Thirroul Beach Motel, Thirroul

The Thirroul Beach Motel sits opposite the beach at Thirroul, on the Illawarra coast south of Sydney. The motel is a single-storey U-shape facing the road, with the rooms arranged around a central paved courtyard. The building is rendered concrete, painted pale pink along the eaves and pale cream below. The roof is corrugated iron. The rooms have small private patios facing the courtyard. A rusted Hills hoist stands in the back yard. The beach is across the road and below the rise; the motel was sited for a sea view from at least the upper rooms.

Brett Whiteley, the painter, died in room 4 of the Thirroul Beach Motel on 15 June 1992, from a heroin overdose. Room 4 appears in this photograph. The Thirroul Beach Motel is one of 101 traditional Australian motor inns photographed for Hotel Motel 101 across 2018. The series ran in three sweeps out of Sydney: north along the Central Coast, west through the Blue Mountains, south down the start of the South Coast. The Thirroul stretch sat at the end of the southern run. The Whiteley connection is widely written about, and Brett learned about it only after publishing the image; that the photograph happens to show the specific room is part of why the picture carries the weight it does.