Step inside four unforgettable Australian homes that redefine luxury, lifestyle, and design. From rooftop terraces to rainforest walkways, this full episode of Open Homes showcases architectural brilliance across the country.
1. Harborside Marvel, Sydney
Tucked into a narrow, angled block, this four-story masterpiece rises vertically to deliver breathtaking Sydney Harbour views. With a rooftop terrace overlooking the skyline, architectural flair like tapered walls and exposed steel beams, and a sculptural birdcage-inspired staircase, this home turns spatial challenges into stunning design statements.
2. Coastal Family Dream, Gold Coast (Labrador)
Designed by a bold and creative homeowner, this relaxed coastal home celebrates simplicity and functionality. Featuring an electric blue front door, brass and blue accents throughout, and smart design choices like a hidden laundry behind the kitchen, it’s a modern-day Queenslander built for family life—complete with a huge backyard, pool, chicken coop, and even a coffee hut.
3. Moon Dog Brewery Beer Garden, Melbourne
Not your average build! Dave visits Moon Dog Brewery’s massive indoor-outdoor beer garden with lush tropical landscaping, hardwood decking, and a quirky central lagoon. With 72 beers on tap and a full brewery visible from the bar, this industrial space doubles as a green wonderland—and the ultimate beer lover’s paradise.
4. Expansive Eco-Retreat, Rural Victoria
Set on 150 acres of scenic land, this cross-shaped architectural marvel blends raw nature with high-end luxury. Featuring spotted gum timber throughout, natural quartz stone, floating acoustic ceilings, bunk-bed wings for guests, and jaw-dropping panoramic views, this off-grid dream home was built without power for nearly a year—an earthy yet sophisticated sanctuary.
#OpenHomesAustralia #LuxuryRealEstate #ArchitecturalDesign #CoastalLiving #DreamHome #InteriorDesign #SustainableLiving #BeerGardenGoals #TimberDesign #GoldCoastHomes #sydneyrealestate
Sydney Harbor views, Gold Coast family house, Moon Dog Brewery tour, Australian beer garden, sustainable luxury homes, off-grid dream house, scenic rural properties, coastal home design, unique staircase architecture, luxury backyard ideas, Open Homes, Australian dream homes, eco friendly house design, modern Australian architecture, move to australia, australia mansions, where to live in australia, international real estate, escape to australia, full episode, homes in australia, move overseas international house hunting
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro/Show Open
00:26 – Multi-Level Modern Masterpiece with Harbor Views
05:21 – Gold Coast Family Retreat
11:22 – Melbourne Brewery
17:48 – Rural Family Compound, Victoria
This channel is brought to you by Principal Media and features only authorized releases of licensed content.
On this episode of Open Homes, a
multi-million dollar showstopper in Sydney, a family dream home on the
Gold Coast. Dave has the most fun since lockdown as he checks out the Moon Dog
Brewery Beer Garden. And at the climax, we show you the ultimate tree and sea change.
Come with us as we step inside. [Music] First up, James is in Sydney. What happens when you’ve got
an amazing harborside location, but the site is narrow? Well, you
elevate the finishes and you go up. [Music] Hey, James, how are you? Good to see you. I still
get amazed when I turn up at this house. It looks so good from the street. I might be a little bit
biased because I I had a a little bit of a hand on this job working with you and your team. It’s an
amazing home, but a fantastic location, too. Oh, look, I wouldn’t say a little bit of hand. You
there’s a there’s a big hand in here, but it’s a fantastic location. Really close to the city,
beautiful harbor views, an amazing place to live. [Music] Now, you’ve been building for
many, many years, and I know you get used to dealing with all of the troubles on
site, but here we have Sydney Harbor just over there. You’ve got views that you can see
water through, but the site is narrow and it’s also slightly angled and it’s tapering. Talk
through how you dealt with that. Oh, look, the moment we bought the the property, we
knew we’re in for a for a challenge. Look, it’s the block 60 m long. We have about 12
m at the front, tapering to 4 m at the back. To compound that, we have a fall from the
from the back of the block to the front of about seven 7 or 8 m. So there’s there’s a lot to
contend with. And you dealt with that by creating this three-level home. So instead of being able
to go wide like I tend to be doing now, we’ve gone up and you’ve ended up with a home that’s
that’s three-story or is it four? Yeah. Well, it’s actually four. So yeah. Yeah. Um so you’re
right. We couldn’t really go out in in terms of width. So we we we we maximized the depth and
we went up four levels. So, we got we got three beautiful levels with a rooftop terrace where you
can see the Harbor Bridge at UZ cuz you need more views when you’ve got a view like that already.
