Hotels
THE PROPERTY DEVELOPMENT REVIEW
BOUTIQUE REEF HOTEL PLANNED FOR WA’S WHALE SHARK MECCA
SBA Architects has designed the automated Aldi distribution centre in Western Sydney.
Author: Chris Thomson
The Urban Developer
A hotel planned a sand dune away from Ningaloo Reef has been primed for approval at the whale shark Mecca of Exmouth on Western Australia’s remote North West Cape.
Proposed by Perth-based partners Phil Smith and Mon Palmer, the $15-million Hotel Sebatikel will head into a WA development assessment panel meeting on March 5 with endorsements from the Shire of Exmouth and state destination marketer TourismWA. Smith, a 1999 WA Football League premiership player for West Perth who had earlier been drafted for AFL side Hawthorn, said the boutique nine-suite project had been on the drawing board for five years. “I’ve been going up to Coral Bay, Exmouth, North West Cape since I was a kid,” he said. “I just love the feeling of when you get up there; you feel isolated but I just love the place and I want more people to enjoy it.” Palmer, a landscape and interior designer, said the legacy of Australian and US air forces’ “combining to make a community” at the nearby RAAF Learmonth base had influenced the planned project. “I guess that’s where some of our design intent has come from, that military-esque kind of bunker style, looking back on that history and having something that’s robust, cyclone-tolerant and sitting with the natural landscape,” she said. “If this all goes ahead, it will be the first tourism development in 20 years in the region and that shows just how hard it is to get in and get something off the ground.” The rammed-earth Hotel Sebatikel would emerge on a 5.185ha site beside the Murdoch Park Golf Course, 1.5km along the sealed Kerry Graham Road from the centre of Exmouth. Smith said he and Palmer would manage the facility, which is anticipated to complete early in 2028. “We’ll have bikes available for our guests; they'll be able to ride in there,” he said. “And then, we’re literally 150m away from the ocean, just over a sand dune. “We’ll build it to a size that we feel comfortable we can, along with the correct support network, make it very personal, not exclusive but high-yield.” He said the hotel would look to partner
The ‘military-esque, bunker style’ of Hotel Sebatikel, designed to reflect the history and community of nearby RAAF Learmonth.
with tourism operators offering trips to swim alongside the world’s biggest fish, the famed whale sharks that migrate through Exmouth Gulf. Palmer said that once visitors reach the beach the coral of Ningaloo reef is a “step off” from the sand. “There’s one place called Oyster Stacks and literally ... you go down rock steps and as soon as you jump off those rocks, there’s bommies; it’s like an aquarium underneath,” she said. “We’re waterfront to the gulf; you just walk along the beach in front of where our site is and you see shovel-nose sharks, turtles, you can hear the humpback whales breaching and playing from where the guests will be in their suites. “It’s just stunning.” The hotel would have a 120-seat restaurant, swimming pool, tennis court, pickle ball court, par-3 golf hole and health spa with plunge pool and sauna. Palmer and Smith have a 21-year Crown lease on the site. The hotel’s name, Sebatikel, is a blending of the word, or portmanteu of, ‘sabbatical’ and the name of their nine-year-old son Sebastian.
March / April 2026 – 101
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