Classically composed

This serene, inner-city retreat provides the perfect setting for a Sydney interior designer's curated collection of antique furniture.

- By Chris Pearson

Sydney interior designer Marco Meneguzzi loves a treasure hunt. He travelled to Melbourne to buy four favourite antiques now in this apartment, staying just 90 minutes and flying straight back again. But, equally, in a lesson for hoarders among us, he knows when to let something go. When he downsized from a two-bedroom apartment to this one-bedroom, he had to edit his possessions. “I thought I couldn’t get rid of all those pieces, because I liked them so much, but surprisingly I never think of them now,” he says. With the possible exception of a Swedish sofa. “They have all gone to good homes,” he adds with a smile.

When Marco bought this first-floor hideaway in the inner east in 2021, he was smitten by its 3.5m-high ceilings, handsome herringbone parquetry, broad balcony, individual entry with its own stairwell and, above all, its tranquillity – who would know it’s within cooee of the CBD? With that balcony sitting in the tree canopy, this urban sanctuary is so quiet that you could hear an upholsterer’s pin drop. “This is so hidden away many people wouldn’t know it existed,” he says.