New York’s finest comes to Toorak with the Manhattan apartment project
The Manhattan will have a concierge on site 20 hours a week to assist residents and also start their cars and bring in their mail if they are out of town.
The wealthiest residents of Melbourne's most well-to-do suburb of Toorak often have more than one address. When it's time to leave their stately city homes to take up primary residence in their seaside retreats along the coast, many want to retain a city base in the old neighbourhood that they can lock up and leave securely.
A high-end development of only 12 apartments on leafy Mathoura Road caters to such well-heeled buyers with a level of luxury and attention to detail more commonly seen in Toorak's grand mansions.
The four-storey project, four kilometres from the CBD and only 100 metres from Toorak village, has been developed by Craig Easton, whose construction company is behind the building and fit-out of upmarket stores such as Tiffany & Co, Hermes and Armani. He has teamed up with architect Rob Mills, best known for his work on some of Toorak's grandest mansions.
As the name suggests, Manhattan was inspired by the stately apartment buildings with formal concierges that Easton has admired around Central Park on his yearly visits to New York.
"I've been going back to New York annually and looking around Central Park, Fifth Avenue and SoHo, as well as Boston, and you get a bit of inspiration everywhere," he says.
"I knew what I was out to achieve and that is a high-end apartment building based on New York apartments with the concierge service."
The Manhattan will have a concierge on site 20 hours a week to assist residents and also start their cars and bring in their mail if they are out of town. Interstate and international buyers are among those who have purchased the eight apartments already sold.
Some of the luxurious touches of the 14 apartments, each with an individual floor plan, are the full-height solid doors of nearly three metres, herringbone-patterned flooring through the foyers and walls with stucco finishes. The gardens and terraces of each apartment and the building's common areas feature mature oak and magnolia trees and bronze urns in gardens designed by Toorak's favourite landscaper, Paul Bangay.
The high-end detail extends to the basement carpark with its painted walls, floors and ceilings rather than a concrete finish. There are 26 car spaces, including individual lock-up garages for some apartments.
Manhattan's stunning penthouse which has a private swimming pool on its terrace was quickly snapped up. The project has one other three-bedroom apartment still on the market for $4.95 million with an internal size of around 291 metres and three car spaces.
The remaining 12 apartments have two bedrooms and internal sizes of 125 to 218 square metres with a further 20 to 126 square metres of outdoor space for price tags from $1,995,000 to $4.5 million.
Manhattan is being marketed by Kay & Burton, South Yarra, phone 9820 1111. The apartments at 88 Mathoura Road, Toorak, can be inspected by appointment.
Note: This article appeared in Domain on 21 March 2015. The full article can be viewed here.