Australian
News - May., 2006
Boomerang St Preview
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 Pre-1968
Christmas holidays for the Brothers in Sydney
usually meant renting holiday accommodation anywhere they could find
it, and this is what they did and did it very happily. At some stage a
Brother discovered The Entrance as a great place for a holiday: plenty
of cheap rentals and only a few hours up the road from Sydney, well
that was well before the M2, now it's just ninety minutes. (Photo: The Boomerang St cottages
as they were.)
The idea caught on with the other Brothers and The Entrance became the
Christmas place to go. In 1968 the Brothers were able to purchase a
house: 20 Boomerang Street. Soon after the Brothers were able to buy a
few other cottages. By 1976, from the 26th December to the 26 of
January, all Patrician Brothers in Sydney would migrate to The Entrance
for the Christmas break, and, if possible, a couple of other breaks
during the year. The houses were also available to friends and families
of the Brothers and Patrician school sporting teams looking for a
time-away.
All the houses were well past their prime by the time the Brothers
purchased them, and forty years on from the date of purchase
(now) it was decided that a couple of the houses, specifically the
Liverpool and Ryde holiday houses on Boomerang St, were no longer able
to cope and needed to be replaced. Also, now with the average age of
the Brothers in-line with the official retirement age, it was decided
that we needed to look at providing retirement-friendly accommodation
for the Brothers.
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The building team with Aengus
(front left) and Matthew (back centre)
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There was no rushing into this and it took a couple of
years for the
final plans to take shape and to be agreed upon by the Brothers. But
once the architects and the local municipal Council put their stamps on
the blue-prints and presented them to the builders it was only a matter
of months before the houses were complete and ready for an opening
preview.
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