Bruce Raymond – Kelly Slater’s good friend, and ex Quicksilver managing director – is selling his Sydney beachside pad. The home, which includes a guest apartment that Kelly Slater liked to stay in, goes under the hammer tomorrow.
The house is located at 65 The Serpentine, Bilgola Beach, NSW (a coveted cranny on Sydney’s Northern Beaches) and has a $5,375,000 price guide.
It’s also one of the few houses in the area that is protected from southerlies, thanks to its north-facing aspect. The views are a sight to behold.
The 784sqm property has four bedrooms and four bathrooms. It also has a back garden with three veggie plots, a farm shed and a mini windmill. Kelly Slater, who is a great family friend, used to stay in a separate apartment on the ground floor.
“He came to this house to stay a week but ended up staying seven,” Bruce said, according to Northern Beaches Review. “Our guest apartment is first-class; he had the perfect view of North Avalon.”
Raymond is a former pro surfer himself; he learned to surf in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs and was ranked #16 in the world in 1977.
He was the managing director for Quiksilver from 1979 to 2008. According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing he also had an alluring presence.
According to the EOS, surf journalist Phil Jarratt said of Raymond in 1977: “He has that dark-eyed sinister air about him that appeals to women and makes men wonder.”
“He would have made a good con man, hustler or gigolo.”
Back in his professional surfing days, Raymond also made the semi-finals of the Pipe Masters, a prestigious surfing competition, two years in a row.
Raymond will be staying local, realestate.com.au reports, saying: “This was to be our forever home but I’m scaling down now. I’ll stay in the area.”
Kelly Slater, who used to own a property on Sydney’s Northern Beaches himself (some years ago now), seems to have a soft spot for Avalon, despite all the big World Surf League competitions in recent history (bar Narrabeen last year) taking place elsewhere in Australia, in places like The Gold Coast, Bells, and Margaret River.
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