Knowing the late Ruth Harris’s past, the interiors of 15 Brandon St, Suffolk Park make more sense.
The home of an eccentric lady known as the ‘Queen of Byron Bay’ is scheduled for a January 31 auction.
The three-bedroom cottage at 15 Brandon St, Suffolk Park is the former home of the late Ruth Harris, who’d bought it for $243,000 in 1994, property records show.
The sales agents, Jan Borsje and Kendall Atkinson of Lifestyle, are understood to have a $2m price guide for the property described as “a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to own one of Byron Bay’s most intriguing homes, created by local icon Ruth Harris, affectionately known as the ‘Queen of Byron Bay’.”
A decade before her Suffolk Park purchase, Ruth had sold her 1960s home at nearby Wategos Beach, which according to local paper The Echo had “white curved walls and movie-star looks”, for $1.375m to Vincent Rae.
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The late Ruth Harris, pictured in 2003.
Her former home at 15 Brandon St, Suffolk Park, has three bedrooms.
Gargoyles, sculptural features, a garden pond, and courtyards that are described as “perfect for long lunches and twilight gatherings”.
There’d been a restaurant called Argentine Ant Cantina downstairs.
Rae turned the house into a private hotel now known as Raes at Wategos and it’s now a very upmarket venue owned by media man Antony Catalano and his family worth squillions.
The Echo report, from 2017, quotes their photographer, Jeff Dawson, who’d washed dishes at the restaurant in the 1980s, as saying: “Ruth was quite eccentric … elements of the house design were apparently inspired by Salvador Dali, and Liberace once played the piano there. Ruth was like Byron Bay’s resident queen.”
Vincent Rae outside Raes, which the Rolling Stones and Lenny Kravitz liked to frequent, in 2012 Picture by Luke Marsden.
Ruth bought the Suffolk Park property for $243,000, a decade after selling her Wategos Beach home for $1.375m to Vincent Rae.
Ruth died in 2024, but her memory lives on at Suffolk Park.
With this knowledge, the interiors of Ruth’s Suffolk Park home make sense.
The residence is described as blending “Mediterranean and Gothic influences with Ruth’s unmistakeable eye for drama and detail”.
There’s a former art studio at the front which “offers a magical space for creatives”.
Outside, there are gargoyles, sculptural features, a garden pond, and courtyards that are described as “perfect for long lunches and twilight gatherings”.
Perhaps recognising that the first thing the purchaser will do is organise a skip bin and bring in the renovators, the agents advise: “The real drawcard is its location.”
It’s just a 350m level walk to Tallow Beach and close by the bakery.
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