It looks fantastic here. You can see the strong uh use of line which I really love and the front
door was part of that. But I think we need to go inside and take a look at this home cuz there’s
a lot to see. I can’t wait to show you. [Music] Look, it’s so nice when you come up into this
space, but you can definitely see that taper that you’ve got. And what I love how you dealt with it
so well is that you added so much visual interest. You’ve got bulkheads and exposed steel beams and
architecturally a lot of very interesting things to catch the eye. Yeah. Look, um, you pointed out
the things aesthetically which what look really good, but it’s about the design first and foremost
because as you said, it’s a tapered block. It’s a bit like a piece of pizza, really wide at the
front and the tape is really narrow to the back. And it was really important in the design phase
to get it right. And what the architect did, Russell from Urban Grand Designs, he actually
didn’t articulate the home to match the boundary side. So, we actually tapered the home. So, what
you’ll find in this in this large space here is that there’s no square walls. It’s all out of
square. Now, I know we want to get upstairs and look at that amazing view. And I mentioned the
word stairs. Cues me to go and look at this. Now, is it a staircase or is it a sculptural statement?
It was a really uh lots of conversations in this particular piece, wasn’t it? Oh, it was it it
is another statement piece of the home. Uh it it was an inspiration that we had at the very
beginning. Uh what ties the levels together, it’s a bird cage inspiration for me.
So, when you step back and look at it, um it it does resemble a bird cage, but the way
that it was put together was really important. Well, I personally think it’s like the Justin
Timberlake of staircases. If a staircase would be sexy, this is it. So, let’s use those
stairs and go and check out your amazing view. [Music] Well, Tom, congratulations. I think you’ve managed
to squeeze every possible inch of amazingness out of this site. You’ve got three levels of dwelling,
and then this rooftop terrace, which I can see beautiful views of the district this way, harbor
that way, and city skyline there. It’s amazing, mate. It’s it’s gorgeous. the the the views
are breathtaking. As you said, it’s great to see the water and the sea breeze is beautiful.
It’s a pleasure to live here. And you know, one bit of advice, I mean, you deal with a lot
of clients, but if there’s anything you can give to clients who are looking to to to to work with
a builder, what would you give them advice to be able to plan to be able to get a house like
this? Do your research, know what you love, and if you’re going to live in that place,
you build it for you and no one else? Tom, it’s fantastic. The problem is, mate, that I
can see these amazing views, and it’s Can we jump off the roof into the harbor? cuz I feel
like the water is calling. Sure, you first. [Music] Up next, a dream build on the Gold Coast. Next up, I’m staying local as I meet Candace,
who’s renovated her dream family home on the Gold Coast. I’m in Labrador today. Located
on the northern end of the Gold Coast and a stones throw from the beautiful Broadwater,
I’m going to show you a coastal inspired home which was designed with two busy little boys at
front of mind. [Music] Hi. Hi. How you doing, Colleen? Nice to meet you. Lovely to meet you
as well. What a sweet home. I love a woman bold enough to do an electric blue front door. Wait
till you see the rest of the house. Okay. So, that’s a preview. Yeah, definitely. I think
the front is basically it’s the prologue for what our house stands for, which is just relaxed
coastal, um, brass, blue, um, and a little bit of height. Okay. Well, I’m very excited to see
inside. Should we take a look? Yes, please. This is such a beautiful, light, airy, fresh
space. Thank you. You must love it. Are you guys responsible for the design? Yeah. So we
decided to go a custom builder. Um we looked at um volume builders and we just couldn’t quite get the
right plans. So we found a little custom builder that gave us cot blanch. We worked with the
architect and yeah this is what we came up with. [Music] Did you find the design process
challenging? I loved it. You loved it? Yeah, I loved it. This was my ultimate dream was to get
to build something that was just for us that Yeah. So, no, it was lovely. And um the architect was
lovely. He gave suggestions, but he also didn’t overstep. So, we’ve worked with an architect
before where uh we kind of turned around. I was like, I don’t think this is actually what I want.
You know, there’s all the things that they say you should tick off, but in the end, they weren’t
things that were important to us as a family. So, yeah. No, we it took ages. We were a dream client.
I think we returned the plans many many times and um tweaked it to an inch of its life, but in
the end we pretty much got everything we wanted. It was actually really refreshing pulling up
here because we’re so used to seeing these big homes built out to the boundaries where your
house is actually quite subtle set back and you have so much space. Was that your intention?
