Real Estate
5 September, 2024
Unique rainforest property
A STUNNING award-winning home, which looks like Starship Enterprise has landed in the middle of the Daintree rainforest, is back on the market.
Despite Alkira Resort House’s spaceship features, its design is based on a stamp.
The original owner – an avid stamp collector and property developer – inspired many of the property’s most distinguishing features.
The unusual swimming pool shape and surrounding roofline is based on the silhouette of the head on the ‘One Pound Jimmy’ postage stamp issued in Australia in the 1950s.
The stamp was chosen to acknowledge the Aboriginal heritage of the region and to acknowledge the owners’ appreciation for the stamp as a collector.
The artful indentations on Alkira’s concrete facade reflect the perforation lines between postage stamps, as do the property’s porthole windows that cast beams of light deep inside.
Rich in concept as it is in unique aesthetics, Alkira wholeheartedly lives up to its name which in Aboriginal means ‘bright and sunny’.
Alkira is set in almost 30 ha with 600 metres of white-sand beach.
It exemplifies off-grid luxury and is a model for carbon-neutral, sustainable living. The residence was conceived by architect Charles Wright where the boundaries between the interiors and outdoors dissolve across its 1059sqm of living spaces. Fully furnished and equipped to accommodate 12 overnight guests, the six cantilevered wings are suspended over an engineered lake ecosystem and then unified by a show-piece swimming pool.
The interiors with easy-care polished concrete floors throughout are complemented by cascading waterfalls and a landscaped courtyard.
Agent Lynn Malone of Queensland Sotheby’s International Realty said it was “a remarkable testament to sustainability and futuristic design”.
“Alkira represents a timeless and one-of-its-kind off-grid resort-style residence built to last,” she said.
Owner David Brandi, on his website, has confirmed the sale of the property.
“We would have liked to keep it, but circumstances require that we let it go to new owners. I hope it goes to someone who appreciates the property for the beautiful place that it is,” he said.
“The Alkira Resort House isn’t just real estate to me, it’s a place of history, and an untold narrative waiting to unfold. It bewildered me that something like this could exist in the middle of a World Heritage listed rainforest.”
