Five Brisbane Properties For $800,000

3/38 Oriel Road, Clayfield, QLD

Presenting immaculate style and presentation is this spacious, recently renovated townhouse.

Bringing with it a resort-style feel, the exceptional home – with 3-bedrooms, 2-bathrooms, 1-garage – arrives with a spacious kitchen with stone benchtops and stainless steel appliances.

Here, the open plan living and dining areas flow through to the private entertaining alfresco area.

Elsewhere, a master bedroom is complete with an ensuite and walk-in robe. Two other bedrooms complete the residence.

The home is nearby to all Clayfield has to offer including supermarkets, dining, express buses to the CBD, schools and more. The listing is with David Sullivan (+61 447 070 595) of One Percent Property Sales. Price guide $699,995; onepercent.com.au

4/22 Worden Street, Morningside, QLD

Perfectly balancing a low-maintenance lifestyle with features of a much larger property, this dual level residence brings immaculate interiors and excellent entertaining options.

Details like polished timber flooring, crisp white colour palette and plantation shutters are accompaniments to the home’s 3-bedroom, 2-bedroom, 1-garage – intelligent layout.

The ground floor sees a spacious open-plan living and dining area with a modern kitchen, that extends towards the connecting alfresco area and leads to an exclusive fully fenced grassed courtyard featuring established gardens.

The master bedroom encompasses a walk-in robe, stylish ensuite, while two additional bedrooms are fitted with built-in robes.

Minutes from Morningside train station and Cannon Hill Kmart Plaza, the home is nearby to the fashionable Oxford Street and Hawthorne Ferry Terminal.

The property is to go to auction, with listing agent Tammy Dale (+61 407 120 099) of Place Bulimba overseeing the listing. Eplace.com

2/54 Miskin Street, Toowong, Qld

This tri-level townhouse is in a class of its own. Sleeks lines and a superb fit-out are just part of the build as the property boasts a relaxed ambience throughout with abundant natural light and ventilation.

The indoor-outdoor layout is afforded via dual sets of French doors that open out to a private entertainer’s terrace overlooking the lush, landscaped gardens.

Further a spacious designer kitchen – featuring smart storage, capacity, stainless steel quality appliances, dishwasher, large breakfast bar.

Upstairs, the top-level offers three generous sized bedrooms, two with access to the front veranda, while the master boasts private ensuite. Additional bedrooms are serviced by a central bathroom.

Entertainment surrounds with Toowong and Indooroopilly shopping centres moments away and the residence centrally located to parks, universities, schools and transport directly to Brisbane CBD.

The listing is with Chris Gower (+61 438 882 780) of Gower Property Group; gowerpropertygroup.com.au

3 Kelly Lane, Norman Park, QLD

Very rarely do opportunities like this become available to the market. Here, the 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2 car garage freehold terrace in Norman Park is elevated on a low-maintenance block of 150sqm.

Fitted with parquet flooring, stone benchtops, in the kitchen, ceiling fans throughout, open plan living areas and city views.

The home is split into two levels, with the bedrooms, including the master suite – complete with ensuite and private balcony – residing on the upper level.

Downstairs, the living area flows out to a private courtyard, while the dining space and kitchen open towards the landscaped alfresco dining area.

The listing is for auction with Henry Hodge of Henry Hodge Real Estate (+61 0404 430 327); henryhodge.com.au

31/153 Lambert Street, Kangaroo Point, Qld

Step inside this stylish sub-penthouse with river views ideally located in the Kangaroo Point hub and experience all Brisbane’s inner-city lifestyle has to offer.

Designed with both relaxed living and entertaining firmly in mind, the 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom, 2-car parking apartment’s open plan living areas are privy to floor-to ceiling glass opening to the outdoor balcony.

Further, the apartment boasts a full-length entertainer’s balcony overlooking the Brisbane river, a functional kitchen with stainless steel appliances connected to open plan tiled dining and living areas.

Elsewhere the main bedroom is fitted with a study nook and access to the balcony, while two other good size bedrooms round out the apartment.

The apartment also has access to a lap pool and communal entertaining area.

