Bernie Elsey

Bernie Elsey Snr (1906 – 25 August 1986) was a property developer and entrepreneur, associated with early developments on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

Elsey was born in England in 1906, and migrated to Australia at the age of nine. He had little formal education, and his distinguishing feature was his chronic stuttering. Elsey worked in the mundane trade of plumbing in Toowoomba, Queensland until he was 40. His motto was "To succeed in life, you have to sell yourself and believe in what you are doing". He did succeed in spite of apparent impediments.

He was unorthodox as well as grossly confident. After quitting the plumbing trade, he embarked on a new career by gambling on his salesmanship and offering himself to a Brisbane food wholesaler (Sanitarium) without pay for a month's trial. Again he succeeded and after a successful interlude with his own food distribution business arrived on the Gold Coast in 1949 to build the reputation as the 'self-made millionaire whose colourful character helped paint the Gold Coast bright'.

Elsey was a visionary who worked hard to sell and achieve his dreams. While consolidating his day-cruises to Tipplers Passage on Stradbroke Island, he hawked Singer sewing machines door to door. Quick to recognise the potential of the Broadwater, he successfully sold to Ansett Airlines the idea of a Sandringham flying boat service to Southport. Seeing passengers arriving from Sydney in lots of 44, ferrying them to their accommodation, he recognised that there was a deficiency in appropriate accommodation, a need which he set about filling.

Elsey saw entertainment as an adjunct of accommodation and set himself with a salesman's discernment to get the best for the least for the greatest profit. When he found that The Beatles, whom he had engaged to appear at his Coolangatta Beachcomber, expected free food as well as pay, he cancelled the arrangement and substituted an unknown Brisbane group, the Gibb Brothers, later known as the Bee Gees.

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