{"id":820187,"date":"2026-07-24T05:13:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-24T05:13:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/820187\/"},"modified":"2026-07-24T05:13:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-24T05:13:30","slug":"the-castle-home-george-fendyk-82-saves-iconic-aussie-movie-home-after-140000-seven-year-council-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/820187\/","title":{"rendered":"The Castle home: George Fendyk, 82, saves iconic Aussie movie home after $140,000, seven-year council battle"},"content":{"rendered":"

The iconic home at the centre of the Aussie<\/a> battler film<\/a> The Castle<\/a> has been saved after a $140,000, seven-year long ordeal. <\/p>\n

George Fendyk, 82, owns the weatherboard house he bought for $40,000 in 2017 and relocated it 276km from Strathmore to Beechworth<\/a>. He has just won council approval for the dwelling to become a three-bedroom home, potentially saving it from being destroyed as an unusable building. <\/p>\n

\"George<\/p>\n

George Fendyk, 82, is owner of The Castle\u2019s iconic home now in Beechworth.\u00a0Today\/Nine<\/p>\n

Fendyk estimates he spent anywhere between $140,000 and $200,000 relocating a piece of Australian film history<\/a> but he said \u201cit feels great\u201d knowing it\u2019s saved. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt was designed for a serenity and I get people from Darwin, everywhere, all over the place, looking at it,\u201d Fendyk told Today<\/a> hosts Michael Willesee Jr. and Sylvia Jeffreys. <\/p>\n

While Fendyk finally got council approval, he was reluctant to call the battle over noting he\u2019s had to deal with several council changes and start his fight from scratch each time.<\/p>\n

Fendyk has lived in Beechworth for 74 years and thought having a piece of The Castle<\/a> history in the town would attract more people there. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think [the house] is good for Beechworth. The people who come and go to Beechworth don\u2019t stay here long; they stay a few years, and they go move on and that\u2019s the thing that worries me,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Fendyk recounted the difficult journey to transport the famous Kerrigan family home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt came here in four pieces, it sat in the paddock for years and years, and it\u2019s lost all his plaster, lost all his internals. So it\u2019s only basically a block-up stage,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Fendyk had grand plans to make the building part of a caravan park. He hoped it would be complete with a poolroom and a caretakers\u2019 cottage, but his dwindling funds and council\u2019s decision to refuse the request in 2019 mean those plans won\u2019t happen. <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The council knocked back plans to incorporate the house into a caravan park.\u00a0Brad Teal Ascot Vale<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Before Fendyk\u2019s fight, the Kerrigan\u2019s fought to save the home from airport developers in the Aussie film. \u00a0Working Dog<\/p>\n

A second application to use the building as a family home was approved in June this year. <\/p>\n

Council said the approval had taken time because the proposed use needed to be clarified and the building sat across two land titles.<\/p>\n

Those issues were resolved after a related subdivision was completed.<\/p>\n

Fendyk rallied the people of Beechworth and of Australia to come down and show their support after he put up the good fight to save the home. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe need \u2019em!\u201d the Victorian local signed off. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The iconic home at the centre of the Aussie battler film The Castle has been saved after a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":820188,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,447,134],"class_list":["post-820187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=820187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/820187\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/820188"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=820187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=820187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=820187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}