14 Jun 2024
Words John Miller Informer

A Wonder in a Wonder

Nestled in the primordial wonder of the Daintree Rainforest in Far North Queensland is a wonder of its own.

This one is man-made and sits, as if floating, over a lake that is also artificial, though it looks as if it has been there since time began.

Is it the Millennium Falcon landed on the ancient forest moon of Endor? Or is it the lair of a James Bond villain? Or perhaps an expression of brutalist architecture? Or is it reminiscent of the concrete creations of architects Eero Saarinen, John Lautner and Tadao Ando?

Alkira Resort House and Rainforest Retreat is all of these things and none of them. It is, essentially, its own thing. Its mastermind, the architect Charles Wright, says Alkira has a number of subtle influences though no one particularly.

“There’s all sorts of things people read into it,” says Wright. “That’s what potentially captures people’s imagination with Alkira. I think that’s the fun. There’s a lot of different ideas in it. It’s all the things that formulated in my imagination and came together. In a lot of ways I took the opportunity to design Alkira as a piece of land art.”

Alkira is not art for art’s sake. It is a functioning boutique resort, sleeping only 12 guests across six rooms, each of them cantilevered wings as if they were the petals of a lotus flower sitting on a pond.

In 2008, Wright was commissioned by the resort’s original owner, the late philatelist Rod Perry and wife Madel, to design Alkira as a private residence. The Perrys gave Wright a blank canvas to create his land art over 26 hectares of primary rainforest, which is connected via a short walk to a 600-metre private beach across from the Great Barrier Reef.

Alkira sits in almost perfect isolation about an hour and a half’s drive north of Port Douglas. Now connected by road to the rest of the area, the resort also has a helipad for guests arriving via the 25-minute flight from Port Douglas or 40-minute flight from Cairns.

“I wanted to create something really special,” says Wright. “It is such an amazing location with the mountains silhouetted, particularly as the sun goes down. One idea in creating the lake was to reflect the building, the sky, the mountains and the rainforest all in one.”

Wright’s design serves both form and function. The Perrys were concerned about safety given the building’s precarious location. North Queensland’s infamous cyclones, floods and king tides had to be protected against. The Perrys asked Wright to design something they could feel completely safe in and wouldn’t have to evacuate for extreme weather events.

“There’s not that much that can happen to it,” says Wright. “It’s like a bunker. It was designed with raw materials that wouldn’t corrode. It’s the sort of building that will be there for a very, very long time.”

Completed in 2013 followed a build that took three to four years, Alkira earned instant praise, winning the 2014 AIA Robin Dods Award for Residential Architecture and the 2014 AIA FNQ House of the Year Award. Now in its 11th year of operation, Wright says Alkira is holding up extremely well, just as he planned. The building is designed to withstand a Category-5 tropical cyclone.

Two back-to-back cyclones, Category-4 Jasper in December 2023 and Category-3 Kirrily in January 2024, recently put Alkira to the test. The road to Alkira, up to Cape Tribulation north of the Daintree River, has only lately reopened following damage and repair caused by those cyclones.

“Cyclones create flying debris and storm tides can create havoc. Alkira is designed to weather all that,” says Wright. “It’s part of the reason why it’s all sort of elevated. Lifting it up and over the lake, it’s like an elevated living platform. Other than the lake’s beauty there’s also a practical element to it. The lake is almost like a moat, a medieval moat if you like, for security if you want to lock the place down to be secure.”

In designing Alkira, Wright incorporated something of the Perrys as well. From philatelic dealer Rod Perry comes Alkira’s original name, Stamp House. His wife, Madel, is originally from the Philippines which has a long tradition of architecture on stilts, which are quite often close to the water’s edge and even over the water in some instances.

“I like to make our projects about the client,” says Wright. “So that informed the creation of Alkira too.”

The Perry’s also wanted a sustainable estate that would operate as carbon neutral in its off-grid location.

“For its time it was pretty out there,” says Wright. “It would have been one of Australia’s first largest private solar developments with lithium battery stores.”

Now owned by Melbourne entrepreneur David Brandi, with bookings managed by Brisbane-based Luxury Holidays, Alkira is currently on the market.

“We would have liked to keep it, but circumstances require that we let it go to new owners,” says Brandi. “I hope it goes to someone who appreciates the property for the beautiful place that it is.” END