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Hawkesbury River at dusk from Calabash Bay Lodge, Wild Luxury, NSW Australia

Where Family Memories Are Made

Sigourney shares two of her favourite sustainable luxury escapes in NSW. From family celebrations to multi-generational getaways, Wild Luxury's Crane Lodge in Palm Beach and Calabash Bay Lodge on New South Wales' Hawskebury River have become the backdrop to some of her family's most cherished memories.

Family dining together overlooking the Hawkesbury River at Calabash Bay Lodge, Wild Luxury NSW
There are not many places that can comfortably host three generations of a family, a long birthday lunch, a dozen excited children in pyjamas and a group of mothers drinking wine around a fire pit.
Wild Luxury’s Crane Lodge and Calabash Bay Lodge can.
 
Over the years we’ve stayed at both properties in wildly different configurations. A multi-generational family gathering. A weekend away with Damien’s parents. A mummy-and-daughter birthday sleepover for Lulu and her closest friends. And somehow, despite the shifting cast of characters, both lodges delivered the same thing every time: space to connect. Not just physically, but emotionally.
 
The fact that they’re also beautifully designed, deeply sustainable and set in some of New South Wales’ most spectacular landscapes feels almost secondary.
Crane Lodge Pittwater sustainable luxury accommodation surrounded by bushland
Crane Lodge, a sustainable luxury lodge overlooking Pittwater, designed to blend architecture with native Australian landscape.

The new language of sustainable luxury travel in Australia doesn’t announce itself. It doesn’t ask for sacrifice or applause. It simply shows up in how a place is built, how it sits in the landscape, and how it allows people to gather, rest and reconnect without friction.

 

That’s what I felt so clearly across two stays with Wild Luxury.

If you’ve followed our approach to design-led travel – you’ll understand this lens. This wasn’t about escape. It was about how a place holds real life. 

And not solo, not romantically, not even quietly. These were stays with my extended family – which, for many families, requires  a certain kind of house: with places to assemble but also enough spaces for time apart. A retreat for the in-laws far from the maddening cries of kids. Built for moments of peace and solitude that every parent craves. 

Crane Lodge: a treehouse for everyone we love

Crane Lodge was our first chapter, and in many ways, the most layered.

Perched high above Pittwater on Garigal Country, the arrival itself sets the tone. You step into the inclinator and glide slowly up through the bush, past spotted gums and dense greenery, leaving the road and its urgency behind. By the time you step off, you already feel recalibrated.

That weekend we invited our whole family – all three sets of grandparents and my brothers for a special lunch. A true multi-generational gathering. The house held us effortlessly. No one felt on top of each other, yet no one felt removed. There are moments when good architecture does emotional labour for you, and this is one of them.

The design details reveal themselves slowly. Blonde timber, terrazzo surfaces, custom ceramics, woollen cushions in soft, earthy tones. Large sliding windows that open the house completely to the forest so you can quite literally sleep and bathe among the trees. The artwork matters too: considered Australian pieces that feel in dialogue with the landscape rather than imposed upon it.

Outside, the property unfolds like a series of invitations. A curved pool surrounded by a very chic steel post fence. A cedar hot tub hidden among greenery. A fire pit framed by cathedral-like stone, where conversations stretch longer than planned. Hammocks, swinging chairs, a yoga deck. Quiet corners that somehow always seem to be free when you need them.

The next time we stayed, the tone shifted completely and the house met us there too.

We hosted Lulu’s birthday at Crane Lodge, inviting her closest friends and their mums, who also happen to be my good friends. We did a mummy/daughter sleepover. Children in pyjamas running between rooms. Laughter echoing through the house. Parents lingering over wine while keeping one eye on the chaos.

It could have felt overwhelming in the wrong space. Instead, it felt joyful and contained. The kids claimed the bunk room with immediate authority. The pool and spa became the centre of the universe. Later, after cake and stories, the house settled again, as if it knew exactly what it was built to do.

There’s a generosity to Crane Lodge that goes beyond square metres. It’s in the way it allows togetherness without forcing it. In the way sustainability shows up quietly, through native replanting, sensitive landscaping, smart systems and materials chosen for longevity rather than trend.

At dusk, Pittwater glints through the trees. Someone (okay, me) disappears upstairs for a bath on the balcony, steam rising into the evening air. The glass louvres open and you do actually invite the bush in to bathe with you. The trees below turns gold, then blue, then black.

You feel held. By the house. By the people in it.

Calabash Bay Lodge: arriving by water, leaving lighter

On our next trip with Wild Luxury, we regrouped with family again, this time with Damien’s parents, and headed north to Calabash Bay Lodge, set deep into the Hawkesbury River on Dharug Country.

You don’t arrive here so much as transition. The boat ride along the river does something physiological. Voices soften. Phones are put down. Sandstone cliffs rise and fall around you. Despite being barely an hour from Sydney, the world you’ve left behind already feels abstract.

Accessible only by water or seaplane, Calabash Bay Lodge resists interruption by design. Once you’re there, you stay there. And that’s the point.

The lodge sits low against the riverbank, all glass, timber and calm assurance. Four bedrooms, generous living spaces, and a layout that encourages lingering rather than movement. The river is everywhere: outside the windows, reflected in the light, shaping the rhythm of the day.

Mornings begin slowly. Coffee on the deck as mist lifts off the water. Afternoons drift between swimming, SUPing into hidden creeks, reading on the daybed, doing absolutely nothing. Evenings gather around the fire, conversations deepening as the river darkens and stills.

What struck me most was how seamlessly the lodge supported being together. Cooking became communal. Meals stretched. Silence felt companionable rather than awkward. Sustainability here isn’t something you’re instructed to participate in. It’s embedded. Solar power. Sensitive siting. A deep respect for the river and its ecology that feels intuitive rather than didactic.

You leave feeling not entertained, but restored.

The luxury of being held

What connects Crane Lodge and Calabash Bay Lodge isn’t aesthetic or geography. It’s a shared understanding that the most meaningful luxury isn’t excess, but ease.

Wild Luxury has created spaces that listen. To landscape. To family dynamics. To the reality that people don’t travel in neat pairs anymore, if they ever did. These lodges are designed for real life, elevated gently rather than staged.

We came with grandparents and children. With friends and birthday candles. With different energy levels, bedtimes, needs and moods.

The houses met all of it. Quietly. Gracefully.

In a world that constantly asks us to optimise, document and extract value from every experience, there is something quietly radical about places that simply allow you to be together.

You arrive thinking you’re taking a break. You leave realising you’ve been reminded what matters.

Story by Sigourney Cantelo.

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