On May 30, 2021, the end came for a mid-century Gold Coast apartment block.

As a string quartet played, residents pushed mattresses from the brown-tiled balconies of the apartment block. The 1950s-era White Horses apartments were finally ready for demolition.

But from its demise came the inspiration for what has followed it on the site at Burleigh Heads—208-rooms of “barefoot luxury” in a high-end hotel tower and a residential tower atop a shared podium on The Esplanade.