Home cinemas are getting increasingly hi-tech, with 3D display, 4K high definition, generative AI algorithms (don’t ask me). But the one in our third-floor master bedroom is resolutely no-tech. In fact, I’m forced to climb out of bed and draw back the curtains across the sea spray-smudged screen myself. But when I do – my god – this sunrise premiere is a blockbuster.
Floor to ceiling windows frame foamy waves breaking on the beach below. Point Lonsdale lighthouse winks at cargo ships negotiating the treacherous entrance to Port Phillip Bay. Thick clumps of cloud blanket Bass Strait, glowing cellophane orange. And across the narrow channel Point Nepean floats on the serrated sea like a toothbrush. While the cinematography is undoubtedly Oscar-worthy, I’d caution against popcorn around the French linen.
Sagres, a five-bedroom holiday home in Queenscliff, is named after the parish in Portugal, the most southwesterly point in continental Europe, and once considered the edge of the known world. Queenscliff is likewise end of the line, last stop on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, south-east of Geelong. Lined with grand, ornate buildings, it was the place to be seen during Victoria’s gold boom of the 1880s, when the well-heeled arrived by paddle steamer or steam train to weekend at their waterfront mansions. Today, the handsome, historic streetscape remains preserved, a happy accident of halted development after the advent of the motor car, and weekenders are lured back by wineries, farm gates and the enduring appeal of the seaside.
Sagres was the childhood holiday home of Jo Youl, and was built in the early 1990s by her mother. Renowned residential architect Wayne Gillespie worked wonders within the confines of a narrow block, conjuring a sense of spaciousness, partly by eschewing windows on the side of the house (which would only look on to neighbours), to instead direct the gaze across the endless sea.
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