Baillie Lodges works to enrich our team members, our local communities, and our guests, with purposeful growth, conscientious stewardship, and genuine and re-energising connection to unique landscapes, peoples and cultures.
The broader Baillie Lodges’ commitment to sustainable luxury travel is best expressed by each of the lodge’s interactions with their natural environment, the local community and its culture, where protection and preservation of each lodge’s natural and cultural surroundings is a firm priority. The Baillie Lodges’ approach to sustainability is essential to lodge operations both to ensure the well-being of the destinations it operates in and to enhance the guest experience.
Natural Environment
Dynamic environmental management plans for each property embrace advanced and emerging technology and work alongside local organisations including government agencies, national parks and conservation sanctuaries to ensure all activities are in line with each region’s conservation goals.
Local Community
Active engagement with local communities includes establishing supportive supplier relationships with food and beverage producers, artists and designers as well as supporting local charities, education initiatives, community events and work experience programs.
Culture & Heritage
Baillie Lodges provides guests with a chance to connect with each lodge location’s culture and heritage. This encompasses all aspects of the lodge experience, from design to food and drinks and signature guest tours.
People
Baillie Lodges’ own team of people is its greatest asset, and the company carries a ‘family’ style culture with a commitment to the long-term development and wellbeing of every member of its team.
‘For the community and landscape on Kangaroo Island the rebuild of Southern Ocean Lodge was a period of regeneration. We’re so pleased to welcome our guests to a lodge that bears many of the well-loved hallmarks of the original, as well as new features for guests and sustainability initiatives that make the new-look Southern Ocean Lodge better, smarter and ready for the future.
James and Hayley Baillie, Baillie Lodges Founders
Sustainable Luxury at Southern Ocean Lodge
An energetic and invested approach to best managing the natural environment is essential to the Baillie Lodges guest experience, to the ongoing appeal of the destination and to conducting sustainable business in experiential tourism.
Australia’s third largest island, Kangaroo Island is widely acclaimed as Australia’s Galapagos and is home to an abundance of native wildlife and spectacular natural attractions. With more than one third of the island declared protected wilderness, ‘KI’ (as the locals call it) has established itself as a premiere destination for nature lovers, where visitors wander among sea lions lolling on the beach, walk the Remarkable Rocks or come face-to-face with koalas, kangaroos and fur seals frolicking by the Southern Ocean.
Southern Ocean Lodge was approved under the Commonwealth Environment Protection & Biodiversity Conservation Act, the South Australian Development Act, the National Parks & Wildlife Act, the Native Vegetation Act and Natural Resources Management Act.
A comprehensive Environmental Management Plan is in place at Southern Ocean Lodge and steers all operations with underlying strategies relating to the conservation of Kangaroo Island.
Southern Ocean Lodge first opened in 2008 and became renowned as a sustained leader in South Australian tourism for a design that was celebrated as timeless, unchanged and unchallenged by the sometimes-passing fads of luxury travel.
The occasion to rebuild Baillie Lodges’ flagship property came after a series of wildfires had swept Kangaroo Island’s wilderness in the summer of 2020, converging from three directions to raze the lodge.
Baillie Lodges founders James and Hayley were pleased to once again partner with Max Pritchard and his team at Max Pritchard Gunner Architects, who designed the original property. Max knew the Kangaroo Island landscape intimately and how to create a lodge that seemed to float above its towering limestone cliffs and the icy blue Southern Ocean thundering below.
After four years in the planning and construction, Southern Ocean Lodge reopened on Kangaroo Island’s wild south coast in December 2023.
Design for a New Generation of Travel
The plans for the new lodge returned all the essential features that guests had loved best in the original, whilst adding some considered extras in a design to lead the future of luxury tourism to Kangaroo Island.
At the same time, a raft of leading environmental initiatives was introduced, allowing the lodge to operate both even more sensitively in its precious natural environment and sustainably in the context of a future changing climate.
'As well as building on our experience from designing the first lodge we've been able to enlist a host of new valuable advisers with expertise in native vegetation, acoustics, wastewater recycling, sustainability, solar energy, bushfire control and lighting. These advisers coupled with builders experienced in the construction and management of the original lodge, have all helped towards reestablishing Southern Ocean Lodge as a world leader in sustainable nature-based tourism.’
