LET THE OUTSIDE IN
Views all round are green and never boring,
When Georgina and Stuart Anderson take a break from cycling, walking and golfing, they’ll sit in their garden — without leaving the house.
“We’ll just open the door and sit there with our coffee. It’s just so lovely,” she says. They sit right where their family room floats out into a garden through sliding doors that have no central post to break the idyllic outlook.
Beneath their feet, the carpet gives way to a border of black mondo grass around the edge of the paving. There is a pergola on one side and sheltered deck and courtyard on the other. Across the back fence, a century-old plum tree and pleached magnolia trees set the scene.
When Georgina and Stuart bought there 10 years ago, there was little more than tufts of lawn in front of the magnolias and bare dirt down the side of the house.
Now a “river pond” of goldfish defines the transition from a wooden deck to a curved boardwalk. Georgina didn’t want a straight boardwalk. “That’s boring, a nice curve is much warmer,” she says.
The property is full of good lifestyle vibes, although it took Georgina and Stuart a while to bond with the actual house itself.
Built three years earlier, the house had been well lived in by people who were clearly not keen cooks. “The instruction manuals were still inside both ovens,” says Georgina.
She has made abundant use of the well-equipped scullery behind the kitchen and refreshed the interiors for family life with their visiting adult children and four grandchildren. “We’ve turned this house into a real home,” she says.
There are bedrooms and a lounge on the sunny side upstairs for out-of-towners. Their own master bedroom wing can be closed off for privacy.
On the cooler south side there’s a long storeroom in the roof space that has been the perfect playroom for grandchildren.
Downstairs, the formal and informal living areas open separately off the lobby but are still both handy to the kitchen. Each living area has its own outdoor connection, too.
There are bi-fold doors off the formal lounge on either side of the gas fireplace, and the large sliding doors off the family room can be stacked back.
Upstairs, there’s still more of a green view. The property backs on to Pollard Park, where once their grandchildren, Mason and Paige, played soccer.