Capella Lodge on the tiny Lord Howe Island some 600-kilometres off the New South Wales coast celebrates twenty years as a pioneer of luxury experiential travel in Australia. Capella was the first luxury lodge created by the work and life partnership of James and Hayley Baillie under their nascent Baillie Lodges brand in 2004.

Also marks twenty years that Capella Lodge Managers Libby Grant and Mark McKillop have been leading the team at the nine-suite luxury lodge, which sits in the foothills of World Heritage-listed Lord Howe Island’s formidable twin peaks, Mounts Gower and Lidgbird, and offers breathtaking views of the Tasman Sea.

In the context of the next twenty years, Capella Lodge set the stage for what would become an industry benchmark set by the Baillie Lodges brand in experiential tourism locally and overseas. As Capella Lodge opened, early planning was already underway for the company’s flagship property Southern Ocean Lodge on the remote southwest coast of Kangaroo Island.

James and Hayley’s vision for Capella included the creation of several key values and guest experiences that would inform the foundations and essentials for the growing collection of luxury lodges across Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

Concepts including ‘first name service’, ‘barefoot luxury’ and ‘spirit of generosity’ which began at Capella have been key to evolution of the Baillie Lodges own brand of hospitality, where guests enjoy a ‘feel at home’ sense of being at their own effortlessly glamorous holiday home.

Clever, contemporary architectural design combined with an extraordinary destination are another Baillie Lodges trademark, where guests are treated to an easy interaction with the outdoors and wonderful views from the comfort of suites, restaurants, bars, lounges and terraces. The style is pared-back luxury, the ultimate anti-resort.

Baillie Lodges founder James Baillie said that whilst Southern Ocean Lodge was often credited as leading a generation of experiential luxury lodging in Australia, the real inspiration was Capella Lodge.

“We’ve been proud founding members of the Luxury Lodges of Australia collection over the past twelve years and it’s wonderful to see this special style of lodging become so popular with guests from here and around the world,” James said.

“We’d also like to extend a huge thanks and congratulations to our colleagues and friends Libby and Mark, who have welcomed so many guests – and the many guests who have returned year upon year to their favourite holiday beach house – over the past twenty years,” he said. 

Baillie Lodges Founder Hayley Baillie said each of the lodges offered a real sense of the place, its environment and community thanks to establishing supply relationships exclusively with local producers, makers, artists and tour operators.

“In creating Capella Lodge twenty years ago today, we feel we played a positive contribution in the direction of a new breed of luxury lodging in Australia, where a sense of place is central to the guest experience,” Hayley said.

“Guests at Capella have a very real sense of the Lord Howe Island vibe, from the freshly caught kingfish served on the daily-changing menu to the Bruce Goold linoleum cuts that line the beach-house style lodge. Guests feel the gentle afternoon breeze, snorkel the world’s southernmost coral reef and explore the island on bikes, Famous Five-style. This is the essence of the Baillie Lodges brand of barefoot luxury,” she said.