YANCHEP has grown significantly since the 1970s, but for Tom Lambert it still feels like home despite four decades living away.
Mr Lambert spent his teens in the coastal village in the 1970s when his mother worked in the Yanchep Sun City sales office.
After four decades away, he recently built a house close to the beach and moved back in April.
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READ NOW“I lived in Yanchep during the 1970s from the age of 12 to 17, when I left to join the Australian army,” he said.
“Over the past four decades I have travelled throughout Australia and the world but my heart has always been in Yanchep.
“Some of my fondest boyhood memories relate to my teenage years in Yanchep.
“Back then, the village had only 1500 residents and I was able to make wonderful friends where we would go and enjoy the lagoon.
“When I was 15, I was able to get a job on the crayfishing boats during the school holidays which was also a wonderful experience.
“The 1970s were also an exciting time for Yanchep when Alan Bond transformed the village into his base for the American Cup challenge.
“He also launched the Sun City residential land development which employed my mum at the well-known ‘Star office’.”
Mr Lambert attended the Yanchep Community School 40th reunion in 2016, which inspired him to move back to the suburb.
“Our community school was originally constructed as a building for the America’s Cup challenge and was later converted by the Department of Education,” he said.
“Wonderful memories of Yanchep flooded back to me at the reunion and this convinced me that Yanchep was the place I wanted to spend the rest of my life.”
His home in Capricorn Beach estate is 600m from the ocean and close to the former Club Capricorn resort, which is being redeveloped as a foreshore park, residential and tourism precinct.
“The outstanding beauty and charm of Yanchep still remains the same after 40 years,” Mr Lambert said.
“The relative peace and quiet in familiar surrounds is relaxing and I can hear the surf at night and kookaburras in the mornings.
“The biggest change would be the scale of suburban sprawl and development in areas that I played as a kid.
“(There is) even a shopping centre here now but that’s progress.”