One Sydney Harbour ‘Skyhomes’ Unveiled

The shimmering One Sydney Harbour development has today unveiled its latest ‘Skyhome’ penthouses.

The luxurious three-tower Lendlease project – designed by Pritzker award-winning architect Renzo Piano and which informs the city’s rapidly expanding Barangaroo precinct – is already home to the country’s most expensive residence, last year’s $140-million-plus sale of the premiere OSH penthouse not only smashing sales records but ultimately setting a new luxury agenda.

Now, two further penthouses – so-called Skyhomes – have hit the market, occupying the top two floors of the 68-storey Residences Two.

Spanning a full floor each and ranging from 540 to 670 square metres with 3-metre high ceilings throughout, each boasts private lift and rooftop terrace (80 – 100 sqm) with entertaining space, swimming pool and panoramic views across Sydney and its various architectural icons, as well as to the Blue Mountains in the west.

“All places have a story to tell, you just have to listen to that story and I think Sydney has a great story to tell,” offers Piano.“In this case, I think it’s very much about this, about making something that tells the essence of this city that is about sense of lightness, a sense of light, the sense of transparency.”

Skyhomes interiors will be crafted by leading designer Daniel Goldberg, founder and creative director of State of Craft, in consultation with the owners.
Goldberg previously collaborated with Piano on London’s The Shard and Shard Place in 2012.

“We wanted to create two unique, world-class homes in the sky that capture the essence of living high above Sydney Harbour,” says Goldberg. “The experience of being in the Skyhomes was inspired by life on board private yachts with their seamless transition from inside to outside spaces, and the feeling of freedom and elegant comfort.”

onesydneyharbour.com; lendlease.com.au

As originally published on Robb Report Australia & New Zealand.

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.

One Sydney Harbour ‘Skyhomes’ Unveiled

Step inside Australia’s most expensive new project.

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