Max Pritchard, Max Pritchard Gunner Architects
• Environmental sustainability is core to the design of the new-look Southern Ocean Lodge with significant hybrid solar and battery infrastructure allowing the lodge to continue to run off grid in its remote location on Kangaroo Island’s southwestern coast, while reducing diesel fuel consumption by more than 50 percent. *Solar is the primary energy source for heating water onsite, saving more than 400,000 kgs of carbon emissions annually.
• Building materials for the new Southern Ocean Lodge include the latest energyefficient fittings including LED lighting, double-glazed insulated glass, roof and wall insulation, reducing overall energy use by 25 percent. The lodge features hydronic floor heating powered by a heat pump that also uses less energy than electric or gas heating. The aspect and architectural design of the property has been planned to maximise benefits of the natural weather patterns of the location, encouraging flow- through ventilation and the use of glazing to capture sunlight and store natural heat. Low volatile organic compounds (VOC) paints and natural timbers limit the use of harmful chemicals.
• The lodge roof captures all rainwater which is harvested and stored for use, with a storage capacity of 5.8million litres of potable water. This is supplemented by a reverse osmosis system using solar power to convert bore water to potable water.
• A state-of-the-art bushfire sprinkler system is pressurised by electric pumps and in the unlikely event of a power outage a diesel pump will be on automatic standby. Sitewide CCTV camera coverage and web-based software will enable these safety systems to be activated and managed remotely. The technology means that in the threat of a bushfire, everyone would be evacuated from the site ahead of a significant threat to the property.
• Environmentally considerate native landscaping has been implemented to clear coastal mallee, forming a 20-metre wilderness buffer around the lodge, which has been replanted with some 45,000 hyper local, fire-retardant succulents including and Kangaroo Island's own native juniper which were propagated onsite. The buffer is now a bio-diverse sanctuary providing a welcoming natural habitat for wildlife.
• Boardwalks and signed walking tracks are established around Southern Ocean Lodge to minimise potential ‘edge effect’ of guest movements and to protect the coastal heathland.
• Biodegradable chemicals are used for cleaning. Guests are encouraged to opt for towel and linen changes every third day of their stay, potentially saving hundreds of thousands of litres of water each year, as well as minimising detergent use.
• Recycling is routinely undertaken at Southern Ocean Lodge, with separation from general waste of any materials that can feasibly be returned to recycling depots. Southern Ocean Lodge guests are invited to join a ‘Back of House’ tour to learn more about the environmental initiatives in place.
• Experience guides gain formal accreditation at Seal Bay Conservation Park enabling them to host guests during the tour among the sea lion colony, and encouraging a greater sensitivity for broader ecological issues.
‘We take our duty towards environmental sustainability and social responsibility very seriously on a much wider scale than just our pristine island’s ecology. We strive to minimise our impact through waste separation and recycling, by offsetting CO² emissions through the planting of native vegetation and by maintaining the highest standards of ethics throughout our business and supply chains.’
Robyn Bautovich, Southern Ocean Lodge General Manager
Commitment to Local Community
Baillie Lodges actively engages with the Kangaroo Island community, regularly working with local artists and makers, farmers and growers, the fishing co-op, distillers and guides. Collaboration with a community network of small regional businesses provides a veritable boost to the regional economy and a homegrown identity for Southern Ocean Lodge.
Dining at Southern Ocean Lodge is an exclusively local affair with a bounty of premium ingredients sourced for the dynamic, produce-driven menus providing a real ‘sense of place’ for guests. The use of organic and free range produce in the kitchen complements mutually beneficial supplier partnerships with carefully chosen South Australian food and drink producers who embrace sustainable practices.
• At Kangaroo Island Community Education’s Parndana Campus, school students raise barramundi as part of the aquaculture program, which are then sold to the lodge along with a range of hydroponic herbs. Southern Ocean Lodge is the school’s largest customer and this relationship has flourished with the mutual benefits offered.
• Produce sourced from regional communities includes cheeses from the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa, Coorong Angus beef and Coffin Bay oysters. Locally farmed produce includes honey from the island’s Ligurian bees, organic eggs, seafood including American River oysters, fresh-caught fish and abalone, free range pork, pheasants and Southrock lamb.
