Homes

Throwback Thursday: Beautiful Bond-esque Hideaway from January 1977

This impressive architectural feat, designed by Werner Forster, has both a grand exterior and a secluded luxurious inner terrace, which is home to a pool that seems to hang suspended over a ferny ravine in Victoria.

By Jesse Gotfrit /

This impressive architectural feat, designed by Werner Forster, has both a grand exterior and a secluded luxurious inner terrace, which is home to a pool that seems to hang suspended over a ferny ravine in Victoria.

With immense retro appeal and elegant design strategies, this Victoria hilltop home from our January 1977 issue makes the most of the outlying and interior spaces. Outside, you’ll see clever use of the rock it sits on: the bluff’s declivities hold an elegant pool, which is embraced on three sides by the houses’ floor-to-ceiling windows. Inside, it’s all about sunken lounge areas, and this house exhibits its particular sophistication with marble slab tables, plush sofas and a rough stone fireplace that mirrors the colour tone of the external cliff façade. Click to see a slideshow of the home

By judicious excavation, the declivity in the rock became a gracious pool, flanked by billowing natural rock along one edge.

On top of the bluff, the house designed by architect Werner Forster, folds around a natural declivity in the rock.

This sunken conversation area reveals its marble slab table, leather couch and rough stone fireplace.

In typical 70s fashion, a raised carpeted step separates this recreation room from its connecting corridors.

This master bath is an elegant circular marble tub, lit from above by a round bubble skylight.

Jesse Gotfrit

Jesse Gotfrit