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Zac Efron's long-rumoured Australian 'forever home' is no longer just a Hollywood fantasy.
Daily Mail has obtained exclusive new images revealing the actor's extraordinary off-grid rainforest retreat is now rapidly taking shape.
The aerial photographs show multiple steel-framed pavilions emerging across the Hollywood star's secluded 128-hectare Tweed Valley property, with modular structures connected by elevated walkways and topped with distinctive living green roofs.
Construction materials, earthmoving equipment, solar panels and unfinished platforms can be seen scattered across the rugged bushland site, offering the clearest look yet at the scale of Efron's ambitious 'Futurecave' project.
One image shows a cluster of raised pods built into the hillside and surrounded by dense native trees, while another reveals the home's green-roofed structures and open steel framework at close range.
Another captures the wider work site, including an excavator, access tracks, stacked building supplies and solar panels positioned near the lower edge of the property.
Daily Mail can reveal the High School Musical actor, 38, has been quietly based around Byron Bay while supervising construction of the sprawling New South Wales retreat.
The project, dubbed 'Futurecave', is far from an ordinary celebrity mansion, with environmental designer Joost Bakker developing experimental hemp blocks, recycled oyster shells, agricultural waste products and plant-based boards for the eco-conscious build.
Efron purchased the vast rural block near Tomewin during the Covid pandemic in 2020, after falling in love with Australia while filming and living Down Under.
The rainforest property, located about 75 kilometres from Byron Bay, boasts waterfalls and multiple creeks, making it an ideal setting for the actor's off-grid, zero-waste vision.
After years of planning, the development appears to have reached a significant milestone, with Bakker recently confirming the home had officially received approval.
'Excited to get started on Zac's house!' he wrote on Instagram on May 9, alongside a photo of the Hollywood star.
The six-bedroom, two-storey residence is expected to cost about $2.685million to construct and will span approximately 830 square metres, according to development documents lodged with Tweed Shire Council.
Designed by architect Frank Burridge of Main Studio, the property will feature a futuristic series of dispersed pods linked by walkways, green roofs covered in vegetation, a gym and sweeping views across the surrounding rainforest.
Planning documents describe the residence as a 'carbon-sequestering, habitat-creating home', with the pods 'dispersed on the site to celebrate the landscape, reduce building bulk, encourage connection to outdoors and frame key views'.
Bakker has said Efron gave him creative freedom to push sustainable construction methods as far as possible.
'It's not every day of the week that @zacefron asks you to design his home,' he wrote in November.
'Especially as it will be the first home he has ever owned!'
The designer revealed the team had spent more than a year experimenting with alternative building materials designed to replace traditional concrete.
'We're experimenting with making hemp blocks, replacing concrete with two materials that restore the environment - hemp, possibly the best plant on earth at repairing and restoring soil health, and of course oysters, nature's ultimate ocean restorer,' he explained.
'I want to create a building material that I hope will become mainstream one day - a material that naturally breathes, is anti-mould, naturally fire resistant and improves the indoor air Zac will ultimately breathe.'
The sustainability focus extends beyond the home's structure, with Bakker revealing Efron's kitchen and bathroom joinery will be made using plant-based boards created from agricultural crop waste through his Plantbord initiative.
'Although @zacefron kitchen and bathroom joinery will only use 200 boards, if we embrace this product we have the potential to help farmers restore soil health in a natural way,' Bakker wrote on May 23.
Sources close to the star have previously suggested he could be looking to relocate to Australia permanently, after listing his Los Angeles mansion for sale for $7.8million.
Efron has maintained strong ties to Australia since the pandemic, filming the Stan Original movie Gold in the South Australian outback in 2020 before returning to shoot the second season of his Netflix series Down to Earth with Zac Efron in 2021.
He also surprised fans in Melbourne in 2024 when he appeared at the Formula One Australian Grand Prix.
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