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- Lendlease and Armani/Casa unveiled Cove at One Circular Quay.
- The $70 million sub-penthouse establishes Australia’s first luxury branded residence.
- Spanning 537 square metres, the home costs a record $130,354 per square metre.
- Premium interior finishes are entirely handmade in Italy by expert artisans.
- The premium turnkey buyer unlocks an exclusive design experience in Milan.
With a price guide of AUD$60 to 70 million, Australia’s first private residence stamped with a global fashion house logo commands a pretty premium. European luxury design has finally found its way into Sydney’s premium waterfront, shifting the city’s ultra-high-end property market away from standard developer finishes and into the realm of custom-branded fit-outs. While the city that we call home is a major play for top-end buyers the world over, property heavyweight Lendlease has partnered with Italian luxury house Armani/Casa to lift the veil on the ‘Cove’ residence at One Circular Quay.
Branded residences are currently one of the fastest-growing segments in international luxury real estate, with global developments forecast to spike by 59 per cent by 2029 according to Knight Frank’s Global Branded Residence Survey. With the launch of Cove, Sydney now cements its spot alongside New York, Miami, London, and Dubai in a hyper-exclusive residential category defined by the world’s most storied design houses.
While neighbouring developments like Crown Sydney sit on the Barangaroo foreshore, Cove is perched on level 53 of One Circular Quay (1 Alfred St, Sydney NSW 2000). It’s a 537-square-metre whole-floor sub-penthouse that commands a rate of roughly $130,354 per square metre. That pricing places it comfortably above the per-square-metre records smashed by the Sirius building penthouses
and positions it right behind the national residential record holder at the nearby One Sydney Harbour mega-penthouse that settled for a mind-boggling AUD$141.55 million in cash to 37-year-old, Chinese-born company director Yan Zhang. With the building already more than 90 per cent sold out ahead of its completion later this year, the property is targeting a narrow tier of high-net-worth buyers seeking immediate asset placement.
Inside the ‘Greige’ Sanctuary
Situated within a “structural shell” designed by Kerry Hill Architects, the sub-penthouse features bespoke interiors directed by Daniel Goldberg, with the total furniture layout and styling curated by Armani / Casa. The design palette relies entirely on the specific tonal register Giorgio Armani famously coined “greige,” the neutral space directly between grey and beige. This base colourway is layered throughout the property using sand tones, off-white accents, Canaletto Walnut, and Satin Light Brass.
The justification for that multi-million-dollar sticker price comes down to manufacturing provenance. While other developers rely on standard high-end sourcing, the raw interior finishes were handmade in Italy by traditional artisans. This includes proprietary, hand-applied wall and surface treatments developed specifically by the design house, such as Brass Carved Liquid Metal and White Gold Drafted Stucco, that ensure the apartment’s physical texture cannot be replicated in other luxury builds.
“Lendlease and Armani/Casa share a conviction that true luxury is quiet, considered and made to last,” explains John Taylor, Head of Product & Design at Lendlease. “To introduce for the first time in Australia a property fully furnished in collaboration with Armani/Casa, in a single whole-floor residence at One Circular Quay, is a moment of real significance for Sydney and for the branded residences category in this country.”
Four Pillars of Armani Design
Looking at the floor plan specifically, it’s been organised around the four operational pillars that govern Armani / Casa: Art, Fashion, Nature, and The Orient.
The layout begins at the private entry, where residents are met by the brand’s signature Nema floor lamp (a 165-centimetre column finished in Onyx-Textured Metal that retails for upwards of AUD$25,000) that’s designed to set a low-intensity, tranquil mood.
Move to the formal living room, and you’ll see that the fashion house’s apparel heritage dictates the room’s ‘anchoring elements’. The floor features a massive five-by-five-and-a-half-metre-square silk-and-wool rug woven with the cannété stripe. This distinct, three-dimensional texture has been a structural staple of Giorgio Armani’s runway collections since his early career. Framed by custom timber lattice screens that replicate the geometric lines of Japanese shoji and torii architecture, the formal entertaining space is certainly up to scratch.
Bedrooms are split to maximise utility. Starting with the primary suite, the hallmark addition here has to be the AUD$166,000 “Morfeo” bed, a floating, curved-frame design executed in Canaletto Walnut and finished in Majilite Chinchilla upholstery. Design purists will appreciate the private study, which includes a highly collectible asset: the $6,455 Limited Edition Logo lamp. Designed by Giorgio Armani in 1982 to illuminate his personal Milan storefronts, the dimmable fixture is built from Methacrylate, Copper Mesh, Satin Light Brass, and Canaletto Wood, and is now out of production globally, serving as a standalone collector’s piece. Essentially, they’ll throw it in for free if you spend the AUD$70 million.
Privacy and Spatial Layout
The layout prioritises total separation from the rest of the building’s infrastructure. Cove features a full-floor configuration in which residents exit a private lift directly into their own entry hall, eliminating shared corridors entirely from the residential experience.
Primary living zones are angled to provide a clear, uninterrupted view across the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge, and the broader harbour. The main suite occupies one dedicated wing of the floor plan with an attached walk-in dressing room and a private spa ensuite, while the secondary bedrooms are clustered at the opposite end of the home.
Oversized room heights and wide proportions are used throughout to allow the floor plan to breathe, while an external terrace extends the main living zone directly outside.
VIP Milan Itinerary
The transaction also functions as a direct entry point into the Italian fashion house. Included in the $70 million purchase price is an exclusive luxury travel itinerary designed for the buyer. The owner will receive a private stay at the Armani Hotel Milano, along with a personalised design consultation at the historical Armani/Casa flagship showroom on Corso Venezia in Milan. The trip is structured to give the buyer a direct, behind-the-scenes look at the fabrication and assembly of the brand’s custom products.
With One Circular Quay already past the 90 per cent sold mark ahead of its official handover later this year, the purchase of Cove will stand as the benchmark transaction for Sydney’s changing ultra-luxury property market.
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