Exclusive Sorrento property Whitehall listed for sale

She’s 112 years old but the old bones are basically sound.

She retains her air of Edwardian elegance and like old doyens of the old moneyed set of Sorrento, she presides over an exceptional slice of territory, specifically 3039 square metres of what realtor RT Edgar is spruiking as “the last privately held property before the ocean beach reserve”.

Limestone-built Whitehall, with its 31 bedrooms and guest lounges with open fireplaces, is also believed by current co-owner Kevin Greenhatch to be the largest and oldest still operating guest house in Victoria.

It is back on the market after being almost sold last year for a price that Lloyd Robinson of Edgar’s Portsea Office says was about $5 million.  

Just before settlement, the intending buyer passed away so Whitehall, which operates as “Oceanic” and still hosts holiday makers, conferences and events, opened a new expression of interest campaign over the Peninsula’s summer selling season.

Unless sold prior, the campaign concludes at 5pm on February 10.

Greenhatch, a retired architect who has owned 1904 Whitehall for 16 years because with business partner, caterer Ros Harvey, he had intended representing it as “a Lake House (Daylesford) style gourmet getaway with local produce and the whole thing”. He also liked the land size in an extremely pricey part of the Peninsula.

Their Epicure Catering businesses in the city overtook them in the meantime to such a degree that apart from revamping some of Whitehall’s smaller rooms as ensuites “and cleaning it up and painting the rooms, we basically kept the same format (as the guesthouse)”.

As a guesthouse, gracious Whitehall was one of the main accommodation venues of a southern peninsula hamlet that had been developed as a resort in the late 19th century by the entrepreneurial and all round amazing George Selth Coppin.

From the 1870s, Coppin had promoted Sorrento as the ideal destination “for those fond of ocean walking, sea rambling, of sea bathing and beach walking”, and he attracted the wealthy of Melbourne who would – and still do – decamp to Sorrento for “the season”.

Also a theatrical promoter and sometime parliamentarian, “the Grandfather of Sorrento” built the sea baths, the tramway to the back beach, a palatial house for himself and the Continental Hotel, which is one of the other landmark limestone buildings in the township.

He also built the pier so that the massive Bay paddlesteamers, the Ozone and the Weeroona (with 1900 passenger capacity) could disembark day-trippers who would promenade down the bayside end of Ocean Beach Road.

Whitehall is at the extreme other end of Ocean Beach Road and Greenhouse tells that as a unique piece of infrastructure on a unique piece of land it has been attracting an interesting cross-section of possible buyers:

A few have considered it as a multi-generational private holiday house, others as a rehabilitation centre. The majority see continuing it as a holiday or conference venue as the best future use.

Lloyd Robinson says producers of The Block looked over it at one stage, and residential developers have considered dividing it into super-sized, 50 square townhouses with period features.

Only heritage listed by the local council and not at a state level, Robinson hopes “someone great will buy it and put love and graciousness back into it because it deserves more than a superficial tart up”.