Emerald House is an alteration and addition to a heritage-listed and revered 1890s Victorian villa with a prominent street presence in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs. The design intent seeks to balance the practicality of family life with a love of entertaining through contemporising the interior spaces, whilst also retaining and heroing the structure's historical character and unique features.
The interior language of the five bedroom and four bathroom home feels timeless while still being contemporary, where traditional features including rare wedding cake cornices are layered with rich and experimental materiality and bespoke furniture.
Through replanning and a rear extension, the various internal amenities are better sized and planned for the long-term performance of a home that loves to host.
Client Design Brief
Our intention was to balance the practicality and functionality of our client and their children’s family life with the ability to entertain in both casual and formal capacity, with little intervention to respect the structure's historical architectural character.
As one of the suburb’s best surviving Victorian homes, it was necessary to honour original features of the heritage-listed residence; extensive stucco cornices, ceiling roses, an existing fireplace, staircase, door architraves and decorative skirting have been retained and/or refurbished.
Aspects of an existing council approval for alterations and additions by MCK Architects were retained and further developed with more robust changes to the ground floor.
The home was formerly a small maternity hospital and as a result the rooms were small, lacked natural light or required reformatting. The inclusion of a rear extension sought to emphasise amenity as the primary family gathering space with a connection to the wide backyard, with other spaces within the home dedicated to more formal hosting.
Our client’s aim to bring the outside in informed the aesthetic; this was to be a sanctuary, clear and restorative, not a place of escape but of reconnection. Equally their vision to fuse the property’s historic story with their passion for art resulted in a theatrical, detailed and contemporary residence within its heritage envelope.
Response to The Client’s Brief
The home includes five bedrooms (three with ensuites), main bathroom, downstairs powder room, laundry, formal lounge and dining room, large open kitchen, family room and TV room and basement music room. The existing pool and external garage were retained and the roof cavity provided an opportunity for a new loft office/study.
The three facades of the revered exterior including traditional iron lacework are well maintained and an incredible example of Victorian architecture. New black and white tiles for the wrap-around verandah were intentionally selected to match the former floor’s same specification, maintaining the heritage character.
The new rear extension provided an increased footprint for an open plan kitchen and family room, where a thick feature stone portal marks the transition between the spaces. Strong connection to the generous backyard and pool area is established with multiple sets of new folding steel doors. The extension is sympathetic to the rest of the structure and allowed for a small first floor ‘parent’s retreat’ deck accessed by the master bedroom walk-in robe and a green roof garden. A narrow strip of landscaping next to the formal dining room creates an illusion of serenity, softening the boundary to the neighbouring property.
The interiors palette is materially diverse, celebrating luxurious colours and playful textures with a bespoke approach to furniture specification that emphasises enduring finishes for daily living and hosting. Similar to the client’s passion for collecting art, unique furniture and furnishings were either highly customised through re-upholstery or custom design, whilst multiple burgundy and green stone varieties are used throughout the kitchen, formal living and dining rooms, powder room, master bedroom and ensuite.
The kitchen combines rich natural materiality with sculptural custom elements; dark-stained American Oak joinery and Calacatta Viola marble are contrasted by a soft pink concrete island. A bronze glass chandelier hovers above the custom round and spherical base dark stained oak table and bespoke round purple ombre rug. New flooring stained to match the retained Victorian-era floor in the hallway and a custom high decorative skirting maintain continuity between the home’s old to new sections. In the master bedroom suite, charcoal carpet and soft grey walls form the foundation for geometric jacquard curtains, Havana hued leather upholstered bedhead, bespoke walnut bedside tables and a long custom stone-topped console with drawers.
The walk-in robe is an intentional theatrical moment, with dark stained American Oak joinery, oversized brass handles and a striking amber Murano Tronchi chandelier. The island creates a visual connection to the adjoining ensuite with its same materiality of aged brass and Calacatta Viola stone.
The ensuite is a story of cream and brown veined stone set against dark, small-format tiles softened by linen curtains and illuminated by a handblown Murano wall light. The removal of the non-essential bathtub allowed for a large shower, enclosed toilet and double vanity. The vanity was reoriented in front of the existing windows, with floating mirrors suspended on metal rods to preserve light and integrate discreet shelf storage behind the mirrors.
