James and Hayley Baillie’s Avalon home reflects a love of the environment
Family treasures are crucial to James and Hayley Baillie in their Avalon home.
It seems as though there’s a great story behind almost every item in James and Hayley Baillie’s Avalon home, set among the gum trees on Sydney’s tranquil Pittwater estuary.
The bedrooms of their four sons, aged from 12 to 17, feature artwork gifted to the children by the famed diver, conservationist and artist Valerie Taylor.
There are also photos by Hayley’s great-grandfather, renowned Australian photographer Harold Cazneaux, while in the lounge area, a square table built by James’s cabinet-maker brother, Peter, displays mementos from Hayley’s travels and the couple’s childhoods under its glass top.
Another coffee table boasts an EcoSmart ethanol fire in its centre — an Australian invention which James and Hayley, the cofounders and creative directors of luxury lodge collection Baillie Lodges, were quick to introduce at their first property, Capella Lodge on Lord Howe Island, when it opened in 2004.
But it’s a clay pot sitting unassumingly on the kitchen table that has the most compelling backstory.
The exhibition piece by Australian potter Malcolm Greenwood was one of only a few items to survive the devastating bushfire that destroyed the couple’s award-winning Southern Ocean Lodge on South Australia’s Kangaroo Island in January this year.
Marked with materials that fused on to its surface in the fire’s searing heat, the pot’s patina now tells a tale of endurance.
“Everything had burnt around it and you could just see it literally sitting there in the rubble,” Hayley says, recalling how James discovered the pot the day after the fire.
With demolition of the lodge completed and insurance discussions under way, the couple is working with the property’s South Australian architect, Max Pritchard, to create a new lodge, which they say will stay true to the timeless design of its predecessor.
It was Pritchard who helped redesign the couple’s waterfront home after they bought it in 2013. The transformation of the original house, which the couple describe as “very 80s”, included the creation of one of Pritchard’s signature curved walls, which leads from the entrance to its expansive living area.
Dropping five levels from the street, the home sits easily in its natural surrounds, reflecting a love of the environment also evident at the four Baillie Lodges properties.
“Hayley and I are great lovers of nature and the ocean. That’s so core to us, that natural feeling and embracing what’s out there,” James says.
In the living area, oversized sliding glass doors open on to a blackbutt verandah stretching the width of the house and offering gum tree-filtered views over Pittwater to the bushland of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park.
On the lounge wall, a large work by award-winning local artist Joshua Yeldham depicts Morning Bay, which lies further along Pittwater.
“It just seems so fitting that we’ve got a picture in our lounge room of what we can’t quite see around that corner … it really gives that great sense of place,” Hayley says.
The daughter of entrepreneur Dick Smith, Hayley grew up in Sydney’s north and holidayed at Newport, so it was she who introduced James to the northern beaches.
Raised on the Brisbane River, James fell in love with Pittwater and the couple moved into a small cottage by the water on Riverview Road in 2001. As their family grew they shifted to a larger house in Avalon’s Ruskin Rowe heritage area, but their love of the water drew them back to Riverview Road and their current home, with James listing the house’s deep water views as a favourite feature, along with its afternoon light and sunsets.
As with their lodges, the couple were keen to make sure their home had what they dub “a spirit of generosity”.
Built with an eye for entertaining, the living area revolves around the kitchen, where a large, round high table sits beside a well-stocked bar. Outside on the verandah, a substantial table with overhead heaters delivers the perfect year-round setting for long lunches in the afternoon sun. On the waterfront below, the renovated jetty and boatshed provide another inviting entertainment area.
The feeling is relaxed, but the design is unquestionably well-considered given the Baillies’ wealth of hospitality knowledge. The home’s oak floorboards are oiled as that’s easier to maintain and eco-friendlier than polyurethane, James explains, while the striking kitchen features hard-wearing black ceramic benchtops that can’t be marked.
Behind the kitchen, there’s a smartly fitted butler’s pantry, while next to the laundry a small common room shared by the Baillie boys features four lockers, complete with powerpoints and USB chargers for all their electronic devices.
James and Hayley’s support for Australian design and art is obvious throughout the five-bedroom, three-bathroom home, which includes outdoor furniture from Robert Plumb and light fittings by Ross Gardam and Mark Douglass.
Among the artwork is a beautiful painting by Pepai Jangala Carroll, from the Indigenous arts community Ernabella, which partners with Baillie Lodges’ Central Australian property, Longitude 131.
In their bedroom, the Baillies sleep on the prototype design for Southern Ocean Lodge’s beds and even their 50-foot yacht Capella, moored outside the house, was built locally by Palm Beach Motor Yachts.
James recalls that a local tradesman who helped with the home’s renovation made a point of telling him that while he’d worked on much more amazing houses in the area, he felt the Baillies had created a wonderful family home.
“He said ‘there’s a difference between a house and a home … this is a home’, and that really resonated with me.”
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