Minutes away from the river boardwalk and greenery of Mowbray park, the residence has access to the best restaurants, shops and entertainment in Kangaroo Point and the CBD.

The property is heading to auction with Harcourts Homeside Pattie Steele (+61 402 908 271) the listing. Homeside.harcourts.com.au

Many luxury hotels only build on their gilded reputations with each passing decade. But others are less fortunate. Here are five long-gone grandes dames that fell from grace—and one that persists, but in a significantly diminished form.

The Proto-Marmont |

The Garden of Allah, Los Angeles

A magnet for celebrities, the Garden of Allah was once the scene-making equivalent of today’s Chateau Marmont. Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner’s affair allegedly started there and Humphrey Bogart lived in one of its bungalows for a time.

Crimean expat Alla Nazimova leased a grand home in Hollywood after World War I, but soon turned it into a hotel, where she prioritised glamorous clientele. Others risked being ejected by guards and a fearsome dog dubbed the Hound of the Baskervilles. Demolished in the 1950s, the site’s now a parking lot.

The Failed Follow-Up |

Hotel Astor, New York City

The Astor family hoped to repeat their success when they opened this sequel to their megahit Waldorf Astoria hotel in 1904. It became an anchor of the nascent Theater District, buzzy (and naughty) enough to inspire Cole Porter to write in “High Society”: “Have you heard that Mimsie Starr…got pinched in the Astor Bar?”

That bar soon gained another reputation. “Gentlemen who preferred the company of other gentlemen would meet in a certain section of the bar,” said travel expert Henry Harteveldt of consulting firm Atmosphere Research. By the 1960s, the hotel had lost its lustre and was demolished; the 54-storey One Astor Plaza skyscraper was built in its place.

The Island Playground |

Santa Carolina Hotel, Bazaruto Archipelago, Mozambique

In the 1950s, colonial officers around Africa treated Mozambique as an off-duty playground. They flocked, in particular, to the Santa Carolina, a five-star hotel on a gorgeous archipelago off the country’s southern coast.

Run by a Portuguese businessman and his wife, the resort included an airstrip that ferried visitors in and out. Ask locals why the place was eventually reduced to rubble, and some whisper that the couple were cursed—and that’s why no one wanted to take over when the business collapsed in the ’70s. Today, seeing the abandoned, crumbled ruins and murals bleached by the sun, it’s hard to dismiss their superstitions entirely.

The Tourism Gimmick |

Bali Hai Raiatea, French Polynesia

The overwater bungalow, a shorthand for barefoot luxury around the world, began in French Polynesia—but not with the locals. Instead, it was a marketing gimmick cooked up by a trio of rascally Americans. They moved to French Polynesia in the late 1950s, and soon tried to capitalise on the newly built international airport and a looming tourism boom.

That proved difficult because their five-room hotel on the island of Raiatea lacked a beach. They devised a fix: building rooms on pontoons above the water. They were an instant phenomenon, spreading around the islands and the world—per fan site OverwaterBungalows.net , there are now more than 9,000 worldwide, from the Maldives to Mexico. That first property, though, is no more.

The New England Holdout |

Poland Springs Resort, Poland, Maine

The Ricker family started out as innkeepers, running a stagecoach stop in Maine in the 1790s. When Hiram Ricker took over the operation, the family expanded into the business by which it would make its fortune: water. Thanks to savvy marketing, by the 1870s, doctors were prescribing Poland Spring mineral water and die-hards were making pilgrimages to the source.

The Rickers opened the Poland Spring House in 1876, and eventually expanded it to include one of the earliest resort-based golf courses in the country, a barber shop, dance studio and music hall. By the turn of the century, it was among the most glamorous resort complexes in New England.

Mismanagement eventually forced its sale in 1962, and both the water operation and hospitality holdings went through several owners and operators. While the water venture retains its prominence, the hotel has weathered less well, becoming a pleasant—but far from luxurious—mid-market resort. Former NYU hospitality professor Bjorn Hanson says attempts at upgrading over the decades have been futile. “I was a consultant to a developer in the 1970s to return the resort to its ‘former glory,’ but it never happened.”