Adelaide’s Most Opulent Apartment

Adelaide is fast shirking its ‘small city’ reputation with a luxurious new penthouse set atop the new 37-storey Market Square tower set for the city’s CBD.

The impressive $10 million Skyline penthouse (designed by the internationally renowned Woods Bagot) delivers 935sqm across four bedrooms, three bathrooms and nearly 300sqm of outdoor living space — served with panoramic views of Adelaide’s CBD, Hills and across the beaches and water.

The offering presents a rare opportunity to live in the cultural and historic heart of Adelaide’s vibrant CBD – with further heritage value and appeal attached to the 150-year history of the Central Market location.

While the penthouse takes centre stage in this once-in-a-generation build, the sub-penthouses also step onto this prized podium as two level 36 offerings comprising 3-bedroom and which start from $5.2 million.

Further to the amenities presented by these properties, Market Square itself will deliver exclusive access to a residents’ lobby bar, health and wellbeing zone, library, cinema, outdoor kitchen and private dining room, car wash, EV charging stations, cool room and parcel storage, dog wash as well as an on-site childcare centre.

The elevated appeal of the property aligns to that of Adelaide itself — a city on the ascent with heightened liveability credentials and a priority market that boasts a 19.1 per cent rise in prices in the 12 months to September.

Such rising popularity pushes a fast deadline in regards to securing a piece of one of Market Square, with more than 80 per cent of the 212 apartments – set to occupy levels 16-37 – already sold.

A 251-room hotel will operate across lower levels of the development while an 11,000sqm retail centre and a further 15,000sqm of office space is also allocated.

The Market Square project redevelops a central area that is bordered by Gouger and Grote Streets, the Samuel Way courts complex and Hilton Hotel on one side the historic market – the latter established in 1869 and which still operates and is not part of the new development.

Headed by developers ICD — think Aspire Melbourne and City Tattersalls Sydney, among others — construction will commence in 2022 and is scheduled to complete in three and a half years.

marketsquareadelaide.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.”