CREATIVE pursuits
Art stars on every surface and in every corner of this Georgian-style Sydney home where a three-year renovation has led to a considered space for both distinctive design and artistic passion to shine.
Lorraine Tarabay’s eyes shine when the conversation turns to art and the design provenance of her heritage-listed home overlooking the diamond sparkle of the harbour in Sydney’s Point Piper. Tarabay, along with husband Nick Langley, is the owner of one of Australia’s most significant international contemporary art collections. And her immaculate, sunlit six-bedroom residence is a high temple of inspiration, exquisite craftsmanship and creativity — and not only because of the art on show, but also because of the furniture and design she chooses to surround herself with.
A keen champion of Australian and, in particular, female artists, Tarabay, a former investment banker, sits on the board of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA). There, she helps drive the organisation’s Social Impact with Art programs, ensuring exhibitions and programs are accessible to all, including those from disadvantaged communities, dementia patients and those with disabilities. Tarabay’s enthusiasm for a more democratic openness in the art world is an ideal evident in her own home.
The house recently underwent what can only be described as a monumental three-year renovation, orchestrated by interior designers Thomas Hamel & Associates in collaboration with Dylan Farrell Design and Campbell Architecture. With that mission behind her, Tarabay now regularly opens up her Georgian-style retreat — designed in 1959 by one of Australia’s leading architects, the late Professor Leslie Wilkinson — for charity events and tours to support and promote the arts. “When people come through the house and I find them inspired by the design or the art that makes me happy because you’re stimulating a passion in someone that may not have previously existed, which is beautiful,” says Tarabay.
Tarabay and Langley’s collection of paintings, photography, sculpture and installation is a who’s who of the contemporary art world — Damien Hirst, John Baldessari and Cindy Sherman sit alongside local heroes such as Tracey Moffatt, Danie Mellor and Imants Tillers. And it’s not uncommon to see the artists themselves over for lunch with the family. “It’s always a real thrill for them because they never know where their works go, who it goes to or how their pieces are hung,” says Tarabay. She relays a recent tale about Tillers sitting on the floor with her children, 13-year-old Christian and nine-year-old Giselle, to unravel “the riddle” of one of his paintings: “What’s really nice is the artist can explain to the kids, in their own words, about their work. It’s such an incredibly rich experience.”
It’s a richness that spills over into the home itself. It has undergone extensive landscaping and excavation, from transplanting the swimming pool to creating a courtyard in its place. The courtyard comes complete with a winter garden and water feature by landscape designer Paul Bangay. There’s also the reimagining of a subterranean garage from a four-car space into a sanctum of art and classic cars for Tarabay’s auto-obsessed investment banker husband. Plus, most of the interior spaces have also been completely rebuilt.
“The beautiful thing we did was to try to go back to Leslie Wilkinson’s original intent,” says Tarabay. Her brief to the interior design team spanned white walls — all the better to allow the art to “pop” — and a high-contrast layering of Wilkinson’s neoclassical style with a fresh, contemporary feel. “I like to look at a place holistically,” says Tarabay. “Some people just care about the art and not the design or architecture, but for me, it’s the whole space. I think it’s disrespectful to the art not to have great design, and it’s disrespectful to the design not to have great art or architecture.” Cue Hamel and Farrell, who, together with Farrell’s wife and business partner Nicolette, an interior designer, crafted a series of rooms spanning four levels that flows with the feel of a very personal gallery — but one in which each space reflects its own individual design language. A case in point is the expansive white marble flooring comprising two shades of stone, which not only ticks the brief for neoclassical holism, but also shifts in pattern from room to room to cleverly demarcate varying living spaces. “We wanted it to be ornate but also feel light,” says Farrell. “So it has a hypermodern edge to it even though it’s classical. What I like about this house is it’s the ‘smallest big home’ I’ve ever been in. It sprawls, but at the same time, when you move through the house, it feels intimate and personal.”
“I don’t think the style can be defined,” says Tarabay, who visibly delights in the uninhibited and democratic mixing of eras, aesthetics and nationalities. “What’s important to me is the uniqueness of the pieces in the house — there’s a lot of collectable design pieces, from chairs and tables to sconces. It’s not only the art that is collected.”
For Hamel and Farrell, it’s a project made in design heaven. “I’m a designer who likes to cross-pollinate across nations and cultures,” says Hamel. “This project and the extremely interested clients made this so amazingly possible. No boundaries were made or adhered to.”
It’s a melting pot of metamodernism translated best through the pool pavilion, which was designed entirely around a vintage Syrian mirror. Inside, vintage Tuscan consoles sit alongside Garrimala, an Indigenous Australian bark painting by Malaluba Gumana; a striking lamp made from steel twisted into coral-like branches; and a custom-made coffee table by Dylan Farrell Design. The secret to aesthetic success, reveals Farrell, is a fluctuating formula of one-third vintage, one-third custom-made and one-third new. “It works,” he says, “because automatically your house just feels comfortable and authentic.”
Hand in hand with the pursuit of the unique is a fascination with and respect for craft. Tarabay can convey the process behind any of the pieces in her home, from the rice-paper artworks by Fu Xiaotong in the basement to the handpainted de Gournay wallpaper in the dining room. “I asked about the process, and I was shocked,” she says. “It takes several hundred hours to produce each panel.”
Like Tarabay, Farrell and Hamel champion the unique, the handmade and, wherever possible, the local. “Working with artisans like our builder, Giuseppe Alvaro of Alvaro Bros Builders, and his team of contemporary practitioners, paired with old-school Italian carpenters, was a very joyful part of the job,” says Farrell. “They are proud of what they’ve achieved.
“People often say it’s too difficult to do highly bespoke custom work in Australia,” he continues. “But you can. The idea that we don’t have the craftsmen in this country… I don’t agree. I just love that we’ve found and are still discovering the people here who want to push on. We want to support them as much as possible.”
Tarabay agrees. “You have to have the patience to wait a year or two for certain items to arrive or be completed. But it’s part of the process and part of the artistic process, and you have to be respectful of that.” thomashamel.com; dylanfarrell.com; campbellarchitecture.com.au