East Point Rd time capsule going under the hammer
The home at 114 East Point Rd, Fannie Bay. Picture: Supplied
A slice of Darwin’s golden mile is going to auction on Saturday, with an iconic Fannie Bay home hitting the market for the first time since it was built 75 years ago.
Selling agent Tony O’Neill of Property Shop Darwin said the home at 114 East Point Rd was a true rarity in the Top End market.
“There are only seven block (along this section of East Point Rd) with dual frontage and there hasn’t been one on the market for the last 22 years,” he said.
“When homes do sell, they normally sell off market.
“To get one on the market is unique.”
The 1340 sqm block has a 39m frontage on East Point Rd, 29m frontage on East Point Rd, a spacious house with plenty of character, a granny flat and just one neighbour.
The property was the family home of William and Darwina Fong, and their five children, Sandra, Des, Lance, Carlene and Bonita.
William was born around Katherine in 1921 and passed away in 2002 while Darwina was born in Darwin in 1930 and passed away last year.
The home at 114 East Point Rd, Fannie Bay.
The home has plenty of retro character. Picture: Supplied
Lance Fong said his father was working for his family’s soft drink factory when he asked the Territory surveyor, a regular customer, when land would be available at East Point.
“The surveyor came back a couple of weeks later and said ‘where do you want this block and I’ll cut it off for you’,” Mr Fong said.
“It was all scrub back then, so he had to clear it himself.
“Dad was wanting to get married to Mum and move onto the block, but Mum was too smart for that.
“She said, ‘there’s no way – you finish the house and then we get married’.”
Mr Fong said his father was just an everyday worker, but he built a sprawling family home, making the blocks himself from beach sand and gravel he acquired from the side of the Stuart Highway.
“Dad would borrow a ute and collect the gravel and beach sand, he handmade the blocks,” he said.
“He’d make so many hundred and then he’d pay the bricklayer to lay them.”
The kitchen is family sized. Picture: Supplied
The home comes with a granny flat. Picture: Supplied
The house didn’t survived Cyclone Tracy but thankfully everyone inside – William, Darwina and their four younger children – did, though not unscathed.
Mr Fong said the house was fine until after the eye passed.
“We were sitting there waiting with the bathtub full of water, the radio with batteries,” he said.
“The wind turned and the front glass, which was still that plate glass at the time, started bowing in.
“Dad said go get a mattress and of course we do what he says.
“Then pop! The glass let go.
“It’s a wondering we didn’t get chopped up.”
Mr Fong said the front wall of the house caved in and his mother and younger sister were trapped in a bedroom.
Thankfully, the mattress they were on flipped them out of the way off the collapsing wall and likely saved their lives.
“Dad and my brother were trying to get into bedroom on the side,” Mr Fong said.
“My contribution was wedging the door open.
“We pulled them out, fed them through the door and we went into the little the foyer between the bathroom and toilet and sat there for hours.
“My sister we thought was badly injured, she was only 12 or 13 at that stage, and mum was sitting there worrying about my sister.
“We could hear the wind and the roof is gone and we stayed there until we could see the first signs of daylight.”
The home after Cyclone Tracy. Picture: Supplied
The home after Cyclone Tracy. Picture: Supplied
In the aftermath they heard cries for help and found an uncle pinned under a fridge up the road.
“He’d gone to the kitchen area to get something and the house has just exploded and he ended up under the fridge,” Mr Fong said.
A car was found and the injured were ferried to the hospital where it was discover Darwina and Bonita had both broken hips.
The pair were evacuated to Sydney while Mr Fong, his brothers and father secured the house.
Mr Fong said they were lucky to have a generator and a camp stove.
“So we had people coming very night for dinner,” he said.
“At some point Dad put a couple of these plastic orchids to trees at the front.
“One of the visitors came and said ‘you’ve still got flowers how’s that possible, Bill’ and he just laughed.”
The house was rebuilt with a new flat roof that became the iconic rooftop terrace people see as they drive down East Point Rd.
“Basically the layout is the same except for the columns to support the roof because it’s a flat roof now,” Mr Fong said.
“The terrazzo steps in the front and the main bathroom are original and the laundry is the same.
“They built the ensuite as a cyclone shelter, so that’s all reinforced.”
The view from the rooftop terrace. Picture: Supplied
The main house has an open plan living and dining area, a family-sized kitchen, a main bedroom with ensuite and built-in robes, three more bedrooms with built-ins, a family bathroom and an internal laundry.
“There’s an odd looking room at one end that was Dad’s dark room,” Mr Fong said.
“One day Mr Barden from Barden’s Pharmacy came along with half a dozen rolls of film from someone visiting Darwin, and he said ‘Bill can process these for me, they’re leaving and they’d like to see if the photos tuned out all right’.
“Dad did them overnight and it grew from there.
“Mum took over and did developing and printing for at least 20 years.
“She’d be working in the middle of the night printing special orders.”
Mr Fong said his parents were very house proud.
“I can remember as a kid, Dad would enter garden competitions and before the judges came in we’d be running around picking up leaves by hand,” he said.
Paintings of Darwina Fong, 92, preparing dinner at 114 East Point Rd in 2023 by her granddaughter Emily Fong. Picture: Supplied
And the house was often the location of family get-togethers.
“In Dad’s family there were eight kids and in Mum’s family there were 11, so you can imagine the parties,” Mr Fong said.
Mr Fong said he grew up running amok with his siblings and cousins, with his father’s brothers also buying blocks of land along East Point Rd.
“Down the road across from my uncle’s house was a croc shooter,” he said.
“They always had (croc) skins hanging from the trees drying.
“We’d always be down at Racecourse Creek, that’s what we called it back then, and one day the croc shooter said, ‘don’t go down to the creek at the moment, I just go a big one out of there’.
“We knew if he was saying it was a big one, it must have been big.”
Mr Fong said at one point his family had a pet croc that lived in a 44-gallon drum and got to about 5ft before it was sold, and a host a wallabies as well.
“We’d have them in a potato sack with a hole in it on a coat hanger,” he said.
Mr Fong said with both his parents now gone, the family decided it was time for another family to call 114 East Point Rd home.
But saying goodbye to decades of family memories has been emotional.
“When I was getting the house ready for the sale, I’d sit on front steps there and I’d be asking everyday ‘Dad what do you reckon I should put the reserve at, help me out’,” Mr Fong said.
The property at 114 East Point Rd is going to auction at 10am on Saturday, October 11.
