The Queensland hinterland property making waves across the Pacific
There’s more than a touch of magic about this showstopping home that is ready for anything
2 min
It has only been on the market for a few days but this spectacular property south of the Gold Coast is already turning heads.
Director at PRD Real Estate Burleigh Heads, John Fischer, said he has been fielding calls from as far away as the United States about the Jayson Pate designed Dahlia Estate at 53 Gibsonville Street, Tallebudgera.
The boomerang-shaped, two-storey property includes four bedrooms, four bathrooms and space for five cars across the 940sqm floorplan designed to capitalise on the views of bushland and the abundant natural light.
Fully completed just last year, the property is being offered for sale by the owners, who are licensed builders.
Set within a 5.4ha estate in the Coolangatta hinterland with views to Springbrook and The Cougals, the house wraps around a Palm Springs-style heated magnesium swimming pool with a tennis court and viewing platform to the side. There’s even room to land a helicopter.
As might be expected from a property like this, all the extras have been included, from a four-person sauna and outdoor gym area to a spacious home theatre, a wine cellar and light-filled home office big enough for two. The entertainer’s kitchen has dual Miele ovens, induction cooktop, integrated dishwasher and microwave and steamer ovens. The butler’s pantry is equipped with a Zip tap for hot, cold or sparkling water as well as an InSinkErator.
The home is fully automated with Control4 smart home technology and nine music zones. Robotic mowers maintain the lawns.
The home’s electricity needs are offset by a 26kW solar system with 52 panels and 16kW battery back up. A 50,000L rainwater tank is in addition to the 10,000L firefighting storage and 10,000L irrigation tank. The guest house also has a 2,000L rainwater tank.
Designed for resort-style living, the property is still little more than a 30 minute drive from the main action on the Gold Coast.
While Fischer would not be drawn on price, he pointed to Buddy Franklin’s purchase late last year of a $9 million property at nearby Reedy Creek as a guide.
“And this is a far superior property,” Fischer said.
Address: 53 Gibsonville Street, Tallebudgera
For sale: Expressions of interest close 5pm April 17
Agent: John Fischer, director PRD Real Estate Burleigh Heads 0478 071 623
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
A new AI-driven account by leading landscape architect Jon Hazelwood pushes the boundaries on the role of ‘complex nature’ in the future of our cities
2 min
Drifts of ground cover plants and wildflowers along the steps of the Sydney Opera House, traffic obscured by meadow-like planting and kangaroos pausing on city streets.
This is the way our cities could be, as imagined by landscape architect Jon Hazelwood, principal at multi-disciplinary architectural firm Hassell. He has been exploring the possibilities of rewilding urban spaces using AI for his Instagram account, Naturopolis_ai with visually arresting outcomes.
“It took me a few weeks to get interesting results,” he said. “I really like the ephemeral nature of the images — you will never see it again and none of those plants are real.
“The AI engine makes an approximation of a grevillea.”
Hazelwood chose some of the most iconic locations in Australia, including the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, as well as international cities such as Paris and London, to demonstrate the impact of untamed green spaces on streetscapes, plazas and public space.
He said he hopes to provoke a conversation about the artificial separation between our cities and the broader environment, exploring ways to break down the barriers and promote biodiversity.
“A lot of the planning (for public spaces) is very limited,” Hazelwood said. “There are 110,000 species of plants in Australia and we probably use about 12 in our (public) planting schemes.
“Often it’s for practical reasons because they’re tough and drought tolerant — but it’s not the whole story.”
Hazelwood pointed to the work of UK landscape architect Prof Nigel Dunnett, who has championed wild garden design in urban spaces. He has drawn interest in recent years for his work transforming the brutalist apartment block at the Barbican in London into a meadow-like environment with diverse plantings of grasses and perennials.
Hazelwood said it is this kind of ‘complex nature’ that is required for cities to thrive into the future, but it can be hard to convince planners and developers of the benefits.
“We have been doing a lot of work on how we get complex nature because complexity of species drives biodiversity,” he said.
“But when we try to propose the space the questions are: how are we going to maintain it? Where is the lawn?
“A lot of our work is demonstrating you can get those things and still provide a complex environment.”
At the moment, Hassell together with the University of Melbourne is trialling options at the Hills Showground Metro Station in Sydney, where the remaining ground level planting has been replaced with more than 100 different species of plants and flowers to encourage diversity without the need for regular maintenance. But more needs to be done, Hazelwood said.
“It needs bottom-up change,” he said. ““There is work being done at government level around nature positive cities, but equally there needs to be changes in the range of plants that nurseries grow, and in the way our city landscapes are maintained and managed.”
And there’s no AI option for that.
Consumers are going to gravitate toward applications powered by the buzzy new technology, analyst Michael Wolf predicts
Chris Dixon, a partner who led the charge, says he has a ‘very long-term horizon’