Definitely. When you build in an existing suburb, I think it’s nice to pay tribute to what the
suburb is, which is coastal old Queenslanders. So, we just wanted a weatherboard
house, nothing too ostentatious, something that would actually fit in with the
suburb. Yeah. And I think it does. I mean, Labrador is actually a very old suburb compared to
a lot of the other suburbs on the Gold Coast. So, I think you’ve probably done the right thing in
keeping with the rest of the homes in the street. Tell me about your hard surfaces because
you’ve got this blue theme running through the home in your both your hard surfaces and
your furnishings and I love it. Um it paired with the brass is always a winner. Did you find
that a bit daunting choosing colors? The hardest part was not going gray. So because gray is
just everywhere all your tile selections, it’s so much easier to just go gray. And um
I just knew it wasn’t what we wanted. I like it. I like it for other people but not for us. So
we just wanted the house to feel really coastal, really relaxed and blue and white I feel is
timeless. I always say if there’s any color that sort of is on par with a neutral in terms
of its longevity. It’s blue. Blue to me is like a neutral. You sort of really can’t go wrong. But
I love that you’ve used it in your hard surfaces and not just your soft furnishings. even a bold
choice. Love it. Love that bathroom. And have you learned from experience what you like in terms of
a kitchen design and its functionality? Yeah. So, again, we didn’t want anything too big. Um, and
we wanted something that could hide the mess. So, without doing a full butlers, we combined our
butlers and laundry behind the kitchen. And I love it. Our kitchen’s always tidy. And it’s a
great idea because I mean, do you need a massive laundry that’s, you know, self-dedicated? I don’t
think so. I think it actually works really well. And the way you’ve included the windows as the
splashback in that space makes it feel so open and airy. It’s probably a really nice feeling being in
there. I love your use of windows in this space, too. And I’m getting a glimpse of that massive
backyard, which in terms of a suburban backyard is huge. They just don’t exist, do they?
No, they don’t. Can we go take a look? Yes. [Music] Well, this backyard’s like a kids
paradise that you have so much space. You’ve got a chicken coupe with chickens, a
coffee house, a trampoline, and of course, every Queensland home needs a pool. Was this part
of the grand plan? Definitely. This was the reason why we did it. The boys are still little and
they spend every waking moment out here. So, it’s um they’ve swam the whole way through
winter. It’s freezing, but they’ve swam. Um yeah, they just they live here. It’s beautiful. We
had a divine little house in Bigger Waters, but this was worth the move. It was um worth the
risk and the space is divine. We love it. Yeah, you’ve done such a beautiful job and I love
your whole approach to the design and build. Congratulations and um thanks for having me
through. It’s a pleasure. Thank you for coming. [Music] [Applause] Next up, Dave is living
out his dream and filming in a brewery. Okay, we’re doing things a little bit
different today, but we got two of the things that I love. Landscaping
and beer. We’re here at Moon Dog Brewery, and wait till you see the best beer garden I’ve
seen, Melbourne. [Music] [Applause] [Music] We’re talking about beer gardens, but
talking about having the best beer garden, look at this one at Moon Dogs presented here. I
mean, it’s got everything. It’s got the lagoon, it’s got the bars, it’s got shipping containers,
it’s got plants, it’s got everything plus food, which I’m going to try later. Look, they have what
they’ve done, they’ve played it very safe, but at the same time, you’re going to have a lot of
sun coming through. The open air roof does help, but you are changing indoor and outdoor plants
here. So, they do have the classic monstera, the strelitzias. Yes, we’ve got some exados.
We’ve even got some stags in there as well. All of that put together and even the devil’s ivy that’s
coming out cuz we’ve been in CO. You can see that needs a little bit of maintenance, but obviously
maintenance guys haven’t been able to work. But at the same time, look at it. This is a garden
that’s going to grow into this industrial area and keep getting better. Generally, what they’ve
got here is 70% indoor plants. Okay? There’s a mixture of 30%. So we’ve got the cocos palm that’s
an outdoor palm. We’ve got the strelitzia that grows outdoors as well. But things like with the
rafus, the monstera and all that sort of stuff, that’s more of an indoor sort of plant as well at
the same time. But you mix those together and this is what you’ve got. One of the best things about
this beer garden that I think everyone loves and stands out is this central lagoon here that comes
off almost in like a snake like river with this massive water feature up the back here. You know,
I have said before, we’ve spoken about Ibiza a few times here, but come on. DJ booth, DJ booth up
there. I think they’ve got everything here. One thing that I do love about this, everyone is
using plastic timber. These guys have stayed true to the Australian dream. We’ve got hardwood
timber all around here. And that’s one thing I do love. You know, I think the uses of, you know,
with all the the containers that we have there, the planting along here, I mean, it’s absolutely
massive. There’s so many different areas in this place and I’m only at the entrance. I’m sure in a
year’s time basically what look this isn’t going to change all year because it’s it’s like a hot
house. It’s like almost like a greenhouse this one in here. Okay. So I think all they need
to do is basically get into the garden here, clip off the dead leaves, let it flush
again, drink some beer and watch your plants grow. [Music] So enough about all the
garden. Now for my other passion is beer. Now I haven’t been to a pub in nearly a year because
of co but you know what? I’m gonna get one now. Mate, Brooke, I finally made it to the finish
line. Mate, you got to tell me. I’ve been waiting for nine months for a beer. So, this beer must be
the best beer I’ve got to have. What have you got for me? Well, uh Dave, I got you uh one of our
classics, the uh the Moon Dog Lager. The Moon. I’ve got myself an Old Mate Pale Ale. Cheers.
