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A family’s dream of an eco-house by the beach is made a reality in Sydney’s Freshwater
Tash Tan and Tony Wessling never intended to live in a house like this. “We were really looking for older-style houses, because that’s what we like – period homes, Federation homes,” says Tash. “This house was exactly the opposite of what we would usually have gone for.” Situated in the beachside suburb of Freshwater, the original building, a 1970s brick-veneered “Frankenstein of a house” as Tony describes it, had its charms, including a brown-glass atrium that Tony and Tash loved. They lived in the house for five years, but in its dilapidated state, ultimately the only way to transform it into something functional was to knock down the upper structures, retaining only the footprint.
For this, the couple called in Sydney architect Tash Clark, and, leaving it to her and her builder, Luke Hurley, they set off for Queensland to live in a tiny worker’s cottage on Tony’s parents’ cattle farm while the renovation took place. When they returned six months later, they had a brand-new home.
The house had to accommodate their clan – three children, two dogs, one cat and nine chickens – and the five tiny bedrooms had now spawned five spacious ones; the dark living room became light and airy, and the kitchen (both Tash and Tony are passionate cooks) had been transformed into the heart and soul of the home. White calacatta marble forms the kitchen island overlooking the garden “where I can keep an eye on the kids in the pool,” says Tash. Next to it, a giant ottoman – upholstered in 1803 deer hide from Orange – is where the kids do their homework after school. “The kitchen was the one room we weren’t going to short-change. We wanted it to be big, we wanted it to be central,” says Tony. “The Esse stove is the biggest example of that.” For Tash, who is originally from England, British stoves like these are reminiscent of farmhouses and heritage properties, as their design remains relatively unchanged since the mid-1800s.
But the stove wasn’t just an aesthetic choice. Powered by wood, it produces enough heat to feed all the radiators in the house, keeping it warm in winter, and any extra goes into heating the pool outside. “Our electricity bills are significantly less,” says Tash. Solar panels on the roof power the hot water and electricity. Architect Tash says she was informed of the couple’s green intentions when she took on the project, “Tash told me that they’d essentially like to be off-grid,” she says. With an expansive kitchen garden sweeping around the base of the house laden with fruit and vegetables and a smallholding of animals, she believes they’re almost there. “The family are at the point where they could subsist on what they grow there,” says Tash.
Other clever interior moves include the stairwell atrium with slatted windows that brings in light in winter and breezes in summer. “It’s bright during winter because we catch the winter light through the atrium,” says Tony. “You come in on a cold day and it’s amazing how comfortable the house is.”
The couple collaborated with architect Tash on the interior, and it’s the relationships between spaces that make it work – plenty of Mark Tuckey timber furniture in the living area, so synonymous with Sydney’s Northern Beaches thanks to its natural, relaxed aesthetic; American oak detailing in the kitchen door handles that are echoed in the bedroom wardrobes upstairs; and external cladding that is repeated inside the house at the entrance, where the kids take off their sandy shoes after adventures on the beach at the bottom of the hill. Throughout the house, the slatted detailing of the transom windows that feature above each doorway is repeated, linking the spaces together while also paying homage to Tony and Tash’s love for heritage architecture. “There’s a huge amount of information I’ve taken from old Federation houses and reinterpreted in a modern way,” says architect Tash. “Having a window above a door is a really old, traditional Federation element, but it’s a really good detail – it allows light and air to flow in houses.”
“We were saying yesterday how much we love living in this house,” says Tony. For Tash, every day is like the first day they woke up here. “We’ll come downstairs and I have to pinch myself,” she says. “I think, ‘Is this really my house?’” Turns out, it’s exactly what the couple wanted from their home, as Tony explains: “It’s warm, happy and there’s always the sound of kids. We feel very lucky.” Find out more about architect Tash Clark’s work at tashclark.com. Get in touch with the builder at hurleydesignandbuild.com.