Prestige Property: 32 Becker Place, Mount Ommaney, QLD

A suspended concrete tri-level glass and stone mansion perched on the hill in Mount Ommaney, Brisbane, is one of the city’s most elevated waterfront properties.

Boasting panoramic views of Brisbane River, as well as distant mountain range views of Cunningham’s Gap, comes this 5-bedroom, 5-bathroom, 12-car parking pile spread across a secluded 2858sqm location.

Inside, a three-storey central void is reminiscent of five-star international hotels – giving an immense sense of space, further elevated by soaring panes of glass and a sweeping circular staircase. Drawing the eye in once more is a stone-clad internal lift that services all floors.

The top level – facing the river – sees the master bedroom, complete with ensuite, walk-in-robe, and nearby study or nursery. The master bedroom is surrounded by private rooftop deck.

The middle level is the core of the home, with the living, dining and kitchen space all located here. The kitchen boasts a quartz island bench and butler’s kitchen alongside a powder room. A custom-built, spacious bar – made of French Oak – which opens out onto a spacious deck is ideal for drinking in the views.

Also on the middle level is the children’s wing – featuring three bedrooms, each with individual balconies. One enjoys an ensuite, while the other two share a bathroom.

The lower level also homes a 10-seat, 3- tired French-inspired cinema, replete with a cocktail cabinet and games table area. Further, a custom-built Alpine stone bar and backs ono an enormous rumpus room with a full-sized lounge and pool table.

Also on the lower level is a bedroom which acts well as a guest room. Also here is another luxurious bathroom.

The lower level also grants access – via stacking doors – to the alfresco entertaining area complete with magnesium infinity pool, 8-seater spa and outside pool house with shower and toilet.

Located 25-minutes to Brisbane’s CBD and an hour’s drive to the Gold Coast, the grand residence enjoys the conveniences of Mount Ommaney without forgoing its relaxed lifestyle.

The listing is with NGU Real Estate Toowong’s Emil Juresic (+61 481 601 793), POA. ngurealestate.com.au

A historic Barbados estate with a 300-year-old villa and 11 acres overlooking the Caribbean Sea is now for sale with a guide price of $22.5 million.

The seller is Kit Braden, chairman of the U.K. branch of French beauty empire L’Occitane Group, whose family has spent every winter for the last 13 years at the island property, known as Fustic Estate.

“It’s very much a family house,” Braden said. “We love having a lot of people there. It’s a collection point to keep everyone together.”

The main villa dates to 1712, though it’s been reimagined and expanded substantially over the years.

It spans 13,000 square feet and features seven en suite bedrooms across three wings, as well as expansive verandas, stone courtyards and rows of louvered doors in gay Caribbean pastels.

In the 1970s, when the home was owned by Charles Graves—brother of British poet Robert Graves—it was reimagined by stage designer Oliver Messel, one of the foremost theater designers of the last century. Messel expanded the home, added a lagoon pool with a natural waterfall and other theatrical features, according to Braden.

“The whole place is a little bit magical,” he said.

The home sits about 350 feet above the water, and surrounded by lush gardens that slope towards the water.

“We look down through our garden—which is about 12 acres of tropical gardens and palm trees and wonderful old mahogany trees—onto the Caribbean,” Braden said.

He and his wife first saw the property on New Year’s Eve 2013, during a quick trip from where they were staying in Grenada.

The couple spent an hour walking the perimeter, some of it still untouched jungle, in the pouring rain.

“By the time we got back, I had fallen in love with it,” Braden said.

His wife, however, wasn’t so sure. But in Braden’s telling, a second visit in sunnier weather with two of their children brought her around.

“She had to be talked into that it was a jolly good idea; now she absolutely loves it,” he said.

When they bought the property, the edge that runs along the waterfront was a jungle, so they cleared the ridge and transformed it into gardens.

They also bought an additional sea-level parcel with two beach cottages, giving the property direct access to the water and the town below via a five-minute walk.

The property also has a 15-person staff, a reflecting pond, an outdoor pavilion suitable for yoga and a commercial grade kitchen that can serve more than 100 guests, according to a brochure from Knight Frank, which posted the listing in March. They did not provide further comment.

For Braden, the property is special because of its natural beauty, its proximity to the town of Saint Lucy and its history—which dates way way back to when the island of Barbados was first formed via tectonic activity.

“It was basically tectonic plates that collided about a million years ago so the seabed is the top of the hill,” Braden said. “We’re on coral rock.”

As a result, Fustic Estate includes an extensive network of caves that were likely used by the Arawaks, a Venezuelan fishing tribe that followed the fish to these islands about a thousand years ago.

“If the fish were good they’d camp here,” Braden said. “There’s evidence that they stayed there in those caves, they lived there in good winters.”

Now it’s someone else’s turn to live on the land shared by Arawaks, the plantation owners of 1712, Charles Graves and the Braden brood.

Prestige Property: 32 Becker Place, Mount Ommaney, QLD

A capacious hilltop residence sets a new standard of luxury.

Kit Braden, an executive at French beauty empire L’Occitane, has spent every winter for the past 13 years at the stone vacation home.