Dress circle views of Sydney Harbour. A national park next door. The meditative sounds of a nearby beach rippling in with the tide. When it comes to locations of this sort you'd expect a "love at first sight" story, but love was the last thing on Dominique Hird's mind the day she inspected this three-level eastern suburbs residence. "There was absolutely no way," she recalls telling her accountant on the drive over, "that she would move to Watsons Bay."
Dominique, husband Justin and their children, Layton and Halley, were living in Mosman with their weimaraner, Gertie. They were ready to renovate a house in Balmoral Beach when Justin chanced upon this four-bedroom property in the newspaper and scheduled a viewing that day.
Dominique had reservations - for one, it felt too far away from the lives they'd established. But its handsome five metre-high ceilings, classical archways and pious pillars inspired a change of heart. "I'd never seen a house like it in Sydney," she says. "With birds chirping in the background, it felt like we were in a European villa miles away from the city. We knew we had to have it."
In its former life, this private family home was a Masonic lodge. Built in 1924 and remodelled in the 2000s, its original grandeur remained intact - the marble chequerboard entrance, the terrazzo staircase and the parquetry flooring, which was sourced from an 18th-century French chateau in the Loire Valley.
Seduced by the property's worldly features and sea-girt surrounds, Dominique says they moved right in: "We lived in it for a year and realised we needed to make it more functional as a family home."
Dominique and Justin wanted to make this a place where they could "create family memories" and engaged Weir Phillips Architects to steer the ensuing renovations, which "needed to work for now, when the kids were young, and in the future when they were tweens and teens."
This required rearranging the floor plan, building a new study upstairs and a garage with basement storage below, replacing all the wooden French doors with arched glass ones to let in natural light and installing more windows in the master bedroom, "to ensure we could see the city views from our bed".
The yard received the same family-oriented overhaul - an undercover entertaining area was added, the swimming pool was rebuilt with bench seating and Will Dangar of Dangar Barin Smith landscaped the garden.
This particular task involved the use of a crane to lift a forest of mature plants over the fence and into the backyard. The manicured mass of olive trees, towering palms, monsteras, bromeliads, vines, white birds of paradise and cacti more than fits Dominique's request for a lush jungle with lots of privacy. "We love being able to see the city," she says, "but now we feel like we're on holiday whenever we arrive home."
While the structural changes were left to the experts, Dominique took care of the interior decorating. She gathered inspiration from two key elements - an existing turquoise stone chandelier in the entrance and the tropical gardens beyond. "We began with the light fitting as the hero and built the scheme from there. We wanted a relaxed yet sophisticated mood that took in plenty of cues from the greenery outside," says Dominique.
She set the tone in the downstairs living area with a pair of indigo Moroso 'Redondo' armchairs, a vintage peacock-hued rug and ceramic side table from Smithmade in the same shade. An assortment of aquamarine cushions adorn the MCM House 'Joe' sofas; a spectrum of blue treasures occupy the Molteni 'Piroscafo' glass cabinet.
This bejewelled yet breezy scheme extends into the ground-floor kitchen. A honed Calacatta Belgia marble island is the chef d'oeuvre of this multitasking space - Dominique notes that at just under 9m, it's one of the largest benches Euro Marble has ever made.
The ephemeral colours of the sky, now visible with the installation of steel-framed glass windows and doorways, appear to have inspired the paint used on the custom-built joinery: Resene 'Half Innocence' on the cupboards and Dulux 'Oolong' for the island. And speaking of great lengths, 250m of white linen was required for the kitchen curtains that were remade to fit these new glass openings.
Whereas the palette drew from existing elements, the decor nods to Dominique's own taste. "We wanted to make an impact with the pieces we chose," she says of the French antiques, modern classics and Etsy finds. "My style is eclectic with Hollywood Regency glamour," she adds. "I like to take things you wouldn't normally see together and make them work."
She favours Manyara Home for antiques and LuMu Interiors for custom designs and mirrors. Hub and Fanuli are her go-to for furniture staples which feature throughout the master bedroom. To furnish the deck upstairs she turned to Parterre and Gather Co. Replete with a Wolf barbecue, extraction fan, heating, automated blinds and Bang & Olufsen speakers, it's the perfect vantage point to watch the yachts sail by during the Sydney to Hobart.
Spectator sports aside, the real magic happens right in their own backyard. "We love doing things in nature, whether it's gardening, catching up with friends at Camp Cove beach, exploring the rockpools or hanging out at the local parks," she says. "The community here is amazing. It's relaxed and the open spaces give you room to move. We think Watsons Bay is the best place to live in Sydney."
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