The rate at The Grand Saddles Lodge covers breakfast, lunch, a five-course dinner with paired wines and the minibar, and the stay starts at two nights whether you planned that or not. The 20-suite lodge opened on November 2 at Mount White, 45 minutes north of Sydney, across the road from a restaurant that started the whole precinct in 2018.
That restaurant, The Homestead at Saddles, was named by Condé Nast Traveller among the world’s most beautiful restaurants, and it exists because advertising entrepreneur John Singleton wanted coffee near his house. Singleton has lived at Mount White for more than 25 years. “Saddles started because I wanted a decent coffee close to home,” he said at the opening. “I never imagined where that would lead.”
The Lodge sits in 28 acres of bushland. Each of the 20 suites is 54 square metres with an open fireplace, a private terrace and a hand-selected vinyl collection. The three categories divide by water: The Gardens open onto garden terraces, The Classics add private heated circular plunge pools, and the Signature Suites add freestanding baths and larger plunge pools. Two-night stays for two guests are priced at A$3,800, A$4,200 and A$4,600 across the three categories, every meal and the premium minibar included.
Dinner is the anchor. The Hawkesbury, the lodge’s fine-dining room, is led by head chef Phillip Roberts, whose career includes ARIA and Oncore by Clare Smyth, and its menu draws on local seafood and on herbs and vegetables grown on the estate. Pre-dinner drinks happen at Ned’s, an Art Deco piano bar open daily from 3 p.m. to walk-ins. Two experiences are folded into every stay, with transfers in the lodge’s Mercedes Sprinter fleet: a cruise on the Hawkesbury River aboard the lodge’s private boat, the Grace Kelly, and visits to oyster farms or to Glenworth Valley for the running of the horses.
The Spa at The Grand Saddles Lodge has five treatment rooms and a hydrothermal suite with a Finnish sauna, a domed steam room and a cold plunge, built with Synthesis Organics around certified organic Australian skincare and native botanicals. Its three signature rituals, Sunrise, Heart of the Valley and Sundown, pair massage with gemstone facials, reflexology and botanical body polish.
Singleton’s own walls do the decorating. Artworks from his personal collection hang throughout the lodge, including pieces by Arthur Boyd, John Olsen and Sidney Nolan, and a guided art tour is part of the stay. “I’ve only ever had one rule,” he said. “If it’s not the best in the world, you won’t find it here.” The Homestead still serves lunch crowds across the road; now they can stay the night, and the two-night minimum suggests Singleton expects them to find leaving as hard as he does.
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