Originally hand-built by fishermen around the 1930s, the shack was an early ‘refuge’ for fishermen camping with their families at Palm Beach on the site that is now Palm Beach Golf Course.

To ‘find’ the big fish (and ‘escape’ their wives and children), the men would row across Pittwater to fish the deep hole in the middle of the bay. To make their fishing trips more comfortable, they built the original tiny shack by hand, using local timber and sandstone from the site. It was later extended to ‘welcome’ the fishermen’s families with the addition of a kitchen, sandstone bathroom and a small sandstone storage shed with a toilet.

After admiring the shack for over 20 years during our many boating trips on Pittwater, in 2013 we noticed the shack was for sale. After one look (and despite it’s poor condition), we were ‘hooked’. A few days later we were the lucky new owners of the shack after we bought it from the granddaughter (then in her 70’s) of the original owner.

More than 80 years of exposure to the elements and termites had taken their toll. Nothing that 18 months of hard work recycling, repurposing, reusing and rebuilding couldn't fix. After boating in tons of building materials and carrying them up to the site by hand, our family, along with the help of an environmentally conscious builder, completely restored the shack.

Whilst it’s one of the smallest houses here, the shack sits on one of the largest parcels of land.

The extra wide water frontage stretches from the water’s edge some 70m up through the bush to the top of the ridge and Ku-ring-Gai Chase National Park behind.