Hamilton's Hottest Home Is Up For Grabs

Perched on the spectacularly private Hamilton hill, 55 Markwell street is a luxurious three-story residence boasting panoramic views of Brisbane’s CBD.

Designed by architect Shaun Lockyer, the 6-bedroom, 5-bathroom, 4-car garage residence is filled with a raft of resort-like amenities across a 2456sqm plot, only 10 minutes from the CBD and airport.

The main house offers over 1000sqm of living space and is fitted with a heady combination of timber, glass and stone achieving a contemporary aesthetic through floor to ceiling glass doors and windows, lofty ceiling heights and timber panelling.

On the first level, the kitchen well-appointed with Miele appliances, a marble island and is bordered with stonework pylons alongside a walkthrough butler’s pantry. Creating a free-flowing space are connections to the formal dining, casual dining, family room, lounge and outdoor deck area.

Additionally, on the first level is a study alongside four of the bedrooms, three of which come with ensuites.

Throughout the home, the bathrooms are adorned in a combination of limestone tiling or marble benchtops, with the aforementioned timber, stone, glass design trinity referenced.

Up the marble staircase, the upper level sees the master retreat, complete with its own ensuite, boasting twin vanities and ‘his’ and ‘hers’ walk-in robes and more impressive views.

The lower level of the home sees a private squash court, games room, personal gym, theatre and cellar, along with a laundry and yet another bathroom.

Built to entertain, the deck area and backyard host an outdoor kitchen, complete with barbecue, pizza oven, sink, built-in refrigeration and fire pit. There’s also a jaw-dropping 21-metre heated lap pool complemented by a spa and sauna.

On the technology front, the home is fitted with a C-bus lighting system, multi-zone security system with cameras and a Sonos sound system.

The residence also offers a separate fully self-contained one-bedroom cottage for the housekeeper or guests.

The listing is the Ray White New Farm’s Matt Lancashire (+61 416 476 480). POA

Rwnf.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.

Hamilton’s Hottest Home Is Up For Grabs

High on the hill, this architectural wonder could be one of Brisbane’s finest.

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