HOLLYWOOD insider Kevin Dickson - famous for writing the saucy Los Angeles Times bestseller Blind Item - has listed his childhood family home on the Central Coast.
Ray White Terrigal agent Kerrie Ryan is marketing the four bedroom brick 1970s home at 25 Ocean Street, North Avoca with a price guide of $1.25M and $1.35M.
LA-based entertainment journalist Kevin Dickson said his decision to sell his childhood home was both difficult and heartbreaking.
“It’s forced me to admit that for at least the time being, I need to stay in Los Angeles, where there are no beaches as great as Avoca, and no coffee shops as great as The Boy & The Rose. At the end of the day, I have such great memories of my life in and around North Avoca and I know that I’ll be back someday,” Mr Dickson said.
“In recent years, my career has turned to writing novels based on my time as a celebrity editor.
“My first book, Blind Item, made it onto the bestseller list of the LA Times, and its sequel Guilty Pleasure is currently following in its footsteps.
“As much as these books are based in the ridiculous world of Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton and the Hollywood world that is a million miles away from where I grew up, it’s a little known fact that both of these books were written at my mum’s kitchen dining table in North Avoca.
Mr Dickson recalls how his grandparents bought a block of land on Ocean Street in the late 1950s.
“I grew up on Ocean Street, watching it as it grow from a collection of shacks into a bustling, affluent satellite suburb of Sydney. In early 1970, my parents bought the fibro shack next to my grandparents’ home, and after a couple of years, they decided to expand,” he said from LA.
“Instead of knocking the little shack down, they sold it to a guy who put the whole shack on a truck and moved it around the corner to Elgata Avenue, where it stood for many years until it finally got demolished to make way for a bigger, more solid home.
“I remember that back then, you could hire a lady to bring her three large white goats to graze on your land.
“That was the least backbreaking way to clear a lot or maintain a lawn. I remember that the cinema was the only entertainment, and that the annual opening of the Bulbararing Lagoon was the pinnacle of school holiday excitement for all the kids.
“Growing up in North Avoca was an incredible gift. There was never boredom with that beach and the rocks to explore endlessly, even into the winter.”
Mr Dickson moved to the United States in 1997 for a bureau position for an Australian newspaper.
“In the 22 years since then, I have returned to North Avoca at least once a year, and always for as long as I could possibly stay. If there’s anywhere else on earth as beautiful and perfect, then I haven’t seen it yet.
The property goes to auction on March 23, 2019 at 2:30pm.
