On the RISE

When this house in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs was reimagined, the garden had to step up, too – in more ways than one.

- STORY Chris Pearson | PHOTOGRAPHY Nick Watt

In 2020, landscape designer Henry Chapple-Cox of Secret Gardens crossed the threshold of this Eastern Suburbs house before Marston Architects had worked their magic on the home. Both the garden and house were disjointed, he says. At the rear, the living areas looked directly to a rendered wall, with the rest of the garden, including the pool, a level above and only visible from the bedrooms upstairs. Indoors and out, the only common ground was the formal rigid and boxy aesthetic - exemplified by a lollipop tree on the street ingloriously trimmed into a cube. In short, both garden and house had to let their hair down.