ACCESS ALL AREAS

Seeking to take advantage of the healing power of nature, one couple moved to Sydney’s Northern Beaches and built a home that assured accessibility and enjoyment for all.

Chris Pearson

With a luminous, light-filled upstairs and a solid sandstone lower level firmly rooted to the hillside, this home on Sydney’s Northern Beaches has proved both inspiring and grounding for its occupants – owners Susan and Andrew, and their adult daughter, Alexandra, known to all as Bub.

Crafted by interior designers Louise Walsh and Kelly Taylor, and architect Tim Alexander, it’s both handsome and highly functional – and it definitely needed to be. “We bought the property in 2014, following Bub’s life-changing brain injury, which she sustained while skiing in 2013,” says Susan. “I had an urgency to get her to the coast, hoping the water and fresh ocean air would aid her recovery. We loved the location, the accessibility to the beach, and the walking paths were fabulous for her electric wheelchair. We also loved the split-level block, which suited the vision we had for building our dream home.”

The family used the home as a weekender until making a permanent shift to the property in 2017. They began building their dream home in January 2019, completing it in late 2020.

“We asked Tim to make the home easily accessible for wheelchairs as well as future proof, so that Andrew and I could be cared for at home should we need assistance in our senior years,” says Susan. “We also wanted a bar/entertaining area [downstairs] that was totally different to upstairs and made us feel like we were visitors in our own home.”