Cheers to that. All right. So, tell me a little bit about this place, cuz this isn’t the normal
brewery that you walk into. And I do got to say the one thing that I love is this central lagoon.
Whose idea was that? Look, I’ve got to give a lot of credit to Josh. Josh is uh one of the founders
and I think it was just always a dream of his to put a lagoon inside a venue, which is just crazy
enough, but it absolutely works. It is honestly, it’s something it draws you to it. And you know,
being in landscape design as well at the same time, it’s a little bit quirky. I’m assuming Josh
has had a few beers and he might be a little bit quirky if he’s given us a design like this.
Absolutely. It’s um we’re we’re a pretty fun and out there sort of uh brand. So, I think you
know you probably wouldn’t expect most people to put a Lagoon in their venue, but I think when it
comes to Moon Dog, it just kind of makes sense. And just talking about the beer, I notice like
there is there’s so many taps of beer here. So, how many beers do you brew here? Yeah.
Well, we’ve got 72 taps. 72. Yeah. So, there’s a lot of different beers on tap. Well,
I’m going to be here a long It’s going to be a long day there. It will. It’s uh it’s quite the
effort to get through them all, but we’ve got um you know, our classics from like the Moon Dog
Lager, really easy drinking, um refreshing lager, uh through to like the pale, which I’m drinking,
um all the way through to sour beers. We do uh crazy kind of IPAs. We do some kind of big barrel
age stouts and kind of everything in between. And I’ve noticed that I’m hearing all the noise here
behind me. So, you’re brewing beer for all the Australians at the moment. I’m assuming we are.
Yeah. So, we’ve got our new uh state-of-the-art brewery out the back. So, you kind of look through
the glass onto the brewery, which I think is a really cool feature as well. And you see all the
brewers walking around doing their jobs out there as you’re sitting there having a having a beer.
Huge site. The whole site’s 12 12,000 square m. Wow. So, it’s a it’s a it’s a giant site. This the
bar part is obviously huge as well, but it extends all the way back into brewery uh the fermenters
and then into the packaging area as well. Look, I I noticed one big thing that I
do love and that’s the vertical garden soon as you walk through. So, you hit with
green straight away and you as you said, you call this what the rainforest walk
just over here and I mean it’s a very layered garden as well at the same time. And
again, I got to touch on I love the old school timbers as well put there as well. So I think you
know for for me just coming in as a landscaper I love it. I think you know instead of just having
the boring factory the Stelitzia palms one of my favorite definitely. So but um look little bit
more growth and I reckon you’ve nearly got there. Well Brooke I reckon we’ve covered enough. So I reckon let’s cheers to that
and let’s drink some more beer. [Music] So, it’s taken four years of
doing Open Homes Australia for these guys to get me the best gig
ever at Moon Dog Brewery here. So, I think you guys better nick off now because
I’m about to have my next beer. Brooke, beer. Up next, the home you need
to see to believe. [Music] Finally, we can reveal this expansive coastal
getaway. Boasting city, coastal and country views, this next house, which is set on 150 acres, is
nothing short of magnificent. [Music] Craig, this is amazing. It’s absolutely
beautiful. I got lost on my way down here trying to find this place and now
I feel like I’ve just uncovered this secret gem. Absolutely. It’s amazing. Like you
come down here and you just don’t expect this. You just don’t expect it at all. It
just amongst the acreage. It looks amazing. Well, basically as far as you can see
is the property. It’s 150 acres. So, and it’s right on the hill. So you get
outlooks to Melbourne, outlooks to rural um everywhere. It’s great. I’d love to talk
about this facade cuz it’s so striking. I’m such a fan of the contrasting colors and
also the steel frames with the beautiful natural wood. Yeah. So it’s all spotted
gum. All the clinging external clinging spotted gum. Um the deck we’re standing
on spotted gum. The ceiling spotted gum, the door. So it’s all sort of it all matches
in. And it’s all natural timber. 100% natural timber. It is a breathtaking house. And I can’t
wait to see inside. Yeah, let’s go in. Let’s go. Oh my gosh. So, there’s your view. Wow. Oh,
wow. Wow. I don’t know where to look. [Music] Craig, this is incredible. It’s absolutely
beautiful and so grand. How high uh is the ceiling? Uh the ceilings at the highest points
about 4.2, but then the the uh acoustic ceilings drop slightly below that. So you’re still talking
4 m close to 4 m. So that’s great. I I don’t know if this is the case from a building perspective,
but it actually feels a lot higher than that. Maybe because of that floating ceiling. I
think it does. And and the glass as well. It’s very open looking out there. You got the
glass and the steel frames minimal in between and around it. So you get that openness look.
