Category Archives: Interior Design

I’ll Blame My Dreadful Short Game…

25 Tuesday Jan 2022

Posted by in Australian mansions, Australian real estate, country escape, Golf, Golf Course Houses, Homes, Interior Design, International Real Estate, kitchens, Landscape Design, Luxury Real Estate, real estate

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I coulda’ been a contender! My golf game has crashed from reasonable to just plain turn-your-head-away sad. Age screws some of us really badly. If not – I would HAVE THIS GORGEOUS HOME.

So really the pics tell the tale – as smooth as warm caramel on a spoon, this house is scrumptious.

The name gives it away, Arnold Palmer Drive, this mansion faces onto the 15th fairway of the, you guessed it, Arnold Palmer designed golf course in Queensland’s uber swish Sanctuary Cove. A mere pitching wedge from the pool’s edge to the fairway rough.

However, HOWEVER it’s not all about golf, it’s about a single level home, (more than 90 squares) with stupendous interior design, and more than a bucket of balls of ingenuity and good taste.

Four beds, four baths, and a pool … and a dining /living area with floor to ceiling glass – oh, be still my beating heart – looking onto the lush green landscape of the golf course.

Whoever did the lighting design is a genius, plain and simple – well, pretty much everyone involved in this one is a genius.

Go through the listing and just drool.

Divine. Love it. It’s just come on for the first time with Ray White’s Matt Gates … lucky bugger.

Video is here, listing is here and above. My hopes and dreams can be found hanging in a the closet out the back.

Do they have an octogenarians’ tournament?

Maybe its not too late.

Yes Prue, it IS. Sigh.

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Prue Miller is a freelance journalist with a distinct penchant for architecture and real estate.

Prue Miller is NOT a good golfer.

Doesn’t Everyone Import a 185 year old Olive Tree from Tuscany?

02 Tuesday Nov 2021

Posted by in Celebrity Property, Hollywood, Homes, Interior Design, International Real Estate, Landscape Design, Luxury Real Estate

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1108 Wallace Ridge is a new development in Beverley Hills. All Photos Douglas Friedman

You just can’t compete with LA spec developers/builders. I mean, they have those damned hills that offer uninterrupted, private views, and a population dripping in money, vanity and FOMO.

Enter the most whimsical property that I’ve seen for a while. The 18,000 square foot “Elementi” created by Michael Chen, in association with SAOTA Architects, for the Luxford Group.

The price tag being flagged as $USD65m, seems pretty worth it to these old eyes, considering the invlusions such as the Olive tree imported from Tuscany and craned (they are reported to have needed a 110-ton crane and a crew of 15 ) into the heart of the home.

What a superb and quite brilliant idea to feature this gnarled and ragged specimen against a sharp, gleaming geometrically precise background.

It offers a depth in design that has yet to be equalled in the cut throat spec home world of LA.

There are seven bedrooms, fourteen bathrooms and a measly two kitchens, despite the unlikely event of anyone actually cooking here beside the catering company. Such a waste of a well hidden gaggle of Gaggenau appliances.

The pictures tell the story; from the floating marble footway over the hard edge moat that delivers vistiors to an architectural wonderland.

But for me, it’s about the tree. It’s about the living heart of this truly inspired design

The beating heart of a Beverly Hills castle

Video can be found here

A Hollywood Hunting Lodge with Stars not Steers

04 Monday Oct 2021

Posted by in Celebrity Property, Hollywood, Interior Design, International Real Estate

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With a strong Australian tie, this former Hollywood ‘hunting lodge’ is on the market for $USD 2.39m (wow that’s a bunch of dollars for a quirky three bedder, but still….star power and all that) through Coldwell Banker.

All photos Cameron Carothers

What’s the tie? You may well ask. Its currently owned by Australian Director Gregor Jordan . His movie credits go back a way including Buffalo Soldiers (2001) (missed it) , (1999) Two Hands , (strike two – even though it had Heath Ledger in it) and the 2010 film with Samuel L Jackson Unthinkable. You guessed it, strike three … what have I been watching all these years? Me, a gal who used to work in Hollywood too. The shame weighs heavy…

I look forward to deep diving on various streamers to catch up.

Anyhow, great quirky place; built back in 1921 it is private, sheltered, includes just three bedrooms and in a huge break with US tradition, a mere two and a half baths.

Quirky goes down well in the Hills, and the publicity on the place includes reference to maybe the house being occupied at certain times by Robert Downey Jnr, and Daniel Craig. Okay, yes, I absolutely know those names. (Be still my beating heart).

I think it is actually a very cool home, from an interesting architectural period of innocence and optimism.

According the the journos at Dwell, the giant Noguchi pendant lampshade was gifted and presented to the owners by close friend Heath Ledger – a man of very fine taste in all things.

Real estate … every house has a story.

Prue Miller is a long in the tooth property writer.

Bathroom Tiles Are An Art Form – Sometimes.

29 Wednesday Sep 2021

Posted by in Interior Design, Uncategorized

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Perhaps it’s frustration with my old favourite TV show, The Block, which this season is so bad, I don’t even record it anymore. There’s nothing innovative; no plans afoot that make me so curious I have to see how it turns out … just bullshit and drama, and no product information beyond endless sponsor plugs.

I know ‘out there’ ideas that need to be seen. Decorating, interior design, is an art form, it’s a gigantic palette waiting for daubs of character and passion. Some people are Kandinsky, or Warhol, or Banksy, or Monet or Manet or whatever. Not everyone likes everything, but art causes a reaction. Has an impact. Wakes you up. Makes you think.

Extreme developers, which are mostly found in Melbourne it seems to me, are not afraid to venture into into the wild lands of being non-bland.

I use the spectacular 270A Punt Road South Yarra as an example.

Absolutely, boldly exuberant in every aspect – let’s just for the hell of it, check out the tiles. Check out something different. See what money, time and the heart of a gilt lion can give you.

And just when you think there are no tiles left in Melbourne … the indoor pool produces the Big Finish.

You’ll never swim alone

The whole property is wonderfully shocking. Unique. A statement. Video can be found here .

This is a kitchen. No kidding.

Three bedrooms, six levels and, as one does, an exterior video screen. C’mon. Wild.

No words. Oh, hang on, one word. Wow.

Thinking outside the box, or indeed The Block.

This does however bring me back to Season 13 of said series, when the loveable larrikins Sticks and Wombat took some risks, and produced my favourite bathroom concept the series has ever produced.

If only history would repeat itself.

  • Sticks and Wombat from Channel Nine’s The Block, Season 13

Prue Miller is a property journo with too many opinions.