HEART OF THE MATTER
On the surface, this Sydney warehouse conversion is a skilfully crafted home filled with a lifetime of collectables. Closer inspection reveals an intriguing personal journey, framed around family and informed by a deep connection to the creative world.
On the surface, this Sydney warehouse conversion is a skilfully crafted home filled with collectables. Closer inspection reveals an intriguing personal journey, informed by a deep connection to the creative world
It was the final piece of the picture, a triangular bench in walnut timber, angles blunted, edges rounded. As the centrepiece of Naomi Tosic’s kitchen and home, it works hard, a robust and beautiful monument to family life crafted by her joiner husband Boris. Its arrival signalled the end of a four-year project, a man’s mission to build a zamak (Croatian for ‘castle’) in Sydney’s Paddington for his family, and a home befitting of an art collection decades in the making.
When he jumped ship in Sydney Harbour in 1989, the lanky Croatian merchant seaman made his way to Kings Cross and within hours had talked his way into a construction job. It seems somehow fitting that Boris and his family are now firmly anchored here, a mere 10-minute walk from where his Australian story began.
The Tosics bought the 1892 brick warehouse from well-known food and lifestyle photographer Petrina Tinslay, whose studio was on the ground floor. The late artist Margaret Olley is another former owner and had apparently entertained the idea of it being her studio. These were meaningful omens given the couple’s love of art and entertaining. “I just felt it was the one somehow,” Naomi says. “It felt like a great blank canvas for Boris to do something wonderful.”
A master of quick demolition and rebuilds, Boris has honed his craft on an impressive list of commercial interior and residential projects through his business, Élan Construct, which is enabled by his joinery workshop in Western Sydney. “I always wondered what I was capable of doing. ‘What can I build for myself and for my family?’” he says. “This house answered my emotional need to provide somewhere for all of us to come together.”
And then there was his art collection. It would drive the design intent — guided by Woods Bagot’s Domenic Alvaro with input from numerous other friends from the design world. The eventual plan would see the staircase climb the eastern wall of the building, the lift tucked behind it, mid-floor. There’s a basement car space, storeroom, gym and screening room. At ground level a corridor leads past the garage to the laundry and lift, with guest bedroom and studio beyond. The glass-enclosed open-tread staircase rises from the entry to the family’s private quarters.
Next floor up, among the treetops, is a glorious open-plan living zone for cooking, dining and lounging. There are 13 windows and paintings fill every section of wall in between. When the sun is high it streams into the kitchen through the glass-bottomed pool on the rooftop terrace, sending reflections rippling through the space. The writhing forms of the couple’s two boys — Mali, 13, and Quinn, 7 — swimming overhead are like a Martine Emdur photograph in perpetual motion, and Naomi can keep an eye on them as she glides around her domain.
High ceilings, plentiful light and the moody depths of the walnut joinery lay strong foundations for the interior. This is a spacious home — four floors plus rooftop — but it has palpable warmth and intimacy. Boris’s skills and design eye have been directed into every corner of the home. From hand-turned balustrades, Milan-style door jambs and grass-cloth wardrobe doors to the fully integrated kitchen, the joinery is a feature on every level. “I work with lots of timber but, in the end, it comes down to personality,” says Boris. “Walnut is classic; it matches with any other colour, it doesn’t go out of fashion, you can dress it up or dress it down. It is a bit masculine on this scale — the entire house is walnut — but it’s balanced by the white.” He’s spent years getting to know the timber better. “The whole world uses walnut for premium-grade furniture. It’s beautiful and it’s soft to work with. It’s not really a hardwood like they say. It’s more malleable, you can do things to it. And it’s kind of a grateful timber to work with. The more you carve into it the more it exposes itself and its beauty.”
Assembled over 25 years, Boris’s art collection, arranged in vignettes throughout the house, conjures a feeling of home, too. “It’s kind of an emotional moment to see your own journey,” he says. There’s a Ben Quilty triptych in the screening room, a Dale Frank in the study. Robert Dickerson works occupy a wall behind the bath and in the living space, a John Coburn, a Charles Blackman and a Norman Lindsay keep company on one wall. There’s an arresting Del Kathryn Barton painting on level two and her collage series flashes by as the glass lift moves between floors.
“Art was always something I wanted to know more about,” says Boris. He collected exclusively Australian artists in the beginning, then looked to US and European markets. “I started looking back into my history and I discovered a lot of great 1960s artists from Croatia. They’ve become more famous of late.”
Long-time collaborator Don Cameron, an art director, stylist and Italian furniture importer, was drawn into the Tosic orbit after visiting Paramount by The Office Space, the luxury club-like boutique Surry Hills headquarters for the couple’s co-working business. “When I went in there and saw the amount of love and energy and thought and consideration that went into every aspect and every decision in that space — and then the art — it was really a very strong thing for me,” says Cameron. “It was the hand of an artist I think.”
The two have joined forces on many projects, including this home, with spectacular results. “Through my friendship with Don, I’ve learnt to appreciate vintage design,” says Boris. “It’s a nice story that not everything is made. Something can be found, something can be made, something can be reclaimed.”
It’s a notion that carries through the entire home’s narrative. “When I learnt English, my favourite word was ‘pre-loved’,” he says. “And it’s still one of my favourite words. Pre-loved is such a beautiful word to say because somebody loved it and I kind of inherited it. And will continue loving it.” elanc.com
“I always wondered what I was capable of doing. ‘What can I build for myself and for my family?’ This house answered my emotional need to provide somewhere for all of us to come together”
BORIS TOSIC
“Through my friendship with Don, I’ve learnt to appreciate vintage design. It’s a nice story that not everything is made. Something can be found, something can be made, something can be reclaimed”
BORIS TOSIC
“Walnut is classic; it matches with any other colour, it doesn’t go out of fashion, you can dress it up or dress it down... The more you carve into it the more it exposes itself and its beauty”
BORIS TOSIC