Ariane and Andrew Vincent’s former home in Melbourne, Australia, was the kind of place people dream about: a three-story house near the beach overlooking Port Phillip Bay.
But after years of climbing all those stairs — and chasing three growing children (now 18 to 23) between floors — “we were ready to live on one level,” said Ms. Vincent, 55, a business consultant who has work on furniture. industry. “We wanted a pool and more of a family home that was more entertaining.”
Six years ago, they found something in Brighton, a nearby suburb, that captured their hearts: an 1889 brick Victorian house covered in concrete on a quarter-acre lot with a sunny, north-facing yard and one of the oldest, largest olive trees that they had ever seen.
“It’s probably one of the most important olive trees in Victoria,” Ms Vincent said. She and Mr Vincent, 63, who owns a mobile document shredding company, bought the house in November 2018 for about A$2.8 million ($1.8 million).
The house wasn’t perfect. It needed repairs and had awkward additions at the back, and the interior looked as if it had last been updated in the 1980s. “It was very dilapidated and distressed,” Ms Vincent said, “and it had been renovated very cheaply.”
Trying to restore the original grandeur and update the house for modern living, the couple hired Mim Design, a Melbourne company, to come up with a plan. “The goal was to strip away the extra forms that had been added over the years and return the house to its roots with that wonderful rectangular shape,” said Charlotte McGill, the director of interiors. “Then, at the back, we designed a new gazebo with a similar shape to house the kitchen and the living room and dining room and give them a view of the garden.”
To connect the old structure with the addition, which they clad in shou-sugi-ban paneling, they added an atrium/study lined with floor-to-ceiling steel and glass doors.
In the old portion of the 3,500-square-foot home—which they remodeled to create a master suite, two additional bedrooms, and a sitting room—they kept and restored as many original details as they could, including an arched entryway with decorative bows near the front door and molding crown everywhere. They then added more period-appropriate touches, including elaborate ceiling medallions and arched panels over the interior doors.
The original fireplace mantel was missing, so Mrs. Vincent hunted down an 1880s marble replacement. For the sidelights and transom on the front door, she found leaded glass replacements made with antique glass.
In addition, however, the house is decidedly more modern. Most of the space is a wide open area with space for cooking, eating and relaxing. To one side is a kitchen anchored by an elegant island made of Bianco Lana marble and simple gray cabinetry that ends in a window seat. on the other side is a living room with low furniture and a long fireplace covered by Venetian plaster panels that open to reveal shelves, a stereo system and a television.
At the rear, two sets of glass sliders open onto the pool deck and garden, designed by Kate Patterson, a landscape architect. A paved walkway through grass leads to a pool apartment under the olive tree at the rear of the property.
After plans for the renovation were completed in 2019, the Vincents moved into a rental around the corner so Tenet Construction could begin work in May 2020, in the early days of the pandemic.
“Melbourne was one of the most locked-down cities in the world,” Ms Vincent said. “But we got through it. We felt it was very important to support our manufacturers and as a result, we had a great journey.” The cost was about A$3 million ($2 million) and the family returned home in September 2021.
To complete the designers’ vision, the Vincents purchased almost entirely new furniture for the home, mixing contemporary pieces, including a bulbous Moroso Gogan sofa by Patricia Urquiola in the living room, with midcentury classics such as Cassina Capitol Complex chairs, inspired by Pierre. Jeanneret, at the kitchen table.
Now the family loves spending time at home, where the rooms flow easily into each other and into the outdoors. “It’s just happy and really easy to live with,” Ms Vincent said. “You feel like you’re in nature, not in an urban environment.”
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