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January 3, 2021 marks a year since the bushfires that had been raging across South Australia’s Kangaroo Island converged from three sides to destroy Baillie Lodges’ award-winning flagship property Southern Ocean Lodge.

In a year marked by challenges around the world, Baillie Lodges founders James and Hayley Baillie have worked on plans to rebuild the luxury lodge on the island’s remote south west coast in partnership with US-based KSL Capital Partners.  

The Baillies have returned to Kangaroo Island several times to help clear the site and to meet with the lodge’s Adelaide-based architect Max Pritchard to work on plans for Southern Ocean Lodge 2.0.  The development’s progress is now subject to negotiations around insurance and future premiums which will determine its financial viability.

In the meantime, James and Hayley have partnered with South Australian film makers 57 Films to chart the journey of the new lodge’s creation from the ground up to doors opening, with a view to completing both projects in early 2023.

Included in the short film is ‘Sunshine’ the metal sculptural artwork of a Kangaroo created by local artist Indiana James from reclaimed tractor parts. Sunshine would greet and farewell guests from his position in the upper lounge of the lodge’s Great Room. As a heart-warming symbol of hope and resilience, Sunshine was discovered still valiantly standing after the fires had obliterated the building and its contents, and the film is named Sunshine Rising in his honour.   

Hayley Baillie said planning for Southern Ocean Lodge 2.0 offered a chance to recreate all the essentials that made a stay there so rewarding and memorable, whilst adding some new features that would delight guests and add to their experience of the incredible Kangaroo Island wilderness.  

“When we opened Southern Ocean Lodge in 2008, it was the result of a marathon five years in planning and hard work. And I said to James, if only we’d thought to take video footage of this incredible journey from the ground up,” Mrs Baillie said.

“Now, for better or worse, we’re fortunate to have our chance again,” she said.

To view a preview of the film’s first stages on this anniversary of the fire’s devastation as a gesture of recovery, regeneration and of better times ahead, watch film.

For further information on the journey of Southern Ocean Lodge, visit.