[3][4] Only four houses were located in the area in 1924; a fifth was later extended and granted a liquor license as the Eastern View Hotel in 1927.

[5] The Great Ocean Road Trust developed a nine-hole golf course at Eastern View in 1936.

[8] It was proposed in 1940 to rename the town "Herschell", in honour of the long-time chair of the former Trust, but this met with local resistance and did not occur.

It was first opened in 1939, and has been rebuilt three times: in 1974, after the Country Roads Board found the original too low and narrow, in 1983, after it burned down in the Ash Wednesday bushfires, and again in the 1990s, after it was damaged by a mini-cyclone.

The Christian Brothers later purchased 25 acres in the area, and established the Santa Monica Camp.