Interview: Gillian Millhouse Gill all go-go in livewire career

INTERVIEW

Gill all go-go in livewire career

By Grantlee Kieza,

Industry Reporter

During the 76 years of her high-energy life, the iconic Gillian Millhouse has been a go-go dancer gyrating in a cage, and a roadie for a pioneering rock’n’roll band.

She played competitive netball for 66 years, remains a keen golfer with a sideboard full of trophies, and still stays up all night watching sports from around the world on television.

But after 22 years running the Rodhos apartment building at Chevron Island on the Gold Coast, Gill is now ready to take a breather. “But, if I was 10 years younger, I’d stay,” she declared. “It’s been a great life here and I still love the job, but it’s time for someone else to move in.

“Rodhos was named after the Greek island of Rhodes and it was designed with that theme. It’s on a remarkable block in a beautiful position. The building covers four blocks of land but it’s from street to street and it’s the only building on Chevron like that. It faces Cronin Island, and my apartment is on the first level overlooking the pool. “We’ve just had the building all painted white with blue trim, so it really does look like it’s from the Greek islands.”

Gill grew up in central Hobart as the middle sister in a family of three girls and one boy. “My father had a butcher shop. We didn’t have much money, but we always had the best food and we got fit as kids walking up the very hilly streets and down to Sandy Bay,” she said. “I started playing netball when I was four and by the time I was 19 I was playing five nights a week in a mixed team with the boys. “I’m 77 in November and I’d still be playing netball now but had to have my knee done seven years ago. The netball stuffed me up and I’m riddled with arthritis these days. “I play golf instead. I was on a handicap of 19 at the Burleigh Golf Club and I got down to 14 at Southport, but that’s 20-odd years ago.” Gill hit it big on the dance floor, too.

“I always loved dancing, and in the early 1960s, a couple of guys came over from South Australia and started a disco at the Carlyle pub in Hobart at Moonah (on the border of Derwent Park). My younger sister Sue and I and another couple of girls became go-go dancers in 1965, dancing in cages at the Carlyle, and at the Granada Tavern in Berridale.

“I was a go-go dancer for about five years from the age of 19. It was great fun.” Gill was married young and came to the Gold Coast with her second husband Richard Millhouse, who was once the bass player for the Kravats, a band known as “Tasmania’s answer to The Beatles”.

In 1965, the Kravats kept the Beatles’ hit “Help” from reaching No. 1 on the Tasmanian charts.

Instead, the No.1 song on the 7HO radio chart at the time was the Kravats’ cover of The Animals’ “Baby Let Me Take You Home’”. Gill became a roadie for the band, helping to carry all the gear for their gigs and set up the equipment for their performances. She also worked as a bookkeeper for the Kravats’ guitarist Ray Woodruff who had an agency in Hobart for Sharp Electronics and ran cooking classes showing off the company’s microwave ovens. “Richard and I got married in 1979 and we had a brilliant life,” Gill said.

“It wasn’t meant to be for me to have children. I’ve been a Tom Boy all my life and Richard and I had a great time over the years. “We came to the Gold Coast for an even better life in 1996. A lot of us used to come up for weekend getaways regularly, in the early days on the Ansett-ANA flights. “We bought a beautiful house in Palm Beach, and I loved it. I became a gym junkie and played a lot of golf. “Unfortunately, Richard and I split up at the end of 1999. “I was 54 at the time and I thought ‘what am I going to do for a job?’ “I didn’t want to work in an office because all my life I’ve pretty much done my own thing.” One of Gill’s friends suggested that she’d be great in management rights.

Gillian Millhouse

“We were driving around Chevron Island one day and saw Rodhos with a ‘For Sale’ sign out the front,” she said. “It was that easy. I investigated the business, and it was ideal.

“The building was only two years old, and I bought the business. Rodhos was an awful pink colour then, but it looks so much bett er in the new white and blue.”

The complex of 22 apartments has 11 units in the lett ing pool and has provided a great home and career for Gill.

“It’s a great job,” she said, “it wasn’t always perfect, I had a bad bikie move in and he was a bikie from hell, but we got him out eventually. “It’s a wonderful place to live and the job has allowed me plenty of time to go overseas to play golf. I even went to the US Masters.

“I can’t do the maintenance work like I used to but I get people in to do the work now.” Gill has bought an apartment in a new building on Chevron. Her management rights business is being marketed by Craig Cornish from Ray White.

Damian Quinn

Management Rights Transactions

One of the Sunshine Coast’s most experienced firms in on-site management rights transactions.

• Commercial & Business Law • Property Law • Litigation & Dispute Resolution • Retirement Villages • Wills & Estate Planning • Body Corporate

SUNSHINE COAST & QUEENSLAND WIDE