Prestige Property: 7 Hillside Avenue, Vaucluse, NSW

Set in a truly enviable setting, this hillside pile in Sydney’s blue-ribbon suburb Vaucluse arrives with sweeping vistas of the eastern suburbs and harbour.

Designed by Howard Tanner of DKT architects in the early ’00s, the nearly 2000sqm site sees a 7-bedroom, 7-bathroom, 10-car parking mansion offering unadulterated luxury at every turn.

The home boasts natural stone flooring and timber underfoot, with soaring ceilings and extensive use of glass used to form its character.

Making the most of the home’s lofty location, the design maximises the views and embraces its many courtyards and manicured gardens designed by Paul Bangay.

A grand entry foyer welcomes one into the home, here the double0heigh ceiling is warped in glass while showcasing the grand two-way staircase.

All the living areas are found on the ground floor. Here, the formal dining is elegance exemplified with an ambient gas fireplace and French doors to the gardens.

Also on this level is the kitchen. Built for entertainers, it features a Corian benchtop, enormous island bench, an array of appliances including an eight burner Barazza cooktop. A butlers’ pantry is also found here.

Four spacious bedrooms alongside a family room comprise the upper level. The lavish master boasts a glamorous ensuite – replete with marble – and freestanding bath, ‘his’ and ‘hers’ walk-in-robes, the latter with more breathtaking views.

Downstairs, the basement sees a 10-car garage – perfect for the avid car collector – with an expansive cellar.

Elsewhere the home features a gym on the ground floor, well-appointed office and a separate guest house complete with its own kitchenette, living and bathroom.

Outside is where the home really shines, with a poolside terrace making it easy to lounge and enjoy the surrounds. Here, a powder room is accessible through the terrace and is adjoined by a Wisteria clad arbour.

The home is found in an exclusive cul-de-sac setting and is close to Kincoppal Rose Bay School, Hermitage Foreshore reserve and within walking distance of Rose Bay’s vibrant village centre.

The property is listed with Ken Jacobs (+61 407 190 152) of Christie’s International Real Estate. Price guide $38m; hillsideavenue.cve.io

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: 7 Hillside Avenue, Vaucluse, NSW

A rare trophy home in Sydney’s east hits the market.

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