Derek Jolly matches South Australian Penfolds wine family wealth to interests from car racing to music
Derek Jolly in his car racing days and (top right) his Lotus 15 608/626 at a 1961 Warwick Farm international event. Bottom right: The Futuro house that Jolly brought to Adelaide. Bottom left: Jolly (right), with Phil Cuneen, working the Moog synthesiser in his Gamba Studio.
A member of the South Australian Penfolds wine dynasty, Derek Jolly applied wealth to his broad interests, including: racing cars for Lotus, owning Magic Flute restaurant, bringing electronic music to Australia with his Moog synthesiser, and introducing the revolutionary Futuro house to Melbourne Street, North Adelaide.
Photography, business, science and technology, the performing arts and wine also added to those interests.
Jolly was part of the Penfold dynasty via his mother, only daughter of H.L. Penfold Hyland, who entered the wine firm in 1904.
Car racing was an early Derek Jolly passion and he was given an Austin 7 as a 21st birthday present from his parents. Jolly significantly improved the performance of early Austin 7-engined Lotus cars. He designed, built and raced his Decca Specials and then two Lotus 15s with a lot of success in Australia. Jolly moved away from car racing, and sold his Lotus franchise, in his early thirties as pressure mounted to concentrate more on business with the Penfolds being floated as a public company in the early 1960s.
Jolly became a big mover and shaker of the 1960s, with a focus on developing Melbourne Street, North Adelaide. He opened the Magic Flute restaurant and the Gamba Studio. With high-quality recording equipment and an open-door policy for musicians to experiment, Gamba was a unique and frequently used space. A prized piece of its equipment was the Moog Modular 3 synthesiser – the first available outside the United States of America.
Another ground-breaking part of Jolly’s Decca’s Place development in Melbourne Street was the Futuro house, a flying saucer-like prefabricated building, originally designed as a ski house by Matti Suuronen, a Finn. Jolly saw it as the way of the future.
Jolly lost much of his fortune in the 1987 stockmarket crash but he continued to be an artistic force. He moved with wife Helen in 1966 to the Barossa Valley and opened a multi-media gallery. They were important in starting the Barossa Music Festival.
Jolly died in 2002, aged 74, as a result of injuries from a car accident 12 months earlier when his stationary car was slammed into by an out-of- control driver at about 90km/h.