🌊 About Us
The Full Story
Welcome to Lost Manly — a nostalgic design house celebrating the art, heritage, and community spirit of Sydney’s Northern Beaches.
Founded by Lisa Lipman, a fourth-generation local now living in Norway, Lost Manly was created from a lifelong love of storytelling, history, and the deep sense of belonging that defines life on the peninsula. Each design and print pays tribute to the beaches, ferries, and coastal culture that have long made this region one of Australia’s most cherished seaside communities.
For generations, Manly was known as the heart and gateway to the Northern Beaches — the first port of call for ferries from the city, and the place where visitors began their journey north along the coast. From Manly’s bustling Corso to the quieter coves of Freshwater and beyond, this small corner of Sydney captured the imagination of travellers long before the Spit Bridge was built — when the only way to reach the peninsula was by sea.
Lisa’s own roots run deep across these shores. Her father’s family were long-time locals whose lives revolved around the beach, the promenade, and the ferries that linked Manly to Sydney Harbour. The family photo below — taken at Manly’s old Harbour Pool in the 1930s — captures that golden era when community and the sea were one.
On her mother’s side, the story crosses oceans. Her great-grandfather, Claus Clausen, a young Norwegian sailor, “jumped ship” in Newcastle in 1901 and made his way to Sydney, where he settled in Freshwater — then famous for its lively beach camps and holiday cottages, years before it was renamed Harbord in 1923. There, he met and married Stella Stanton, a local girl with family ties in Manly. Together they built a life that became part of the Northern Beaches story — one of resilience, joy, and love of the sea.
More than a century later, Lisa followed that same trail — back to Norway — but her heart has never left the Northern Beaches. Lost Manly is both a creative tribute and a promise: that one day she’ll return home, bringing her art, her stories, and her family’s legacy full circle.
From vintage ferry posters to seaside prints and wearable nostalgia, every Lost Manly creation is custom-made, printed in Australia, and inspired by real local history.
Join the Lost Manly community and relive the stories that shaped the Northern Beaches — one print, one memory, one wave at a time.
Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/lostmanlynorthernbeaches 'should old acquaintance be forgot'...and surely you will find,
with an ever growing online community on the socials of the Facebook Page, Public, and Private groups, Instagram, YouTube and Tiktok...a compot of past and present, old and new, now and then, nostalgic gold.
And when you join our subscribers you'll receive occasional emails.
View our BLOG pages here.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/lostmanlynorthernbeaches
I love this photo, sent to me by my cousin. It was taken around 1936, in front of the Harbour Pool and Promenade, (see the photo below of how it used to look), long gone now, never rebuilt after the storm of 1974, destroyed the promenade and was never rebuilt despite its huge popularity.
In this phot are my Nana Lipman and her growing tribe, from left is Joan (who recently celebrated her 100th birthday (in August 2025), little brother Barry in the oversized cap with his little fingers in a bucket of hot chips I suppose, then there's Kathleen in the lifesaver, born in 1932, behind Barry is my dad Billy born 1929, and Mary born 1922.
In the middle is nana's friend, Mrs McTiernan, from Young where I presume they were still living as my grandfather's work took him there for several decades, before returning to Manly in retirement, and my lovely Nana (Johanna) Lipman, a saint by all accounts, dressed in one of her own made floral frocks and quite likely her hat, made by her mother-in-law, granny Sutton.
By 1942, there would be nine children.
This photo is of 'the Duke' on his visit to Freshwater Beach in the early 1900s.