Houzz Tours
Houzz Tour: Lifestyle Comes First in a Byron Bay Hinterland Haven
A house built for working, cooking, gardening, and guests in a heavenly part of Australia
If you’re going to work from home, you want it to be a home in which you like working, and that’s exactly what these homeowners set out to do when they embarked on building their house in far north-eastern New South Wales. With help from architects Sarah Aldridge and Jason Trisley from Space Studio, the couple imagined a home that would meet their needs for work, rest and play.
“Both clients carry out consultancy work from home, so a good home office space was an essential part of the brief,” Aldridge says. Their children live interstate and overseas and, therefore, tend to stay infrequently but for longer periods, so it was important they had their own space when visiting. The guest bedroom has plenty of storage and its own ensuite bathroom, and a refurbished on-site guest cottage is well used. The home office also doubles as additional guest space.
Both owners are excellent cooks and gardeners and enjoy entertaining so, as well as a fabulous kitchen and indispensable butler’s kitchen, the architects made sure to design a generous covered back door lobby with gardening tool storage and a sink for washing vegetables picked from the garden.
“Both clients carry out consultancy work from home, so a good home office space was an essential part of the brief,” Aldridge says. Their children live interstate and overseas and, therefore, tend to stay infrequently but for longer periods, so it was important they had their own space when visiting. The guest bedroom has plenty of storage and its own ensuite bathroom, and a refurbished on-site guest cottage is well used. The home office also doubles as additional guest space.
Both owners are excellent cooks and gardeners and enjoy entertaining so, as well as a fabulous kitchen and indispensable butler’s kitchen, the architects made sure to design a generous covered back door lobby with gardening tool storage and a sink for washing vegetables picked from the garden.
The carport is located remotely from the house to provide a sense of arrival. A covered walkway links the carport to the house via a stepped ramp alongside a brilliant fuchsia wall.
The existing buildings on the site were in poor condition and non-compliant so Aldridge says it was a fairly easy decision to remove them and start with a clean slate. As well as the fuchsia wall alongside the pathway, splashes of lime green and sunny yellow on the exterior give this home a sense of fun.
As you enter the front door, you can see along the length of the south wall of the living room and along the tall oak bookcases and row of handmade pendant lights to the striking black wall and mirror at the far end of the room.
The homeowners love the room for its adaptability as well as its looks. In the long subtropical summer, the doors disappear and the garden and views become part of the room. On chilly winter evenings, they stay cosy around the fireplace with its wonderful stone chimney.
Fireplace stone: Eco Outdoor
The homeowners love the room for its adaptability as well as its looks. In the long subtropical summer, the doors disappear and the garden and views become part of the room. On chilly winter evenings, they stay cosy around the fireplace with its wonderful stone chimney.
Fireplace stone: Eco Outdoor
The architects positioned the home’s living areas with the sun in mind. “The combined sitting/dining/cooking room has long elevations facing north and south for plentiful cross ventilation and daylight,” Aldridge says. The floor is travertine tiling that continues outside to form the plinth that meets the landscape. The 4.5-metre-wide sliding stacking doors allow the north elevation to open up to the landscape, both visually and literally when the doors are open and stacked behind the solid blades of wall.
Travertine tiles: Wilson’s Ceramics Byron Bay; ceiling fans: Hunter Pacific; pendant lights: Tom Raffield
More: Indoor-Outdoor: 10 Living Rooms That Cross the Line
Travertine tiles: Wilson’s Ceramics Byron Bay; ceiling fans: Hunter Pacific; pendant lights: Tom Raffield
More: Indoor-Outdoor: 10 Living Rooms That Cross the Line
The careful passive solar design ensures that hot summer sun is blocked and warm winter sun is allowed into the living room to warm the travertine floor, which then acts like underfloor heating to heat up the room. The generous ceiling height, and high-level louvres and ceiling fans, ensure the space remains cool and well-ventilated in the hot, humid, subtropical summer months.
A concealed butler’s kitchen accommodates the messier and noisier cooking activities, such as coffee making, blending and dishwashing, as well as providing storage for crockery and servery access to the outdoor dining and barbecue area.
The main kitchen is elegant, with glossy black cabinetry and appliances and a fine concrete benchtop.
Sink: Blanco; range hood: QASAIR; black prism tiles: Academy Tiles; benchtop: Mixed Element
Take a look at more black kitchens
Sink: Blanco; range hood: QASAIR; black prism tiles: Academy Tiles; benchtop: Mixed Element
Take a look at more black kitchens
The multifunctional timber veneer wall separating the living room and home office is also a feature of the house that is very much designed to the homeowners’ needs, Aldridge says. They have a large and complex audiovisual system, but they did not want to see the equipment except when necessary (such as when watching TV), so all is concealed behind various hidden doors in this wall. This wall also provides general storage, and one of its secret doors gives full access to the back of the audiovisual equipment for easy reconfiguration.
Bee wallpaper on door: Emery et Cie
Bee wallpaper on door: Emery et Cie
Two pull-down guest beds are another hidden surprise within the wall of the office area. The office can easily be converted into a separate guest bedroom by closing the concealed cavity sliding doors to the living room and entrance hall.
Folding beds: Häfele
Folding beds: Häfele
One of the main challenges of this project was for the house to accommodate the homeowners’ extensive art and book collections. “They wanted sufficient wall space for these in the main living room, but also wanted a strong connection between the interior and the beautiful surrounding landscape,” says Aldridge.
Although the outdoor living room is located on the western side of the house, it is the first part of the house to get the morning sun, so it’s a great spot to have an alfresco breakfast. The barbecue, pizza oven and servery windows to the kitchen also make this a very functional cooking, eating and entertaining space.
Pizza oven: Pólito Wood Fire Ovens
More: 5 Ways to Make the Most of You Indoor-Outdoor Entertaining Area
Pizza oven: Pólito Wood Fire Ovens
More: 5 Ways to Make the Most of You Indoor-Outdoor Entertaining Area
An expanse of well-maintained lawn ties in with the lush green of the surrounding trees and rolling hills of the Byron Bay Hinterland.
Each of the bedrooms is contained in its own ‘wing’ on the south side of the home. The guest bedroom has an ensuite with shower room (and is adjacent to the guest toilet), and features oak joinery that incorporates bookshelves, display shelves and clothes storage. Well-positioned windows maximise airflow during the warmer months.
“The south wall opens up to a small courtyard, offering shelter from the northerly winds, and is a lovely place to sit and enjoy the winter sun,” says Aldridge.
The east-facing master bedroom suite can be accessed from the entry hall but is separated by a concealed sliding door covered on both sides with the same black wallpaper lined with huge gold bees we saw in the office doorway (earlier photo). “That adds a little fun when the door is closed and the bees exposed,” Aldridge says.
“The dressing room also has a concealed sliding door so it can be closed up and efficiently dehumidified if required by the built-in dehumidifier to prevent everything going mouldy in this humid subtropical climate,” Aldridge explains.
Location: Possum Creek, NSW (in the Byron Bay Hinterland)
Size: 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, living room with ‘front of house’ kitchen, concealed butler’s kitchen and wine cellar, plus large home office, guest cloakroom and laundry/mud room
That’s interesting: The property used to be an organic macadamia nut orchard with a Samoan temple and contemplation pavilion. Both were non-compliant with current building regulations, so had to be removed.