Nothing is apologetic about The Jackalope Hotel. Dark zinc, charred timber, black metal, a monolithic form rising out of the vines. Set against the flat green geometry of the Mornington Peninsula, it is a property that announces itself.
Jackalope was designed by Carr, one of Australia’s leading architecture and interior design firms, and the darkness that defines the exterior doesn’t stop at the door.
Inside, the same dramatic palette continues, rich, considered, and unapologetic. Design at this level is a form of rebellion, and Jackalope is telling you something specific: that sustainability can have attitude.
What’s easy to miss in a space this visually consuming, is how much commitment to sustainability sits behind the aesthetic. The hotel harvests rainwater for irrigation, runs solar panels, uses smart building systems that adjust energy consumption based on occupancy. This is not what eco-friendly looks like in your imagination. Thankfully it is not just green tinsel. Jackalope is accredited as a Sustainable Quality Tourism Business by the Victorian Tourism Industry Council.
It is the infrastructure of a property that has thought seriously about its relationship to the land it occupies, the same land that produces the grapes visible from every window.
That relationship becomes most tangible at Doot Doot Doot, the hotel’s restaurant, where the sourcing is local, the menu is seasonal, and the distance between paddock and plate is treated as a genuine value rather than a marketing line. Having worked in remote communities including Mornington Island, where food and land are inseparable, I have covered enough projects to spot greenwashing. Jackalope is not that. It is hospitality that practises sustainability rather than performs it.
What stands out most, though, is the courage of the project. Building something this bold in a rural setting is a statement. It says that regional Victoria deserves design at the highest level, that the people who travel here, and the land they are travelling through, are worth that ambition. That argument matters beyond architecture. it is the same argument made by regional galleries, regional producers, and anyone doing serious work outside a capital city, even if few are able to make it this boldly.
Jackalope makes it loudly. And it makes it beautifully.
