Seaside luxury and Halcyon days
Step inside one of Australia's best boutique hotels, where stylish living meets nostalgic coastal charm. The award-winning Halcyon House can be found tucked away in the seaside town of Cabarita Beach, in the heart of the Tweed Coast, Northern Rivers, and it sets a scene for a luxury coastal holiday that will make you want to linger longer.
Images courtesy of Halcyon House
Halcyon House offers an idyllic setting to entice you to stay and play, flanked by pandanus palms with the sand mere steps away and a unique charm, thanks to its former life as a surfers' bolt hole — the old 60s-era Hideaway Motel had previously provided a cheap pit stop for backpackers, road trippers and the salty hair/sandy toes kind of drop-ins. But when visionary sisters Siobhan and Elisha Bickle took over the property, it set a dynamic re-do in motion, with architect Virginia Kerridge and interior designer Anna Spiro brought in to work on its reimagining.
The Halcyon House of today is an entire experience, with its melding of luxury and a distinctly Australian tone, designed as a homage to the hotel's surf-and-sea history and the region's laidback beach lifestyle.
The layered and colourful spaces that are the hallmark of Halcyon House have Anna Spiro's signature of mixing unexpected patterns and styles with the perfect balance between classic and contemporary, and each of the hotel's 22 individually designed rooms and suites are curated and different to the next. Prints and colours clash and collide, while curios, art and antiques — all personally sourced by the Bickle sisters on their travels abroad — inject a whole lot of fun and a touch of European chic.
Check in to Halcyon House, and you'll be stepping into a casually cool yet utterly luxe world of indulgence and simple pleasures, like spending your days in a blissful Halcyon daze, lounging poolside and sipping cocktails, relaxing at Halcyon's divine on-site spa, and enjoying sundowners to a soundtrack of crashing waves (the hotel has direct access to the beach).
Dining in the hotel's award-winning hatted restaurant Paper Daisy is a joy unto itself (it's a favourite with locals and visitors alike!). Headed by one of Australia's most exciting chefs, Jason Barratt (formerly Head Chef at the uber-popular Raes Dining Room, at Byron Bay’s premier boutique hotel, Raes on Wategos), Paper Daisy is a feast of flavours, emphasising local providores, makers, and produce from land and sea. The menu offers satisfying and thoughtful dishes served with views of the resort pool and the surrounding pandanus trees. Sync with the Paper Daisy vibe of relaxed yet refined pleasures, perfectly in tune with the ease and casual elegance that makes this hotel an intoxicating treat.
Be sure to save some time to settle into pre or post-feast drinks at the Halcyon House Bar, the home to the largest selection of Australian-made gins in the country, which also celebrates the finest of the region's artisan distillers — try the Negroni featuring Brookie's Byron Dry Gin, or the Ink Old Fashioned with the distinctive purple-hue of Husk Ink Gin, made nearby at Husk Distillery in Tumbulgum.
It's easy to see why so many devotees return time and time again to Halcyon House. With its clever homage to the heyday of surfers’ motels and all the laidback luxe one could ask for, it’s the ultimate indulgent seaside holiday and a more-than-luxe nod to the endless summer vibe.
