Bernie Elsey was an early Motel entrepreneur who helped turn a former failed cotton and sugar farming area called Elston into the saucy sun-drenched tourist and barely legal teenager haven that is today’s Surfers Paradise.
The Gold Coast Bulletin described him in 1983 as ‘a self-made millionaire whose colourful character helped paint the Gold Coast bright’
Elsey was responsible, when as head of the Surfers Paradise Progress Association, for introducing ‘courtesy maids’ as a means of local businesses to protest the Gold Coast Council’s Decision to introduce parking meters in the area.
These gold bikini and tiara wearing ladies would morph into the iconic Gold Coast Meter Maids, who since their beginnings in 1965 have a storied and colourful history involving a Penthouse spread scandal, a rival CEO black-mail involving a stripping video, souvenir selling stoushes, a thwarted food delivery app and Warwick Capper.
Using his influence, he was also able to relax licensing laws, and pave the way for Jupiters Casino, and the influx of international visitors it would bring to the area.
“Elsey saw entertainment as an adjunct of accommodation” according to Progressing Tourism Research. However, he was so obsessed with making a buck, he actually canceled The Beatles booking at his Coolongatta Beachcomber Hotel as they requested free food and pay as conditions of their performance. He got the pre-Bee Gees Brothers Gibb to play instead, they didn’t need food or money for Staying Alive.
His Surfers Paradise properties the Tiki Village, The Surfrider Hotel and the Surfers Paradise Beachcomber Motel and Motor Inn were some of the first in the accommodation boom in the area in the 50’s and 60s.
The Beachcomber was the venue for infamous Pyjama Parties. After hearing about Prince Margaret attending one in London in 1957, Bernie bought the idea to his motels. Despite his own successes in lifting liquor restrictions in the area, you still weren’t allowed to sell alcohol anywhere there was dancing. Because the Beachcomber was a private hotel, guests could BYO. So the parties turned a bit wild, and damp, with lots of guests ending up in the water.
The website Gold Coast Stories describes the local reaction to the parties with:
“At this time Surfers Paradise still had many residential homes nestled amongst the hotels and motels, and a complaint was made to police that wild parties and orgies were taking place…”
“During the regular police raids, bottles of beer were sometimes put into the pool so they couldn’t be easily retrieved by the authorities. Reportedly, police officers were ordered to undress and retrieve any bottles of alcohol in the swimming pool. While the officers were undressing, the live band would play music more suited to a burlesque show and, when the police left with the alcohol, the band would launch into a rendition of the Last Post.
While the focus of the police in stopping the parties was led by the upholding of a moral standard, the raids however, caused a huge wave of publicity that ultimately only served to make the Gold Coast seem an even more exciting place to visit.”
Media ‘identity’ John Michael-Howson, who wrote a musical about the time which has the tag line ‘Before there was Schoolies, there were pyjamas in paradise.’ and remembers the scenes as:
“They would have these pyjama parties around swimming pools, and of course it was considered outrageous, dancing around in their jimjams. But it was a lot of fun, very innocent, and a great publicity gimmick for Surfers Paradise.”
After the pyjama parties got a bit passe, Bernie began staging Hawaiian Nights- which were pretty much the same thing, except with more lei’s and Luaus. Ever quick to make a buck, Bernie rented out grass skirts to guests, and when people inevitability got thrown in the water they would be ruined, so guests couldn’t get their money back.
With the lifting of building restrictions, and the spread of the car in post war Australia, the Gold Coast became a motor holiday mecca. The first American style modern motel was built there in 1955 and the style spread through out the next decade.
The Gold Coast Urban and Heritage Study notes the area’s development:
“Neon signs, motels, hotels and shopping centres line the highway from Labrador to Coolangatta. It is symbolic of the primary period of growth of this part of the Gold Coast when, in the wake of post war austerity, the motor car became in itself a symbol of affluence and personal freedom.
In the late 1950’s and 1960’s a further wave of holiday activity took place building upon the special characteristics of fantasy and escape that had shaped the development of the coastal strip.“
The buildings themselves were noted as “The motel typically included the swimming pool, garden or car park in a protected courtyard screened from the street, patios, walls with built-in planter boxes for succulents, breeze- block privacy screens, undercover parking or cars directly adjacent to doors of the units, access balconies supported on circular steel columns, a signature building on the street with reception at ground level concealing a linear block of motel units behind. These were modest but pragmatic holiday complexes, small and efficient based on the assumption that most of the holiday was spent at the beach.”
As for Bernie, The Canberra Times ran a story about his wedding in October 1980:
BRISBANE: Retired tourism entrepreneur Mr Bernie Elsey, 74, married a 39-year-old Filipino woman on Saturday in the grounds of his $750,000 home near the Isle of Capri, on the Gold Coast.
Neither Mr Elsey nor his bride, Angelina Adriano, were abashed about the thought of people knowing that their marriage was one of necessity.
Mr Elsey said, “I’ve been married three times before and I’ve got a 44 year-old son. I think marriage is old fashioned now, but I’m delighted at the thought of becoming a father again at my age.
And sought his opinion in 1985 on the present day Surfers Paradise as the Jupiters Casino he first envisaged was being built;
“I don’t know what makes Surfers Paradise unique except for the name. It’s a bloody awful beach; if you don’t bathe between the flags you get washed out to sea. The traffic is a mess now; the roads are too narrow, and all those high rises on the beachfront cast terrible shadows on to the beach in the afternoon.”
“I went to Surfers recently for dinner and when I came out of the restaurant I saw those people with their spiky heads and there was the smell of marijuana and I thought ‘oh, my god, did I help create this?”
Bernie succumbed to cancer the next year, and you could have bought his ‘party house’ for a mere million and a half in 2013
Most traces of that original Motel building spree are long gone from Surfers, apart from a heritage listed sign from the Pink Poodle Motel. The Beachcomber lives on in name only as a high-rise apartment tower resort, with just spas, pools, free WiFi and tennis courts for entertainment.
The Meter Maids, whose ranks now contain men, recently celebrated their fiftieth anniversary, and now walk around teaching people how to operate the electronic Pay & Display ticket machines.
Three Star Nights - Australian Motel Life 