Luxury holiday home in Yallingup mixes art with nature
This Antipodean Ithaca combines art, architecture and nature with dramatic results.
The first pleasure in arriving at luxury hideaway Ithaca is to glide back the curtains for a big reveal — a wide sunlit valley that dips and rises, all clad in green, until it reaches the limestone ridges and gleaming expanse of Indian Ocean. Then there’s the neat discovery that Ithaca’s elegant sitting room chairs are designed to swivel around to face the 18m-long window, from where you can count kangaroos grazing below in the Gunyulgup Valley. One, two … one hundred. Or you can ease open plate-glass doors to the veranda-cum-barbecue area, and enjoy a bird’s-eye view of red-capped parrots slicing and dicing the garden shrubs.
Forget Ithaca of Odysseus fame, the Greek island where mythical heroes are a drachma a dozen. The Ionian Sea will be off-limits for some time, but this Antipodean Ithaca beckons the traveller to a place not far from where balmy Indian Ocean currents meet the rugged Southern Ocean swell. This luxury villa in Western Australia’s southwest lies a leisurely three-hour drive south from Perth.
The sharply handsome modern house has four bedrooms, three plush bathrooms and two powder rooms, a plunge pool, open fire pit, and that hilltop outlook even Greek gods would envy. There are luxurious touches aplenty, such as the dream kitchen, so cunningly designed it takes several laps of the long granite benchtops to find the hidden fridge. Ithaca is popular for corporate bonding weekends. Hired chefs apparently swoon with delight at the twin electric ovens and dishwashers, induction cooktops, and every utensil known to cutlery connoisseurs laid out in immaculate, uncluttered drawers.
Several generations of one family often rent it, using it as a base to attend a wedding in one of a dozen wineries less than 20 minutes’ drive away. For parents of youngsters, only the marble steps leading down to the art-adorned sleeping wing would invite a watchful eye. True luxury is floating in the warm outdoor plunge pool next to one of two master suites, and knowing nobody but the kangaroos can peek. Pinpricks of light can be seen at night but they are probably distant neighbours in their hot tub.
The seaside village of Yallingup has about 1000 residents and the nearest town of Dunsborough only 6000, although the line of tradies’ utes parked outside Yallingup’s Gugelhupf bakery (fabulous pastries) hint at intense building activity in the area.
Ithaca’s owners got in early eight years ago, drawing up detailed plans for an all-mod-cons building, including his library and her art room. They plan to retire here when their busy Perth medical practice wraps up.
They credit interior designer Christian Lyon and local builder Nick Goode for turning their wishlist into reality in a good-natured, hands-on partnership. Simple lines wanted? Out with door frames and in with floor-to-ceiling windows. Limited palette? Exquisite stonework and Italian marble tiles embedded with fossils create a light, flowing feel. Cheeky touches? A Gillie and Marc sculpture that positions a rabbit head on Marilyn Monroe’s body greets arrivals at the front door.
With four children and more grandchildren, the owners says Ithaca is “all about an escape into nature”, whether surfing at Yallingup Beach or rambling along the 123km Cape to Cape Track, which links Cape Naturaliste Lighthouse north of Yallingup to the southernmost beacon at Cape Leeuwin. Ithaca’s plumped pillows, premium bedsheets and underfloor heating will doubly appeal after a bracing winter walk. Snug window seats invite you to curl up with a book on days when the weather comes in on the Roaring Forties. Or flick on the double-sided gas fireplace set into a honeycomb-hued stone wall, and decide whether to sit inside or out.
Getting anywhere in this southwest corner is no cut-lunch-and-water-bag exercise. A day’s drive can take in half a dozen Margaret River wineries, although keep your wits about you on the tree-lined country lanes.
Book in for a couple of hours with Bruce Dukes, owner and chief winemaker at Wilyabrup’s Domaine Naturaliste. Affable and down to earth, he’s full of stories about his former life as Napa Valley winemaker at Niebaum-Coppola winery, now known as Inglenook, but still owned by the movie-making family behind The Godfather.
If a cheese and wine combo is desired, Yallingup Cheese Company’s Alana Langworthy is also a renowned winemaker and co-owner of Nocturne Wines with her husband Julian (James Halliday’s 2019 Winemaker of the Year).
But the best advice is to stay close, dine and drink local at little restaurants and friendly beachside cafes full of tousle-haired surfers.
And while Ithaca’s gods haunt the original Greek island, this Ithaca has its own legendary local story, immortalised in a newly erected statue of Wadandi maiden Korriane Gnwirri. She combs her hair with seashells and scans the Yallingup beach horizon for her lover to reappear. She’ll also be waiting for your return.
To-Do List
Dine
At Lagoon Yallingup with seafood-loving Chef Ben Jacob, 10 minutes’ drive from the house.
See
Caves House, a quaint, English-style home with historic gardens.
caveshousehotelyallingup.com.au
Walk
The Torpedo Trail, an easy scenic 3km hike through wildflower coast, starting at the Korriane Gnwirri statue in Yallingup.
Buy
Exquisite glass vases from Gunyulgup Galleries, or jewellery with Australian motifs from John Miller Designs.
Attend
Upcoming events in the region such as the Cabin Fever Festival for winter comfort food (July 16-25) or CinefestOZ Film Festival (August 25-29).
Essentials
Ithaca is a three-hour drive from Perth, via Busselton – stop and stretch your legs on the famous jetty. This secluded holiday home is tucked away in the hills behind the surfbreaks. Three-night minimum stay; from $4195 in low season to $8695 for seven nights in high season.
Victoria Laurie was a guest of Private Properties.