Bondi’s Moreton Manor is a house with much extraordinary history, meticulously restored and renovated. Its delightful owners, Felicity and Sam McVay say it is a continual work in progress: right now, the renovation is young, much like their family — the couple have three little girls, Milly, 8, Issy, 6 and Ellie, 4 — and they will all grow as one. “We’ve come to realise that our house is still a work in progress and finishing it off will be a journey that will continue for the rest of our lives,” says Felicity, who trained as a lawyer before working at Google as head of YouTube content partnerships.
Photo gallery: Inside the extraordinary renovation of Bondi’s Moreton Manor
She left the tech giant in 2017 to become a consultant for Finch, a production company which combines storytelling, entertainment and technology. Part of a gated community surrounded by apartments and terraces, the McVay’s home is a piece of eastern suburbs history. Originally built in 1858 as a four room cottage called St Olive’s, by 1884 it had been expanded to the Victorian Italianate style and renamed Scarba House.
From 1920 it was run by the Benevolent Society, first as a welfare home for children and later providing other services to the community before it was sold to developer Mirvac in 2013.
The McVays in turn bought the home from Mirvac in 2016.
“When we bought it the house was in a severe state of disrepair and in desperate need of some attention. The building had collapsed in parts and it was exposed to the weather. It was home to a number of rats and possums. “One day when the builders were pulling up the floors they discovered a concrete bunker below the floor of what is now the laundry. We are not totally sure why the room is there. It might have something to do with WWII when people were worried that the Japanese would attack Sydney and on 8 June 1942 they did — a submarine in the ocean off Bondi fired a series of shells, one of which landed in Simpson Street just below Dickson Park”.
The immaculately preserved Manor is in stark contrast to Mirvac’s surrounding white, modern development but the buildings and landscaping — including old fig trees — all fit together.
Enter the manor’s foyer and immediately one is struck by the original Victorian features — tessellated tiles, pressed metal wainscoting, high ceilings, decorative cornices and ceiling roses, and the beautiful sweeping staircase at the front entry with mahogany handrail — above which an original stained glass window fills the house with morning light.
Towards the back of the house we encounter the juxtaposition of old and new. The original walls are met with pre-fab concrete, steel and glass with a light-filled outlook onto the pool and grassed decked areas. “People are always surprised by how private and quiet the house is. It’s a little slice of leafy serenity in busy Bondi,” says Felicity, who is also a governor on the Centennial Parklands Foundation Board.
An unparalleled home entertaining space, it has been the centrepiece of many family celebrations, (Felicity’s Great Gatsby themed 40th to Sam’s country and western themed 40th among them). This weekend, of course, it will be the scene of a fabulous family Father’s Day. Says Felicity: “We’ll be starting the day with brunch at our place with my parents, sister and her family, uncle, aunt and cousins. We’ll be cooking eggs in our steam oven with sides of spinach, bacon, roast tomatoes and avocado.
“In the afternoon, we’ve planned to do the Hermitage Foreshore Walk to Neilsen Park … we love sitting on the sandstone bricks under the sprawling fig trees, watching sailboats on the harbour”.
Where is the best place to sit and enjoy your home? The family room. We bought a huge couch from Restoration Hardware Modern called the “Cloud” sofa and it lives up to its name. The room is light filled with fully retractable glass doors making it feel like an outdoor room. I love lying on the sofa gazing out at the pool, trees and sky. It’s the perfect place to read the paper on the weekend, take a nap or host family movie night. We can accommodate our full extended family!
Who did your interiors? Sarah Davison Interiors had worked with friends of ours on their beach home in Clovelly.
We were drawn to Sarah’s vision of a neutral palate incorporating fabrics like linen, rather than the heavy silks which are more typically found in the Victorian era.
It was important for us that the interior design be timeless but feel young, fresh, beachy and inviting.
The facade and entry foyer of the house are quite formal and imposing, but we wanted the house to feel homely and comfortable and somewhere you don’t want to ever leave! I think “forever home” was part of the brief.
We travelled with Sarah to LA and Palm Springs to find unique pieces of furniture and light fittings from vintage stores that specialise in mid-century modern furniture. We also bought several pieces from Restoration Hardware Modern. We’ve created different spaces throughout the house which we use at different times of year or for different moods.
Paint (from Porter’s Paints) has played a big role in creating these spaces. For example, we love the study with its dark ‘Whale Watching’ shade on the walls. We wanted to create a room with a Ralph Lauren, hunting lodge vibe and used different textures to achieve this. I especially love the floor to ceiling bookshelf which is packed to the rafters with things we’ve collected over the years, including my dad’s old medical textbooks.
What is your favourite room in your home? I love the intimacy of the guest room, which is one of the original cottage rooms built back in the 1850s. Right now, I am writing children’s fiction — I’m actually about to publish my first book, The Tale of Barnaby Glurp — The Boy Who Burped — so I am spending considerable time in my home office!
Any challenging moments during the renovation? The bathtub in the master ensuite, was cut from a single chunk of marble imported from Greece, modelled in a CAD program, cut with a robot and then hand finished. It weighs over 1.4 tonnes and was lifted by crane up and over our balcony and then moved on custom tracks into place in our bathroom. It was all worth it though — there’s nothing better than sitting in the bath, watching TV with the fireplace on.
What is the most unique feature of your home? Perhaps its history. From 1917, Scarba House became a children’s welfare home, owned by The Benevolent Society.
Records show that many of the orphan children were left during the night under the large fig tree that still stands outside the front of the house. There was a wonderful moment the day we settled on the property: we were sitting out on the front lawn and noticed two women taking photos in front of the house. We went over and said hello, and one of the women introduced herself as Hope May Gordon (now 97 years old) who lived and worked at the house as a nurse when she was 17!
She loved touring the rooms and we have remained in touch. She has an open invitation to come for tea anytime she is in town.
Where are some of your favourite interiors and key pieces of furniture from? Lydie du Bray’s in Mittagong is a treasure trove.
A couple of times a year I travel down to wander the rooms and grounds of her sprawling property (and to say hello to the chickens) and then continue on to Bowral for lunch and a cruise around Dirty Janes. Magnolia Interiors in Brisbane — Robyn McKendry travels to France each year to source unique pieces and she has an amazing eye for colour and mixing old and new.
Also Lawson’s Auctioneers, you can find anything there from top hats to zebra skin rugs, plus The Vault Sydney and JF Chen in LA.
What is something you treasure in your home? Our fireplaces. We restored all of them and 11 of them are working. On cold winter nights we love sitting in front of the fire in our bedroom with a good book. Heaven!
I also love our grand piano. It was my Dad’s wedding gift to my Mum and it’s beautiful.