Curving along the ridgeline of Mount Lofty Estate above Crafers, where the Adelaide Hills drop away toward Piccadilly Valley in a sweep of eucalypt and farmland, four low-rise buildings clad in Australian Spotted Gum and locally quarried Basket Range sandstone announce themselves as something built for exactly this place. David Frazer's architecture for Sequoia Lodge, which opened in 2019, works the escarpment rather than sitting above it — the buildings follow the contour of the ridge so that each of the fourteen suites captures a 180-degree panorama without any suite looking into another. Georgie Shepherd's interiors carry the material logic of the exterior inward. Floor-to-ceiling black-framed glazing floods the split-level suites with morning light, the rough-coursed sandstone fireplace chimneys rising through double-height volumes that feel genuinely domestic in scale. Warm-toned spotted gum millwork lines every wall, built-in shelving and cabinetry fitted flush alongside the stone chimney breast so that the hearth becomes the spatial centre of each 75-square-metre room. Aboriginal dot paintings in ochres and deep umber hang above the beds, grounding the palette in country rather than imported reference. In the restaurant, terracotta-upholstered armchairs pull up to marble-topped tables before floor-to-ceiling glass that frames the valley canopy like a held breath — the landscape always present, always the point.

30min drive from Adelaide airport (ADL)

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