Fashion designer Arabella Ramsay's coastal farmhouse fit for a village

A love of classic farmhouse design informed the ‘ambiguous’ layout of fashion designer Arabella Ramsay’s family home near Torquay. | SEE INSIDE

The house of Arabella Ramsay, founder of Australian boutique fashion label Dougal. Architecture and interiors by Powell & Glenn. Photo: Armelle Habib

Fashion designer Arabella Ramsay has created a coastal farmhouse that lets everyone get back to nature in her little village overlooking the Victorian shores.

The family of four originally moved to Jan Juc to escape the Melbourne rat race a decade ago. They were living on an off-the-grid eco farm once owned by roots singer Xavier Rudd, but when the block of land across the road came on the market, they knew it was an opportunity they couldn’t pass up.

Spanning two hectares with views of the sea, it was the perfect spot for the young family to get messy in the gardens, to surf and relax.

But they had to get the house just right.

A thought crossed their minds about keeping the home that stood there, which the previous owner had built himself.

“There were all these meditation areas, as well as these nooks and crannies, and we lived in that house for about a year,” Ramsay says.

“I just realised … it’s very rugged here. We get all the extremities because we’re so close to the ocean, we were getting howling winds most of the time.”

Village House was designed for the harsh, seaside environment. Photo: Armelle Habib

Ramsay got in touch with Melbourne-based architecture and interiors firm Powell & Glenn to take on the task of creating a home that matched the rural site along the brutal, southern coastline. And they nailed it.

Dubbed Village House, the concrete structure delivers a robust, layered home, tethered to its rural site.

“I love that classical farmhouse, you know, with blue stone around the front,” Ramsay says.

“There’s something about that classical design that I really like, and I found that with Powell & Glenn, they take that and modernise it and made it cool and understated at the same time. I knew that you wouldn’t ever get sick of it.”

Greenery will eventually cover the exterior of the home. Photo: Armelle Habib

Growing up on a farm, Ramsay spent a lot of time outdoors with her father, Dougal, the namesake of her children’s clothing brand.

She wanted to continue the tradition of planting veggies and maintaining garden beds with her children, Marlowe, 12, Lottie, 10, and Rufus, 5.

This was a key consideration for Powell & Glenn principal Ed Glenn. He wanted the home to be ambiguous, with no defined front or rear, but rounded in the space around it.

The flow of the family room out to the pergola and broader gardens was designed to blur the line between the exterior and interior of the home, tied together with alternative flooring hand-picked for the space.

Arabella Ramsay, founder of Australian boutique fashion label Dougal with Powell & Glenn head of interiors Clementine Jacobs. Photo: Armelle Habib

“We’re trying to, in a way, slightly disorientate people on the site so that you leave your visit feeling like you’ve been transported and really gone somewhere,” Glenn says.

“We’re trying to create a series of spaces that are within spaces, with “streets” that run between them, which is why we called this Village House.”

Given the harsh textures that were used in the facade, the inside of the home was designed to be warm and hardy for a young family.

The structure of the home was purposely designed to be more neutral so that Ramsay could bring in all the colour that she loves through her massive art collection and rustic furniture.

“I’m just obsessed with colour … I needed it to be a clean slate so that I could put the furniture and the art in and it wouldn’t be too much,” she says.

Powell & Glenn head of interiors Clementine Jacobs says it was important the art could be enjoyed from all aspects.

Neutrals were used internally to allow for the Ramsay’s colourful stylings. Photo: Armelle Habib

Texture was important to the design as a whole, with the concrete render, timber floorboards and Porter’s Paint in the blue kitchen ensuring it wasn’t too “slick”.

“Having the juxtaposition of architectural finishes that are quite rough and textured and balancing that with more refined finishes … were some of the things that we started to do,” Jacobs says.

“A lot of the finishes are very neutral. Arabella wanted to have something that was more of the coastal feel on the interior side, almost Mediterranean barefoot living.”

And the kids were not forgotten either, with little reading nooks for them to curl up with a book and plenty of space to play.

From here, the future is a bit unknown.

As the greenery continues to grow up the facade, Ramsay is considering turning the home into a luxe getaway stay.

But for now, the family are making the most of their home by the sea.