All about THE HOME

Provenance meets personality in this 1850s sandstone home designed for quiet contemplation and celebration – refurbished just in time for Christmas.

- STORY Jessica Bellef | PHOTOGRAPHY Maree Homer

Set by the harbour in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, this sandstone cottage has endured with a quiet grace since the 1850s.

Sensitively reimagined by interior designer Kate Nixon and her team, the four-bedroom home demonstrates a reverence for the past while nurturing a joyful future for its new owners: a family with two young children.

“Our concept for the furnishing and finishing was classic and comfortable, relaxed and inviting, polished and practical — equally at ease with effortless entertaining and everyday family life,” says Kate, who worked on the project with her design colleagues Jarrod Potaka, Roberta Gallo and Viera Tomasikova. Responding to the property's heritage overlay and its immaculate condition, the team transformed the interiors in eight months, with layers of furniture, soft furnishings, lighting, wall and window treatments and touches of joinery that all pay homage to the original architecture.

An easy elegance radiates from the home, its welcoming tone set by the sun-soaked warmth and organic texture of the handsome sandstone exterior. Inside, original timber mouldings, marble fireplaces, intricate encaustic tiles and stately archways accent the spaces. Light, bright rooms with soaring ceilings open onto flagstone terraces and green lawns, framed by manicured garden beds. The inclusion of linen, brass, leather, velvet and richly toned timber, along with calming shades of cream, gentle grey and earthy blush, softens and complements the cottage’s old-world charm.