The kitchen cabinetry is wrapped in Polytec Woodmatt Florentine Walnut, with Franca Design Parago stone, an LAAL Lighting Single-Wall Arch + Small Cone and backbench lighting, a Miele cooktop and oven, a Fisher & Paykel integrated fridge and freezer, a Falmec rangehood, Brodware Nanobar tapware and Interior Secrets Mclean bar stools.
Challenging the norms of coastal design, a home explores contrast with its oceanic setting, forging its own meditative refuge.
A design code that has become synonymous with most Australian beach houses is the brightly washed interiors, receiving their coastal setting in an osmotic manner. However, one home on the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales explores a different approach that defies this unwritten law. Standing as a contemporary fortress against the variable conditions of its beachfront setting, Arrawarra Beach House embarks on a divergent journey that turns the experience inward. Behind the design intention were the clients, who “envisioned a home that felt calm, immersive, and restorative, a place to retreat from the pace of everyday life,” Ellyett Architecture + Interiors senior associate and head of interiors Louise Willey explains.
Applying the same modernist principles from the works of Richard Neutra and Rudolph Schindler that inform their own building practice, JTECH Design & Construct, founders Josh and Joelle Torney took the same approach to designing their family home. With its clean, straight lines, the home is arranged predominantly along a vertical axis, with an L-shaped plan that faces solely towards the garden, thereby retaining absolute privacy. “Rather than relying on expansive glazing and bright interiors, the design embraces tonal depth, texture and carefully controlled natural light to shape the experience of the spaces,” Willey says.
The living room features a media unit dressed in Polytec Woodmatt Florentine Walnut, an Ellison Studios Chromeo armchair and Muse sofa, a Fenton & Fenton Bedrock coffee table in smoke and a Milk & Sugar Lake rug.
Alluding to its beach surroundings, the home adopts a layered tonality drawn from “cues of weathered tones of coastal vegetation, dune grasses, and driftwood,” Willey explains. This helped to conceive a material palette that the clients desired, which was “moodier, with rich materiality, and depth of colour,” she adds. Built with concrete, the home’s floors, walls, and ceilings form a robust base that is resilient to the conditions of its coastal setting, fostering its permanence with the site. To insulate this shell, colour and texture are introduced to lend the home a meditative, enveloping essence, employing deep tones with subtle textures.
Encasing the home’s cabinetry and walls, walnut brings intimacy to the spaces and is gently set off by the sandy-coloured micro-cement walls. This is complemented by the seasoning of stones with dense veins, including an intense olive quartzite in the kitchen and rosy, clouded striations in the bathrooms, paired with forest and chocolate tones lining the bathroom walls and the media unit. To further enrich this sense of refuge and seclusion, light is controlled through small window openings, skylights, or wall lights to deliver this experience.
Pictured: Franca Design Seta stone complemented by Studio Abitare Cera Verde Foresta tiles and Brodware Nanobar tapware.
In the bathroom, Franca Design Seta stone dresses the benchtops, paired with Studio Abitare Cera Amaranto Jam tiles and Brodware Nanobar tapware.
Featured in the bedroom are Bed Threads linen. Also featured outside are Temple & Webster Shelly sun lounges and Market umbrellas.
