When it comes to over-50s lifestyle communities, Halcyon Greens is smashing it. The development can’t stop winning awards. It has been attracting buyers from all over the country who are flocking to the Gold Coast in unprecedented numbers. With the Pimpama community’s final stage now selling, Silver Magazine took a spin around the development to see all of the good stuff before it sells out.
Several years ago, Halcyon founders Dr Bevan Geissmann and Paul Melville took a trip to Florida, the epicentre of over50s lifestyle resorts. Returning to Australia with the latest thinking on the good life, the vision for Halcyon Greens was born. “Our vision for Halcyon Greens was to create modern, country club living, the size and scale of which has never been seen in over-50s living in Australia,” Dr Geissmann said.
Masterplanned by Sanctuary Cove architect Brian Toyota, the northern Gold Coast community is located on an 84-acre island. It is surrounded by a nature reserve, and stunning native wetlands. Also, it is nestled next to the ultramodern community of Gainsborough Greens. Residents have private access to the club’s 18-hole Championship golf course and clubhouse.
Many homeowners enjoy free golf as a benefit of living at Halcyon Greens. They are incredibly active in organised competitions… but are also partial to a social game with friends. Outside of golf, there are plenty of activities, with groups and events being organised to keep homeowners busy and connected.
$20 MILLION LIFESTYLE AND RECREATIONAL PRECINCT
Running through the community and located across six acres is the $20 million lifestyle and recreational precinct. This is the largest, purpose-built facility of its kind in Queensland. It rivals many of Queensland’s five-star tourism resorts. Homeowners have access to 22 different functional spaces, it caters to more than 40 individual sporting, leisure and recreational groups. Homeowners can enjoy both casual and formal events, in different spaces, which are connected by enclosed walkways.
The Lodge is the more formal of the leisure facilities. It features a luxe seated area with stone fireplace, commercial kitchen and bar, private dining room, a 40-seat Gold Class cinema, library and sala.
Surrounding The Lodge is an outdoor seating area which looks out over the resort pool. It has sun lounges, a beach entry and disability rail for ease of entry. Plus there’s a sunken firepit, which is perfect for afternoon meets.
On the other side of the resort pool is the Recreation Club. It has a commercial kitchen and bar, parquet dancefloor, function space, 25-metre heated mineral pool, spa, gym, hair salon, beauty treatment spaces and bocce court.
The Pavilion opens to eight pickleball courts, tennis court and a championship-size bowling green, all floodlit so homeowners can play well into the evening. It also offers BBQ facilities, kitchenette, function space and a billiards area.
LET’S GET THE PARTY STARTED
Halcyon communities are designed to provide homeowners with the ability to do as much or as little as they like. The homes are built to allow ageing in place and the facilities offer a platform for homeowners to form vibrant sporting and leisure groups. The social club at Halcyon Greens, known as the ‘fun club’ is incredibly active. It organises many events and activities ranging from live concerts, themed dinners, fashion parades, mystery bus trips, excursions and trivia competitions.
A team of busy volunteers work hard to organise the many events. Group president Ann Ryan said the best thing about being involved with the social group is having the opportunity to meet more people in the community. “It brings homeowners together from the single homeowners to the couples who socialise and connect with the rest of the community. It’s great watching people who haven’t danced in a long time hit the dance floor. It’s also great seeing the people who have just joined our community talking to new friends, and happy.”
The community has recently had trips to Maleny, the theatre in Brisbane and one of Gold Coast’s most fun cover bands, Koi Boys, played live at the Recreation Club. “We are spoiled for choice as you need to prioritise what you want to go to each week as there are so many things on offer,” said Ann.
AWARDS
Halcyon is no stranger to industry recognition being the most awarded creators and operators of over-50s lifestyle communities, with almost 30 national and state awards.
Halcyon Greens is no exception with the Pimpama community winning the prestigious Urban Development Industry Australia (UDIA) Queensland’s 2020 awards for Best Seniors Living and Best Master Planned Community.
The community was shortlisted in the national awards. This made it the first developer of over-50s communities to be a finalist in the Seniors Living and Master Planned categories.
The UDIA recognition was off the back of the community’s $20 million Recreation and Lifestyle Precinct winning the Master Builder’s award for Best Tourism and Leisure Facilities over $10 million, beating many hotels and tourist resorts on the Gold Coast.
More so, Halcyon Greens is also a final in this year’s national Urban Developer Awards, which are yet to be announced.
GREEN CREDENTIALS
Halcyon Greens has been designed and built to take advantage of green technology. This lowers the carbon footprint of the community and offers homeowners more certainty over energy costs. The community has six-leaf UDIA EnviroDevelopment certification for its sustainability initiatives across ecosystems, landscaping, waste and recycling, energy, materials and water.
In addition to this, Halcyon homes are built using materials such as steel frames, Hebel panels, insulation and 3.5kW solar panels and solar hot water as standard, with many homeowners choosing to upgrade to 5.0kW. Many homes have Tesla batteries which drive down energy costs even further, with one homeowner revealing they were averaging around 1.0kWh per day compared to their previous home (also solar powered) of around 11kWh per day. “The cost comparison isn’t simple because we had solar in our previous home with a very good feed-in rate. However our average daily cost in our previous home was $1.00 per day compared to a credit of $2.70 per day at Halcyon Greens,” the homeowner said.
THIS IS THE LIFE
The lush island oasis has allowed the community developers of Halcyon Greens to dream big and create an exceptional lifestyle community. The team at Silver have visited and can vouch that the development is everything that the builders have promised. We highly recommend doing the tour. The final stage of the Pimpama community is now selling and with the Gold Coast real estate market set to get hotter over the coming years, the time to inspect Halcyon Greens in now. Enjoy!
For more information call 1800 050 580 or visit www.lifebeginsathalcyon.com.au
Want to read more about Halcyon Greens? Check out this article.
Editor for Silver Magazine Gold Coast
