Boutique Reef Hotel Planned for WA’s Whale Shark Mecca
A hotel planned a sand dune away from Ningaloo Reef has been primed for approval at the whale shark Mecca of Exmouth on Western Australia’s remote North West Cape.
Proposed by Perth-based partners Phil Smith and Mon Palmer, the $15-million Hotel Sebatikel will head into a WA development assessment panel meeting on March 5 with endorsements from the Shire of Exmouth and state destination marketer TourismWA.
Smith, a 1999 WA Football League premiership player for West Perth who had earlier been drafted for AFL side Hawthorn, said the boutique nine-suite project had been on the drawing board for five years.
“I’ve been going up to Coral Bay, Exmouth, North West Cape since I was a kid,” he said.
“I just love the feeling of when you get up there; you feel isolated but I just love the place and I want more people to enjoy it.”
Palmer, a landscape and interior designer, said the legacy of Australian and US air forces’ “combining to make a community” at the nearby RAAF Learmonth base had influenced the planned project.
“I guess that’s where some of our design intent has come from, that military-esque kind of bunker style, looking back on that history and having something that’s robust, cyclone-tolerant and sitting with the natural landscape,” she said.
“If this all goes ahead, it will be the first tourism development in 20 years in the region and that shows just how hard it is to get in and get something off the ground.”
The rammed-earth Hotel Sebatikel would emerge on a 5.185ha site beside the Murdoch Park Golf Course, 1.5km along the sealed Kerry Graham Road from the centre of Exmouth.
Smith said he and Palmer would manage the facility, which is anticipated to complete early in 2028.
“We’ll have bikes available for our guests; they'll be able to ride in there,” he said.
“And then, we’re literally 150m away from the ocean, just over a sand dune.
“We’ll build it to a size that we feel comfortable we can, along with the correct support network, make it very personal, not exclusive but high-yield.”
He said the hotel would look to partner with tourism operators offering trips to swim alongside the world’s biggest fish, the famed whale sharks that migrate through Exmouth Gulf.
Palmer said that once visitors reach the beach the coral of Ningaloo reef is a “step off” from the sand.
“There’s one place called Oyster Stacks and literally ... you go down rock steps and as soon as you jump off those rocks, there’s bommies; it’s like an aquarium underneath,” she said.
“We’re waterfront to the gulf; you just walk along the beach in front of where our site is and you see shovel-nose sharks, turtles, you can hear the humpback whales breaching and playing from where the guests will be in their suites.
“It’s just stunning.”
The hotel would have a 120-seat restaurant, swimming pool, tennis court, pickle ball court, par-3 golf hole and health spa with plunge pool and sauna.
Palmer and Smith have a 21-year Crown lease on the site. The hotel’s name, Sebatikel, is a blending of the word, or portmanteu of, ‘sabbatical’ and the name of their nine-year-old son Sebastian.
Australia’s first Anantara slated for Perth
Meanwhile, 13 hours drive south of Exmouth, in the WA capital, a hotel of a different scale is being planned.
Australia’s first Anantara brand hotel has been slated to rise at the $3.8-billion Burswood Point project that is being developed to hug the perimeter of Perth’s Belmont Park horse racing track.
Dillip Rajakarier, group chief executive of Minor International, parent company of Minor Hotels that owns the Anantara brand, said Perth was experiencing rapid urban and tourism development, creating an ideal environment for premium hotel development.
“Anantara Perth represents our commitment to expanding world-class luxury experiences into new markets,” he said.
The hotel’s compact, stepped riverfront building is being developed by Golden Sedayu, a partnership between Perth’s Golden Group and Indonesian property developer Agung Sedayu.
Golden Sedayu managing director Andrew Sugiaputra said the hotel would be defined by “exceptional design, craftsmanship, and service”.
Anticipated to open in 2032, the hotel will feature 150 guest rooms, two restaurants, a swimming pool and a fitness centre and spa. It will be the latest link in a chain of more than 50 Anantara properties across Asia, sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the United Kingdom.
In Australia, the luxury inn will join Minor Hotels’ portfolio of 60-plus properties under its Oaks and Avani brands.
The building itself is at concept stage and its height is yet to be confirmed.
The Burswood Point project covers 38ha of riverfront land between the Swan River and the Belmont Racecourse. Aside from Anantara Perth, the development will include 4500 apartments, luxury riverfront homes, 91,000sq m of retail space, food and beverage outlets, and 110,000sq m of open space.
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