Sustainable Agnes Water award winner listed on Queensland’s Discovery Coast
Tucked away in a special little corner of Queensland is a luxurious utopia with beautiful houses, native animals roaming freely and a prized level of environmental sustainability.
It is a rich man’s hideaway where strict design codes and by-laws ensure it remains an Australian paradise by the sea.
Sunrise at 1770 is near the exclusive Agnes Water between Bundaberg and Gladstone. It takes more than five hours to drive from Brisbane.
Remote by design, the project aimed to become the nation’s premier ecologically sustainable community.
In 2007 and 2008 the UDIA voted it the Best Sustainable Development in Queensland and then Australia. In 2009 at FIABCI’s Prix d’Excellence World Awards it was the first runner-up in the environmental category.
Twenty-five houses have been built in the community, which will allow a maximum of 172 homes on the site, which is surrounded by protected wetlands, beaches and reserves. One of its finest houses has been listed for sale with $2.95 million hopes.
The contemporary Springs Road house, which is owned by property investors Mark and Janene Hulst, was named both Queensland Home of the Year (2002) and Custom Home of the Year.
Noosa designer Steven Kidd of Kidd+co Designers designed this and several other glamorous houses at Sunrise.
“We had a great brief and we did a few houses in a row, which makes a nice vision. Mark’s house has a beautiful internal garden in a wonderfully unique environment. We decided to keep the existing vegetation and turn the house inside out,” Kidd says.
‘The balconies hang off the house. The design concept works with circulation areas plus breakout spaces. It is a timber-framed house with exceptional timberwork inside that was crafted by the builder Mike Murray.”
Given the house is positioned at a 45-degree angle, two faces take in views of the Coral Sea and the famous Springs Beach surf break.
Clean lines create a tree house style of living where sections of space with cantilevered balconies act as a floating canvass with a pristine bushland or the sea as a frame. It is minimalism without forsaking any cosy comforts, since the house is technically savvy and equipped with rain sensors on the atrium windows, an external rooftop sprinkler system for fire control, under-garage water tanks, auto sensor bathroom lighting and in a nod to summertime necessities, climate-controlled wine storage behind the kitchen.
“We built it together and love living at Sunrise. It was a great challenge so we are looking to buy another block of land here and do it all again,” says Mark Hulst.
Sunrise at 1770 has raised boardwalks to two beach clubs with three pools, barbecue pavilions and tennis courts.
To buy into Sunrise, where the Smorgan family owns property alongside bankers, a film producer and a couple surfing identities, is to buy into a body corporate with a green future. The primary water supply comes from rainwater tanks and wastewater is used to supply toilets, a communal car wash and firefighting.
A “dark sky” policy prevails so turtles use their rookeries. Non-native pets are verboten, so local wildlife and Godzilla, the resident two-metre-long goanna, can roam unmolested.
The three-bedroom, three-bathroom Hulst house is listed for sale through Gordon Christian at Harcourts Agnes Water.