The design secrets behind this award-winning Sydney house

What started as two simple apartments in an arts and crafts-era building has become an award-winning home for a couple with two young children.

Restored, reworked and reimagined by award-winning practice Smart Design Studio, the house in Elizabeth Bay, Sydney, celebrates the past as much as its future.

Part of the architect’s plan was to include a number of skylights as well as large picture windows and doors for the new contemporary extension at the rear.Credit: Romello Pereira

“I’ve always loved the arts and crafts style of architecture, even though many of the features, such as fireplaces, are small in scale,” says architect William Smart, who received an architecture award in the interiors category from the Australian Institute of Architects (NSW chapter) for this transformation.

Although the two-storey house is considerably smaller than many of its neighbours, such as Elizabeth Bay House, Boomerang and Ashton, all impressive historic mansions, there was a charm that came with this home, built around 1910.

Complete with timber shingles, multi-paned windows, fireplaces and picture rails, the house benefited from a north-facing terraced/portico to the front garden and views over Rushcutters Bay from the first floor.

While the house still appears to be fairly original on approach, the exterior has been sensitively tweaked to include a new set of bluestone stairs and a balustrade that leads to the front door.

“We bleached the timber shingles to a silvery hue in line with the original design, and replaced the window frames and gutters that had deteriorated,” says Smart.

Although the house benefits from northern light to the front garden, designed by landscape architect Dangar Barin Smith, it suffered from reduced light to the pocket-sized southern aspect at the rear. Hence, part of the architect’s plan was to include a number of skylights as well as large picture windows and doors for the new contemporary extension at the rear – now containing a decorative pool embedded with a singular fig tree.

From the moment one steps into the home, there’s a sense of craft that made the arts and crafts period resonate not just with those moving on from the more stiff, Victorian period towards the turn of the 20th century, but those seeking a more tactile and less machine-like environment today.

Linen-covered walls create a tailored interior as well as being an acoustic balance to the home’s oak floors and architraves, and window frames have been faithfully reproduced. Smart and his team also created a number of thresholds within the floor made of Corian that further separate the past from the present.

From the moment one steps into the home, there’s a sense of craft.Credit: Romello Pereira

The front of the house is given over for the formal lounge and gallery while the new contemporary addition contains an informal living area, dining area and a kitchen, the latter – although integral to the open-plan living areas – also featuring a portal that loosely contains the kitchen and butler’s nook.

Pivotal to the new wing is the curvaceous balustrade finished in Venetian plaster that frames a mezzanine study (accessed via one of the concealed linen-covered doors in the central passage). Overlooking the double-height space (approximately 6 metres tall), the upper level appears to float, aided by filtered light through a concealed skylight. “I felt a softer and gentler curve was more appropriate to the feel of this house than simply a sharp rectilinear addition,” says Smart.

Smart also worked his magic in transforming the home’s first floor, which includes five bedrooms, including the main bedroom suite which extends across the entire front of the house, with a large ensuite and dressing area at one end and the bedroom at the other. A large sliding door can separate the bedroom from the art of dressing and bathing while still allowing each space to receive the generous northern light through the multi-paned windows.

In the Elizabeth Bay home, there’s a fine melange of period and new details. While the original timber balustrades have been retained in the rise to the first-floor bedrooms and bathrooms, a contemporary staircase connects the first floor to the roof terrace.

The Elizabeth Bay home incorporates a melange of period and new details.Credit: Romello Pereira

Made from thick plated steel with curved treads that extend to form the balustrades, the staircase creates a sense of lightness, aided also by the new skylight directly above. “The staircase was inspired by one that I saw in a museum in Verona, designed by Carlo Scarpa. I was conscious of retaining the width of the original hallways (in the house) and wanted all the spaces to ‘breathe’ and feel considerably more spacious,” he adds.

The arts and crafts house still has hallmarks of the period, but it is now a fine modern home, cleverly blurring the lines between inside and out – and bringing to it a contemporary craft that will resonate for decades to come.

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