talk about the um the natural elements coming in as well. Look how you’ve tied it in perfectly
with that the stone the stone here. What is this on the island bench? That’s actually uh a quartz
product. It’s 93% quartz. Um so yeah, that that uh of course the gold under there sort of reflecting
the colors out of the the stone. And then you got the natural stone on the walls, timber floor,
timber outside. So, we’re sort of trying to um the architect sort of tried to make everything
earthy and land, you know, blend in with the land. We’ve got a beautiful day today and you can see
everything. The sun is shining, but you can just picture this place in winter, too. It’s so cozy.
Yeah, it’s nice. It’s a nice warm feel, you know, even even though you got the stone walls there,
they’re still warm to look at sort of thing. They’re not a cold, you know. Yeah. structure as
such. Yeah. [Music] The architect was employed um by the client of course uh to come up with
something that would suit on 150 acres. Yeah. Um, you can throw a barn on there, you can throw
anything on there, but you don’t want to, obviously it doesn’t suit a modern retro
home either. So, the brief I believe was our clients have their family down a
fair bit. Yes. But they want their area, they want a central area and they want the the
guests of course area. So um hence when you walk in you you sort of look through to the open
paddocks and the bay and the countryside and then you turn right go to the master suite and then
left through the main area to the guests. [Music] The shape of the house as well is just a
beautiful, beautiful design. I can imagine when the drone gets up there, it’s not your normal
home, is it? No, absolutely. No, it’s a it’s it’s similar to a cross shape when you you’ll see on
the drone footage. Um, similar to cross shape, but uh yeah, with emphasis on, you know, everyone
having their own space. Um, plenty of space as you can see. Yeah. So, that bunk bed area is
awesome. I just love that as the essentially it’s a six bedroom, but you can just picture all
the cousins coming over and sleeping. There’s so much storage to put all the toys. There’s a TV
there for them to share and it just looks like, you know, camp. Well, that was the idea to to
make it a bit of fun as well. You know, you come down and stay and um uh of course the kids
love coming down to stay. Wouldn’t you? Yes. Um, look, 150 acres. That’s so much land. I don’t know
anyone that’s just bought a whole heap of land and gone, “Let’s just build our dream homeost.”
Did they even have a power in in this site? No, there was no power. We went for 9 or 10 months um
without any power at all. We ran off generators. Oh my gosh. Um eventually the client got
power put in, but that had to come from the other side of the freeway. long story, but
a long way to travel to get the power here. Um, and it’s all three-phase as well, which
is good. But yeah, we we basically ran off petrol generators every day for for 9 months.
So, you know, we we managed to get through. Okay. Occasionally, we had to hire a bigger,
larger generator for some of the machinery, etc., but um yeah, basically no town water and
no power throughout the whole build. Wow. It’s like going right into the bush to just build
an absolute sanctuary. Yeah, basically. Yeah. What are your favorite features? Because
there’s too many. There’s too many. Being a carpenter myself, I love timber. So,
so I love the the external cladding, the um decking, the the European oak
floor. There’s a variety of timber. Love the natural stone, just the expanse, the
high ceilings, and the um expansive areas. [Music] Mate, this view is incredible. But that view
is magnificent. I know. Have a look at it. All the steel structure and the metal cladding
upstairs and you get your timber. You get such a variety of of finishes. I love it. I love it
so much. It’s just an icy. It’s just beautiful and it just complements absolutely everything
out here. Incredible. Absolutely. Yeah. And thank you so much for the tour. I think you’ve
built the house of the year. Well, we’ll see. Thanks for watching. We hope you found some
inspiration looking through these incredible homes and gardens. We certainly have. For
more on the homes and behind the scenes, check out our Instagram and Facebook.
See you next time for more open homes.
Comments are closed.