• Signature baillies9 gin is crafted by the team at Kangaroo Island Spirits using local juniper and served as the house gin at each of the Australia-based lodges. All wines in the walk-in cellar are sourced from South Australia (except French Champagnes) – many of them from smaller, cellar-door only wineries - providing a virtual tour of South Australia’s wine producers.
• In 2024, Baillie Lodges launched an ongoing community fundraising program called the Spirit of Mateship. The bi-annual fundraiser sees three-night stays auctioned at each of the portfolio’s seven properties with proceeds donated to a local community organisation. Southern Ocean Lodge supports the KI Country Education Fund whose mission is to foster the further education, career and personal development opportunities of rural youth via community encouragement and financial assistance.
‘James and I have always taken a very hands-on approach to the design and operation of the lodges, researching and finding local designers and artists to really bring the feel of the place to the lodge experience, all the while supporting local businesses and the community.’
Hayley Baillie, Founder
Commitment to Culture & Heritage
A key philosophy that underpins the guest experience at Southern Ocean Lodge is the connection with the landscape, heritage and wildlife as well as the region’s community and its culture.
• The rebuild of Southern Ocean Lodge saw the return of the lodge's original architect Max Pritchard along with his business partner Andrew Gunner. The property’s opening Lodge Manager Mat Daniel and Matthew Giltrap, the original Project Manager joined forces as co-builders in a new company and together brought the new iteration to life.
• The lodge’s contemporary aesthetic showcases Australian design. Connections formed over a decade ago with many of the state's fine designers and artists remain strong with custom furnishings from the late Khai Liew and leaf assemblages from Janine MacIntosh commissioned for the property.
• 'Sunshine', the beloved kangaroo sculpture made from a reclaimed combine harvester by local artist Indiana James, was resurrected from the fires, fully restored and reinstalled in his place in the lodge reception to welcome guests.
• Each guest suite has been themed to pay homage to the region’s maritime history. The Flinders Suite category was named after English navigator Matthew Flinders who led the first inshore circumnavigation of Australia and who named Kangaroo Island in 1802, while individual suites are named after the many shipwrecks which came to grief in the island’s treacherous waters. The ultra-premium Baillie Pavilion set high on the clifftops is named for the company’s founders James and Hayley Baillie.
Commitment to People
Baillie Lodges recognises its people are its greatest asset and is committed to the longterm development and wellbeing of its staff. Baillie Lodges encourages all team members to personally engage in the business and empowers them to take ownership of the delivery of exceptional service.
The Southern Ocean Lodge team is a small and close-knit, attracting hospitality professionals from far and wide to create a remote family. Some of the ways that Baillie Lodges embraces, develops and cares for its people include:
• Baillie Lodges believes in investing in the broader Australian tourism industry by training new recruits, recruiting hotel school trainees and offering opportunities for staff development including chef apprenticeships and individual scholarships.
• Baillie Lodges encourages team member development and staff often transfer between lodges to advance their personal and professional development while enjoying a new destination.
• The Baillie Lodges team is an integral part of the lodge guest experience and all staff members are encouraged to establish a warm rapport with guests. This is one reason the team doesn’t wear name badges, as they introduce themselves personally to each guest.
• Baillie Lodges ensures the team is regularly recognised for its dedication, with feedback including shared guest comments and monthly awards for outstanding team members and showcasing team success stories in marketing materials.
'Our
dedicated team are the heart and soul of Southern Ocean Lodge. It’s their warmth and spirit which keep our guests returning again and again.’
Robyn Bautovich, Southern Ocean Lodge General Manager
Creating Connections
Getting involved in sustainable initiatives at Baillie Lodges is a wonderful way for guests to positively contribute to each lodge’s local environment and community, offering a personal connection and creating lasting memories. Guests visiting Southern Ocean Lodge – and other Baillie Lodges properties – actively support locally owned businesses and other services and thereby have a positive impact. Guests can get more involved by:
• Acquiring as much information as possible before leaving home about the natural environments on the itinerary: the national parks, conservation sanctuaries, culture, local standards and values.
• Considering supporting programs and organisations that are working to protect the welfare, culture and environment to safeguard it for future generations.
