operate for many decades, including throughout both world wars, and became so popular that it was used to transmit most media traffic across the globe.
It has several original fireplaces.
The station closed in 1962 and Norikoo was in 1982 relocated to its current resting place in the exclusive Jabiru Estate in Mudgereeba by visionary and then owner John Kearney.
Restored over the years, it was bought in 2009 by engineer Paul Taplin who has a long-standing interest in historic houses and has lived in a few over the years, including that of former prime minister Sir Edmond Barton in Sydney.
All the doorways are red cedar.
However, Mr Taplin said Norikoo was the finest example of a Queenslander he had ever seen.
Norikoo’s doors, windows, skirting boards and architraves have been carved out of red cedar, a sought-after commodity in the 1900s, and which is non-existent in building today.
“In the late 1800s and the turn of the century, red cedar was known as ‘red gold’ because it was so valuable and sought after by buyers in England. There just aren’t any Queenslanders still standing with this amount of red cedar in them that hasn’t been painted over,” Mr Taplin said.
Norikoo was the home of the cable station’s general manager.
“It is a very rare, beautiful, old historic Queenslander.”
Other period features of this five-bedroom family home include original wood fireplaces, double-hung sash windows, wide skirting boards, picture rails, ornate timber cornices, ceiling rosettes, four-panel doors with fanlight windows, and polished timber floors.
And it just wouldn’t be a Queenslander without the signature wide verandas, which hug several lengths of the home.
The home has been immaculately restored.
With work commitments leading Mr Taplin to spend more time interstate and less time at his Gold Coast property, he has decided to put it on the market.
“I had the good fortune of being able to live in this rare find, but now it’s someone else’s turn to enjoy it,” he said.
The property is being marketed through Katrina Walsh of Harcourts Coastal and is going to auction on February 16 at 11am.
It has a full-sized tennis court.