The mansion, owned by a JLL executive, is hitting the market for A$20 million.
(Bloomberg) — Every year, Mike Batchelor, chairman of JLL Asia Pacific Hotels & Hospitality Group, goes skiing with his wife Margie in Queenstown, New Zealand. “We love it down there, and we almost bought a holiday home,” he says. “But then we came to our senses and said, ‘Instead of building a house we’ll use once a year, let’s find who builds the homes and ask them if they’d build a house for us in Australia.”
After some digging, they discovered the firm behind many of the houses they liked: Sumich Chaplin then agreed to build a new home for the couple and their children in their hometown of Brisbane, Australia.
The commission wasn’t made totally on a whim. The couple’s daughter rides horses; after tiring of the commute from their former home to stables, “we began to look for a property with some acreage and stumbled on one with five acres,” says Margie, a designer.
After purchasing a plot in Chandler, a suburb of Brisbane, about five years ago, they spent what they estimate was three years constructing a roughly 11,000-square-foot home. Now, having decided they want even more land, they’ve put the house on the market with Tyson Clarke of Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty for A$20M ($13.2 million). “I think we’ve got one more in us,” says Mike. “We’ve learned a lot by building this one, and I think the next will be our final spot.”
The Land
Mike says the double lot is highly unusual for the neighborhood. “It was very, very overgrown, but when we saw it there was a beautiful creek down the back,” he says. “Very unloved, very raw, so it was quite a mission to then set about and create what we’ve created.”
After demolishing the property’s existing house, the couple faced what they call a “blank canvas” on which to design their ideal home. “The connectivity to the natural landscape was very important,” says Margie. “We wanted privacy and seclusion that the acreage offers. The minute you enter the gates here and drive through, you feel like you’re in a different world.”
The property is a 25-minute drive from the center of Brisbane, and a 10- to 15-minute drive from the international airport. “We have the full convenience of a city home, but total seclusion,” Mike says.
Being in the hospitality business, he continues, “I travel around the world and am very lucky to see resorts all around Asia Pacific. When I come home, I feel like I’m on holiday.”
The property was laid out so that a dressage arena, horse paddocks, garages, stable, and the barn are mostly in the front of the property.
Laid out in as predominantly a single story building, the house is largely oriented toward the rear of the property, which contains an infinity-edge swimming pool, a pool house, spa, elaborate fire pit, basketball court, net-enclosed cricket pitch, and vegetable garden, along with big lawns that extend to a creek spanned by a pedestrian bridge.
“We’re passionate about our gardens, but we didn’t want to become a slave to our landscape,” says Margie. “So we went for a beautiful, open lawn flanked by plane trees, and then, along the running creek, we have the natural landscape as well.”
The House
With six bedrooms, six-full bath, and two half-baths, the house is laid out around areas for entertaining in the center, flanked by bedrooms on two wings. “From the start, there’s a very grand, peaked arrival hall that has stone floors and recycled natural timbers. It’s a very earthy feel,” says Mike. “And as you walk in, you look straight ahead to the great room, which has a warm fireplace and vaulted ceilings.”
The house’s core has a huge family room, kitchen, large lounge and dining room, all opening onto a terrace.
The primary suite takes up one wing that’s connected to the garage and gym (above which are two guest rooms and a kitchenette). On the other side of the house are more bedrooms that lead to a home cinema and a separate billiards/bar room the couple modeled on the Writers Bar in the Raffles hotel in Singapore. “We fell in love with that bar,” says Mike, “and Margie said that once we get the billiards room done, we’re going to import that [aesthetic] ourselves.”
Given the area’s subtropical climate, the couple wanted to surround the house with terraces and decks. More than 3,700 square feet of them surround the house, significantly expanding the home’s footprint.
The property, Mike says, “is really an entertainer’s home.” While the couple has hosted events for 60, they say its spaces are discreet enough that the home doesn’t feel cavernous when it contains only their nuclear family of four. “It’s a house that looks nice in photos,” Mike says. “But when [visitors] get here they’re taken aback. The home is architecturally spectacular.”
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