Innholdsfortegnelse for 2406 i Australian House & Garden Specials

“THEIR HOMES ARE BRIMMING WITH STORIES, PASSIONS, AND AN UNMISTAKABLE LOVE FOR THE AUSTRALIAN AESTHETIC.” The way people style their houses – what they have on show and what they put away is an endless source of fascination for me and I am in the fortunate position of getting a chance to go on regular tours of the homes of a diverse selection of interesting characters. On that note, welcome to a very special edition under the House & Garden banner — Australian Creatives At Home. The following pages are a vivid journey through the lives and homes of some of Australia’s most fabulous creatives, who have graciously opened their doors to share their sanctuaries of inspiration, expert tips, and must-have pieces. In this edition, we delve into the worlds…

I was a very mischievous child,” Fabio Fanuli tells me, speaking from his office at the family’s eponymous furniture business. It’s something that anyone who knows this lovely man would find very hard to believe – the moniker ‘Mr Nice Guy’ was surely designed just for him. “No, it’s true,” he insists. “I really was.” As a little boy, Fabio loved playing in the workshop of his cabinetmaker father, Giuseppe. The meticulous craftsman, who left Italy for Australia in 1956, would spend hours creating timber patterns for his furniture designs, only for his son to repurpose them into model planes and boats. “Dad would have perfected the plan for a particularly difficult table leg and I’d then cut it up to use in one of my models. He wasn’t always…

Many architects worship minimalism and its simple, uncluttered aesthetic – Richard Archer included – but in his own home in inner-city Sydney, he has left it at the door. Within this urban hideaway, he celebrates maximalism to the... er... max, and is quite unapologetic about it. The always surprising results are an exuberant expression of his personality and all that he loves and values. “I am most certainly no minimalist when it comes to my own style,” he says. “In fact, I am inspired far more by [19th-century English Neoclassical architect] Sir John Soane than [contemporary Minimalist architect] John Pawson.” He even conjures up Versailles when asked to describe what makes this house unique. “‘Reflection’ is an obvious word to describe my home – it’s like a small Hall of…

Back in 2001, then restaurateur Julie Manfredi Hughes spent considerable time and effort hunting for a new family home. “My partner, Larry, has two sons and I have a daughter, Isabella, so we were looking for a house we could live in as a blended family,” she says. The new home had big shoes to fill: Julie’s previous property was designed for her by good friend and renowned architect Luigi Rosselli. “All the homes in our search area were just too small,” says Julie. But she had a lightbulb moment while visiting a friend. “My friend lives in the area we like but on a major road and I was struck by how big and rambling the properties were,” she says. “Soon after, I happened to see a similar house…

The opportunity to design your own living spaces, crafting a blank canvas into something completely bespoke, is a thrilling prospect for anyone. Perhaps particularly so for a professional designer. So it was for interior architect Sophie Davies, who bought an apartment in a 100-year-old building that offered scope for renovation. “I had worked out the new floor plan even before the property went to auction to make sure it could fit everything we needed,” she says. With their first baby on the way, Sophie and her husband, Ed, were keen to get moving on the renovation as soon as the sale was settled. While the two-bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in an Art Deco building – perched high on a hill in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs – was liveable as is, the couple…

It would be hard to picture a neglected inner-city Victorian-era corner store with a ramshackle collection of ad-hoc additions at the back as something that would have the makings of an award-winning future home. Even architect Adam Haddow couldn’t see it at first. Adam is the principal of SJB and one of Australia’s most highly regarded architects. Under his direction, SJB, which was founded in Melbourne in 1976, has become a dominant force in architecture. However, when Adam’s partner, Michael, suggested they buy the inner Sydney corner store building that had been on the market for more than a year, and transform it into their new home, Adam was dubious to say the least. “I said to Mike, that’s not going to work. It was unliveable,” says Adam. “It was…

Self-described ‘textile maverick’ Tigger Hall is a passionate collector, gathering objects and ideas from her life, past and present, and weaving them together into a richly layered tapestry. On a recent trip to Paris, Tigger squeezed two zinc finials into her bag and they now grace her roofline, the final flourish on her renovated home in NSW’s Southern Highlands. “I have collections from all over the world,” she says. “These objects are imbued with the memories and connections to people and places. I also love a sense of surprise in a home, some little thing to make you smile and look again.” This repurposed home, a once-modest 1970s bungalow, makes everyone “look again”. It stirred strong emotions when the design doyenne first saw it in 2020. “On a rainy day,…

Sydney interior designer Marco Meneguzzi loves a treasure hunt. He travelled to Melbourne to buy four favourite antiques, now in this apartment, staying just 90 minutes and flying straight back again. But, equally, in a lesson for the hoarders among us, he knows when to let something go. When he downsized from a two-bedroom apartment to this one-bedroom, he had to edit his possessions. “I thought I couldn’t get rid of all those pieces because I liked them so much, but surprisingly I never think of them now,” he says. With the possible exception of a Swedish sofa. “They have all gone to good homes,” he adds with a smile. When Marco bought this first-floor hideaway in the inner east in 2021, he was smitten by its 3.5-metre-high ceilings, handsome…

Being able to envision and conjure a bold new identity for a 40-year-old property requires imagination and daring. And both were in ample supply when designer Kate Walker reimagined this residence on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula. Drawing on her love of what she calls “Caribbean colonial” homes, she remodelled a well-preserved, unassuming two-storey 1980s dwelling into a glamorous, palm-fringed tropical beauty. When Kate bought the property in early 2020, it had been languishing on the market. “People couldn’t see beyond the tired interiors,” she says. As soon as Kate viewed the property, she was buzzing with ideas: “I had an immediate vision for the place. It was electric.” Above all, she could see it as a perfect nest for herself and her “Brady Bunch” – her partner Anthony, her children, Charlie…