Cape Schanck House.Credit: Peter Bennetts
Clare Barry nestles into a futuristic but beautiful award-winning pad on the Mornington Peninsula.
LOCATION
Cape Schanck House sits on a winding street at the southernmost point of the Mornington Peninsula. Cape Schanck is calm, quiet and a little bit country, and also just minutes' drive from beaches, restaurants, shops, wineries, golf courses, hot springs and a drive-in cinema.
THE SPACE
The cleaning ladies we bump into as we leave Cape Schanck House call it "the spaceship place", and with its low-slung, metal-clad facade, it's not hard to imagine it hovering in from somewhere far, far away. One wing of the architect-designed pad houses three bedrooms (sleeping eight), two bathrooms and a laundry. The living area is up a wide concrete step into 1972, or The Jetsons, or is it just how today should be? The concrete floor stretches out to a wall of windows taking in the tea-tree-streaked backyard, and around to a built-in couch facing an open fireplace. The ceiling dips next to the kitchen and flows into a big, white, teardrop-shaped bulb - a water tank harvesting rain that also serves to cool the house's interior. It's a big, beautiful organic shape that makes unexpected music when rain tinkles in.
THE KIT
Outside there's a barbecue and outdoor setting, a swing and treehouse, and room for kids to roam. Inside is a concise but compelling book collection, internet-enabled TV, DVD player and DVDs, Wi-Fi, and that open fireplace to gaze into. The kitchen has all you need, plus a Nespresso coffee machine.
COMFORT FACTOR
Architectural credentials aside (it won the 2007 Robin Boyd award for residential architecture), Cape Schanck House has the pared-back practicality of a loved and lived-in holiday home, with mismatched crockery, squishy cushions and a separate charge for linen and towels (or you can bring your own).
THE FOOD
We ate fish and chips on Sorrento beach, beef bourguignon spiked with rosemary from the house's herb garden, silky Main Ridge chevre from Flinders General Store, perky little Roma tomatoes from a farm gate on Boneo Road and marshmallows toasted on tea-tree twigs over the fire.
WORTH STEPPING OUT FOR
At dusk, we pulled off the left-hand side of Boneo Road going towards Flinders, about 2.5 kilometres from the Cape Schanck Road corner, to watch hundreds of roos go about their business. We went rock-hopping, too, and copped a soaking as the tide came in at wildly beautiful Cape Schanck. You could take a picnic to Bushrangers Bay, soak at Peninsula Hot Springs or drop in to the Dromana Drive-in.
THE VERDICT
A little taste of Grand Designs, without the cost overruns.
HOW TO GET THERE
Cape Schanck is about 100 kilometres, a 90-minute drive, south of Melbourne via EastLink and Peninsula Link.
ESSENTIALS
Bass Vista Boulevard, Cape Schanck. Book on stayz.com.au. From $200 a night, with two-night minimum weekend stays and a three-night minimum midweek.
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