How long can a house be? It’s not about the length or width, lol. Except here it absolutely is, because 101 Dallas Street, Keiraville is less a house and more a walking track with bedrooms. There are ten of them. Ten bathrooms too, and parking for ten cars. The decor changes from room to room like the house is flicking channels, and at the far end of it all is an indoor pool. Did we say indoor pool? Yes. It has an indoor freakin’ pool, with a bar, in a room so big there is a sign on the wall pointing people to the toilets so they don’t pee in the pool.
So we’ve done what any responsible guide would do. We’ve written up the trail notes. Wear good shoes.
Trail notes: the Dallas Street Grand Traverse
Grade: moderate. Surface: marble, carpet, more marble, pool tiles. Water: available, about 27 metres of it. Allow one afternoon.
Stage one: the trailhead.
You start at a gate with a stone lion on the post, and a long private driveway curving up the hill toward a white rendered building that keeps unfolding as you get closer. There’s a tall two-storey bit, then a long low bit, then another bit. The agent calls it a home of commanding architectural presence. That’s fair. It commands most of the hillside.
Stage two: the red zone.
Inside, the first thing you hit is a wrought iron staircase on polished stone, against a wall of red damask wallpaper. Hold that thought, because the damask comes back. The formal lounge is red damask on every wall, red curtains with ruched pelmets, and three pink leather Chesterfields facing a tufted ottoman with a chessboard on it. A white bird spreads its wings on top of the display cabinet. Real or not, it fits a pattern. Why do so many of the houses we review have taxidermy in them? Croydon had a moose. This one has a bird in the lounge, a cowhide rug in the main bedroom, and a whole ceramic zoo in between.
Stage three: the dining hall.
The formal dining room is 8.6 by 5.5 metres, with gold velvet swags over the windows, a carved timber beam across the ceiling, striped wallpaper and a twelve-seat table with a ceramic deer lying down in the middle like it gave up halfway through the walk. Two ceramic cheetahs sit by the drinks trolley. One of them is smiling. Next door, the kitchen has a round island with a wavy silver cutout in the side and pink trim on the cabinets.
Stage four: the bedroom corridor.
This is the long flat section. Bedroom six, bedroom seven, bedroom eight, each with its own ensuite, and then bedroom nine. Upstairs is another wing with five more. One has red damask again with a clam shell headboard. One has navy swag curtains and a purple saucer chair. The main bedroom has marble floors, a cowhide rug, ocean views and a life-size plush tiger lying across the bed. In another, a crucifix hangs over the mirrored wardrobe. Every room is a different house. You just keep walking into the next one.
Stage five: the summit.
And then the corridor opens out into the pool room, and you understand why you came. It is 27.4 by 11.2 metres. It has a solar-heated pool, a spa, a sauna, a bar, a wall of sliding doors facing the ocean, and a drop ceiling like an office in 1986. Way down the far end, above the bar, there’s a little sign that says TOILETS. Not one toilet. Toilets, plural. This is a house that has hosted enough pool parties to need wayfinding.
Side trail: the rotunda.
Outside, cut into the hill below the house, is a full-size tennis court. At one end stands a tower, and on top of the tower is an octagonal gazebo with a green floor and a dining setting. The listing calls the whole thing an estate with resort-style living. We call it the only house in Wollongong where you can watch a tennis match from a lighthouse.
Trail’s end.
It’s on the market for $5,000,000, which works out to about half a million per bedroom, with the pool thrown in. You’ll want a big family, or a lot of friends who like to swim. Just tell them where the toilets are. There’s a sign.
