It’s hard to imagine that Buderim, the prized property plateau 200 metres above the nearby sea, could be anything other than a superb place to live, but its first residents preferred its cedar in the 1870s.
By the turn of the century, its rich red volcanic soil was favoured for farming. Coffee, (Ernest Burnett won a London trade fair award in 1899) bananas (Joseph Foote produced the Mons Mari in 1912) and ginger (the southern hemisphere’s only ginger factory) were the most famous crops.
Land values took over after World War Two and, with the subdivision of new estates capitalising on magnificent views from every angle, Buderim soon established itself as an enviable and somewhat upmarket place to live.
Many of the rich and famous chose it in retirement, Queensland Governor Sir John Lavarack (1885-1957) among them, so much so that for a time it was dubbed “heaven’s waiting room” by mischievous locals.
This combination of rich soil and retirees also makes it the well-tended garden of the Sunshine Coast and a pretty place to live.
There was considerable residential development during the 1960s and it never really stopped. The population doubled between 1991 and 2006 as technology made it possible to build on steep slopes and housing began to flow down the escarpment.
Once just a network of residential streets spreading out from the main street which runs right along the top of the mountain, it now officially includes North Buderim, Tyrone Heights, Kuluin and Kunda Park to the north and Timberdale and Mons to the west.
The Sunshine Motorway, which forms the southern border at the Bruce Highway at Tanawha, swings around past Mountain Creek in the east, to keep Rainforest Sanctuary, Ballinger Road sports complex, Buderim Glen, Buderim Pines, Buderim Meadows and Headland Park all within the Buderim boundary.
Population for Buderim’s 3977 hectares was just over 28,000 or 7 people per hectare at the 2006 census, but is now more than 30,000.
The Sunshine Coast Private Hospital, built as the Buderim Private Hospital in the 1980s, is on the eastern slopes and, as well as its specialty shops and urban centre on top, plenty of neighbourhood centres and services have sprung up to support an ever-growing population on the slopes.
Summing up: An exclusive hilltop precinct with a choice of some of the best views on the Sunshine Coast, a Buderim address is no longer reserved for the elite. While there are still plenty of multi-million dollar homes, expansion down the escarpment has opened up more affordable options, many of them offering a green space close to beaches and the highway.
