<p>Actor and stylist Josephine Byrnes lived overseas with her family for 12 years before putting down roots in Singapore, a tropical city-state where everything thrives.</p>

- Deborah Grant

Finding a home or returning to it in some way is what drives many of us. Accomplished screen and stage actor Josephine Byrnes, who came to Australia’s attention in the 1991 TV miniseries Brides of Christ, found hers in a lush pocket of Singapore when she and husband Peter landed one of the city’s sought-after black and white bungalows.

“We moved here in 2014 after 12 years in Hong Kong,” says Josephine. “We planned to live in another apartment, a ‘lock up and leave’ that would allow us to travel, but I realised that this was the time when my family needed a garden and room for parties and friends to stay. This was what my children [Jasper, now 12, and Ivy, nine] would remember as ‘home’, so we decided to take on one of these houses.”

Mostly built between 1903 and 1928 for British colonials, only about 500 of the heritage-listed houses remain. Named for their dark timber beams and whitewashed walls, they are classically Victorian in style, with Art Deco and tropical elements: pitched roofs, high ceilings, shutter-style windows and open layouts to maximise breezes. The Singapore government leases them to those plucky enough to cope with their various states of dilapidation.

“While the houses are magnificent, they’re not for everyone,” says Josephine. “We only had one viewing and gave a silent bid in an

This story is from the December 2017 edition of Australian House & Garden Magazine.

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