Advertorial for GemLife
Simon Webster
Downsizing has had an upgrade. Moving out of the family home into somewhere smaller no longer equates to settling into an armchair in front of the TV and making a quiet retreat from life. Today’s downsizers are likely to want to live their next phase of life to the full. And they expect their new home to give them that opportunity.
“The demographic has changed,” says Phillip Nielsen, the general manager of architecture and design with over-50s lifestyle resort operator GemLife.
“We are seeing the youngest of the Baby Boomers, along with older Gen Xers, looking to downsize, and their expectations are very different from the generation that came before.
“This group does not see downsizing or resort-style living as slowing down — they see it as the beginning of a whole new adventure, with less domestic responsibility, and more travel and socialising.”
Members of this sophisticated, design-literate demographic have probably spent at least some of their lives in high-class hotels and well-designed homes. For them, lifestyle resorts should deliver thoughtful architecture, a quality build and the types of resort-grade facilities — from pools to pickleball courts and from cinemas to saunas — that are going to make every day feel like a five-star holiday.
GemLife’s in-house architecture and design team is working to make that a reality.
In-house excellence
GemLife’s team of 15 interior designers and architects enables the company to control the design process in its lifestyle resorts from the first sketch to the final lick of paint.
“Having an in-house architecture and design team ensures each resort has a cohesive vision,” Nielsen says. “We live and breathe our product and are part of the process from beginning to end.”
GemLife’s design philosophy is simple: “Everyone deserves good design,” Nielsen says. “There is no reason why things that are functional should not look great as well.
“Our ethos is that everything we do should be people-focused, aspirational, and future-ready — able to be enjoyed by our homeowners today as well as in 10 or 20 years’ time.”
Wellness and social spaces are not an afterthought; they are embedded into the masterplan, and designed alongside the homes, rather than added later.
Buildings in a GemLife resort don’t just pay lip service to a theme, such as “Hamptons” or “Colonial”, Nielsen says. Instead, design aesthetics are regionally specific, dynamic, and experience-based.
“Planning for our resort facilities starts alongside the evolution of the masterplan. We take in the resort location and geography to maximise the best aspects, such as views, and create something that is in keeping with the local area.
“For example, the GemLife Gold Coast Country Club has the modern, hotel-inspired luxury vibe you would expect in a tourist city, while a resort located in the country, like GemLife Kilcoy Greens, takes its inspiration from Queenslander homes and the architecture of the region, so it feels perfectly in tune with its surroundings.”
Feedback from homeowners
GemLife genuinely listens to its homeowners, and uses what it learns to inform its designs, Nielsen says. “Our understanding of what GemLife homeowners are looking for in their homes and recreational facilities is not just theoretical.
“Our team attends resident events and receives feedback, as well as directly observing how spaces are used. The benefit of being in-house means we can go out to sites every few weeks to have those encounters and return with feedback for the teams.”
The result of this interaction, and GemLife’s approach to design, has been the development of properties that really stand out, Nielsen says: from the GemLife Gold Coast Country Club, designed to take in landmark views from Stradbroke Island to the Surfers Paradise skyline, to the environmentally lauded GemLife Moreton Bay with an under-construction Country Club that has interconnected pavilions that frame the view of the resort’s central 9-hectare lake.
And there’s more in the pipeline, Nielsen says. “There is a very exciting opportunity to change the perception of over-50s living that better matches the expectations of this modern, pop-culture-aware, sophisticated, world-travelling cohort.
“We create homes and resort facilities that not only look good but also function beautifully.”
Gemlife is exceptional resort living for the over-50s, offering luxury homes, first-class amenities in outstanding sea-change and tree-change locations in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria. To find out more, visit www.gemlife.com.au
