Property Of The Week: 56 Power Street, Hawthorn, VIC

A grand double-storey Victorian entertainer tucked neatly into one of Melbourne’s prized inner suburbs, ‘Girraween’ proves an enviable study in classic elegance and updated functionality for luxurious contemporary living.

Set well back from the street, enter the approx. 1190 sqm plot via a private and walled front garden and embrace an immediate sense of calm. Off the inviting, arched hallway sits the exquisite formal dining, sumptuous library, secondary living area and kitchen.

The latter delivers Smeg and ASKO appliances as well as HeatnGlo fireplace and contemporary cabinetry across a neutral white palette and continuation of Japanned floorboards.

Of the four well-appointed upstairs bedrooms, the master suite boasts WIR/dresser and luxurious modern ensuite with city views. A further bathroom and powder room can be found upstairs, with additional powder room on the ground floor.

Dating to c1883, classical ceilings abound here, so too marble gas fireplaces across the library, formal living and dining rooms as well as further modern musts such as hydronic heating, air-conditioning, alarm, video intercom and double-glazed windows.

The exemplary elegance of ‘Girraween’ extends across the rear and what is a delightful entertainer’s garden as lifted from the British countryside. The sun-soaked rear holds a huge deck, large grassed area and what is an established kitchen garden alongside a potager shed and remote-control garage with abundant storage.

Situated just 5km from the CBD, the property rests on the edge of the Grace Park Estate and within easy access to the elevated shopping and dining of Glenferrie Road and Kew Junction.

Nearby to trams and Hawthorn train station, so too parklands, the Yarra River and some of Melbourne’s finest schools, including Xavier, MLC, Trinity and more.

‘Girraween’ is a rare opportunity to own a property that affords not only an enviable lifestyle, but an updated slice of history that holds a tremendous sense of self.

EOI closing April 10, the property is with Kay & Burton’s Sam Wilkinson (0400 169 148) and Xavier Karagiannis (0427 367 330); kayburton.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.

Property Of The Week: 56 Power Street, Hawthorn, VIC

An enviable lifestyle awaits with this modernised Victorian entertainer.

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