By ANNA USHER

Australia’s first private home furnished by a global fashion house has landed on level 53 of One Circular Quay, priced at seventy million dollars.

It is called Cove. A whole-floor sub-penthouse of 537 square metres, it is the first private residence in the country dressed and furnished in collaboration with Armani/Casa, the interiors house of Giorgio Armani.

It puts Sydney in rare company. Armani/Casa homes exist in New York, Miami, Dubai, Istanbul and Beijing. Now, one sits on our harbour.

And it is pitched squarely at a buyer the lower north shore knows well. Across Mosman, Cremorne and Kirribilli, the move to a lock-up-and-leave home in the sky, the family house traded for a whole floor with the water in the window, is one of the most familiar at the top of the local market. Cove is that idea taken to its limit.

Even here, the number stands apart. In a suburb like Mosman, where the median house price sits above six million dollars, seventy million dollars for an apartment is another order entirely.

The lift does not open onto a corridor. It rises to level 53, the doors part, and you step straight into your own entry hall, with no shared hallway and no neighbours to pass. Waiting by the door is a slender column lamp, 165 centimetres of onyx-textured metal, casting a low, warm light.

The main living and dining rooms are turned to one view: an unbroken sweep across the Sydney Opera House, the Harbour Bridge and the water beyond. A terrace carries the living space out into the harbour air.

The names behind it are serious. The building is by Kerry Hill Architects. The interiors are by Daniel Goldberg. Every piece of furniture has been chosen and styled by Armani/Casa itself.

The palette is what Giorgio Armani called “greige”, the quiet ground between grey and beige, layered with sand, off-white, Canaletto walnut and satin light brass. The finishes are made by hand in Italy, using techniques developed for Armani/Casa alone.

Every room is built around the four ideas that guide the house: Art, Fashion, Nature and The Orient. The main suite holds the Morfeo bed, a softly curved floating design in walnut and chinchilla-textured upholstery.

The formal living room is anchored by a silk and wool rug, five metres by five and a half, woven with the canné stripe that has run through Armani’s collections from the beginning.

On the study desk sits the Logo lamp. Giorgio Armani designed it in 1982 to light his own Milan stores, so evenly that it became the emblem of Armani/Casa itself.

The one here is a limited edition, a collector’s piece sold nowhere else in the world.

The whole floor is built around privacy. The main suite anchors one end, with its own dressing room and a private spa ensuite.

The secondary bedrooms and a study sit at the far end.

The sale does not end at the front door. Whoever buys Cove is welcomed into the world of Armani, starting with a private stay at the Armani Hotel Milano and a personal design session at the Armani/Casa flagship on Corso Venezia.

“Lendlease and Armani/Casa share a conviction that true luxury is quiet, considered and made to last,” said John Taylor, Head of Product and Design at Lendlease. He called Cove “a moment of real significance for Sydney and for the branded residences category in this country”.

It is a category on the rise. Branded homes, apartments that carry a design or fashion house’s name and hand, are among the fastest-growing corners of global property.

Knight Frank expects their number worldwide to climb 59 per cent by 2029.

Buyers have already committed to the tower. One Circular Quay is more than 90 per cent sold and completes later this year.

For one local ready to leave the lawn behind, the reward is a home that arrives finished: the art, the lighting, the walnut and the brass already in place, chosen by the house whose name is on the door.