Hollywood Hills-style modernist home on the banks of the Yarra hits the market

If you think you’ve seen this house before as the setting of a fabulous garden party in The Great Gatsby movie or as the stage for yet another bitter battle in the TV behemoth Succession, you could be forgiven.

This magnificent home in Melbourne’s Toorak – cascading down to the riverfront – is one of Australia’s most glamorous mansions with a fine historical pedigree and a modern overlay of unbridled Hollywood luxe.    

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108 St Georges Road, Toorak VIC 3142

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“You really could see it in a movie or on TV as it is the ultimate entertainers’ home,” says Justin Long, director of Marshall White Stonnington, who is selling the six-bedroom, seven-bathroom house at 108 St Georges Road. “It’s a very special house, and we probably won’t ever see anything like this again.

“It’s quite unique in its architecture, its position on the riverfront and the way it waterfalls down to the water, as well as the incredible renovation it’s undergone.”

The house was designed in 1965 by famed Australian architect Guilford Bell, who had been awarded the Victorian Architectural Medal just the previous year. 

He’d studied in Australia and England, carrying out a series of home renovations for crime writer Agatha Christie and, combining both classical and modernist styles, was feted throughout Australia. Later, he even remodelled parts of The Lodge in Canberra. 

The gardens were designed by Edna Walling, one of the country’s most revered landscape architects, who also became the first Australian woman ever to develop land.

But when the house was bought in 2013 by stylist Lauren Millay and her husband, music promoter Richie McNeill, it was very rundown, having been hardly touched in more than 50 years.

Millay, however, a celebrated fashion and homewares stylist, couldn’t resist the renovation challenge. “We saw so much potential in the original Guilford Bell design,” she says. 

“We took inspiration from the body of work by the famous American architect, Frank Lloyd Wright, as well as the iconic photographic art of Slim Aarons, and set out to create a Hollywood Hills-style modernist home on the banks of the Yarra.”

It wasn’t a simple task. Over the next four and a half years, the couple, together with Raidstudio architect Nicholas Ruljancich and landscape architect Jack Merlo, painstakingly renewed every corner of the home and its gardens. They added a lower ground level with a pool, entertainment deck, and undercroft. They rewired and replumbed the whole house to provide all the latest technology, including Tesla electricity hubs and solar power.

“It was challenging but rewarding,” says Millay. “Many design features were honoured, and the custom timber feature walls throughout were reinstalled to keep the original feel. 

“Using mosaic tiles throughout all the bathrooms gave a take on retro style whilst matching in with all the latest accessories. Installing beams, posts and curtains as room dividers creates the open flow while keeping that retro feel.”

The now four-level house, with its own lift, has a floor area that’s been extended to 914 square metres, with a theatre room, executive office, formal dining room, chef’s kitchen, sauna, children’s rumpus room and a self-contained separate apartment. Set on 1736 square metres of land facing the river, it has its own jetty and boat mooring, a covered entertainment terrace, a heated pool and a north-facing lawn.

Unfortunately, when Millay and McNeill purchased the home, the gardens were almost unrecognisable as an Edna Walling design. But then Merlo was brought onto the scene.

“He was able to create an amazing modernist gardenscape, working around the protected magnolia trees,” Millay says.

“To complement the home’s stepping stones, a multilevel garden area, a fire pit, decked and concreted entertaining areas, and the hanging gardens created a perfect exterior, while three large palm trees were craned in to complete the LA style. The results are truly phenomenal.”

Merlo loved the work, using Walling’s original design as his inspiration. “Edna made a big mark on how we design the landscape and private and public gardens, and we were very respectful towards her,” he says. “We had our own interpretation of both her and Bell’s original plans.

“It would have been a beautiful property in its day, but it’s been adapted to the way we live now with a focus on entertaining. The house sits in the landscape and is enveloped by the landscape as well, and the way the inside and outside connect is just beautiful. Today, it’s looking magnificent.”