When Vicki Clarke, her husband Aidan and their two children set foot in Melbourne’s historic Rathgar mansion in 2012, they knew it was the start of a special and, at times, consuming relationship.
“We had a very nice ‘come to Jesus’ lunch at Daylesford at the Lake House,” Vicki recalls. “It was, effectively: ‘What do we do? Are we leaving to Malibu or Santa Monica, or are we staying here?’”Then, a chance introduction by a friend to principal at STAR Architecture, Aleksandra Rakocevic, would decide the Clarkes’ – and Rathgar’s – future.
Upstairs on ground level, one can atone for any subterranean indulgence with a dip in the 10-metre pool coped in silver galaxy stone, or a session in one of the property’s two gyms – or a game on the north-south tennis court. “We had a three-course dinner on the tennis court which was like a five-star restaurant, running parallel to another dinner in Hawthorn,” Vicki says. “They wereRathgar sits on a 1680-square-metre corner block in Melbourne’s Hawthorn East.