Southern Ocean Lodge, one of Australia’s reputed luxury lodges located on Kangaroo Island, suffered massive damage from the bushfire, which has already destroyed a third of the South Australian island.

Baillie Lodges founders James and Hayley Baillie are taking the lead to rebuild the devastated island’s tourism industry. They have also kick-started the rebuilding process for their tourism lodge, which is expected to take at least a couple of years.

Baillie Lodges chairman James Baillie toured the $60-million Southern Ocean Lodge property along with architect Max Pritchard of the Adelaide-based Max Pritchard Gunner Architects, who had originally designed the lodge.

Featuring 21 luxury suites, the lodge is perched on a 40-metre cliff overlooking the Southern Ocean.

Southern Island luxury lodge t

Southern Island luxury lodge before the fire. Image: Luxury Lodges of Australia.

The lodge sustained extensive structural damage from the recent bushfire, with the main building and all the suites destroyed.

However, all the guests and staff were safely evacuated with no injury sustained by anyone.

The bushfire has been raging for weeks on the 4400-square-kilometre Kangaroo Island and has already destroyed about 170,000 hectares.

The existing staff at the lodge will mostly be reassigned to other properties in the Baillie Lodges portfolio.