Respect for the past and an artistic take on contemporary living enjoy equal billing in the reinvention of this historic home in Victoria.
Overlaying a youthful and stylish demeanour onto a landmark country home in Victoria’s Mount Macedon was a challenge eagerly tackled by interior designer Charlotte Coote, director of Coote&Co.
‘Ard Rudah’ – ‘High Promontory’ in Gaelic – is a Gothic-style hill-station home built in 1874 by a Scottish industrialist, featuring an impressive suite of rooms and facilities, later enhanced by architect Christopher Cowper and with extensive gardens by respected landscaper Baron Ferdinand von Mueller.
The property was well maintained through the years with an architectural update undertaken in the early 2000s by Stephen Akehurst & Associates. The owners are devotees of the Mount Macedon area and already had a house there, decorated by Coote&Co.
Six years before we bought Ard Rudah and as a local, I would visit with a mutual friend of the then owners to collect the chickens’ eggs while they were away,” says the current owner. “This friend knew of my love for the house and the task of collecting eggs would be an hour-long meander through the garden, following creeks and over stone bridges, and daydreaming of buying the property.
When the daydream became a reality it came with an understanding of the significance of the property and the owners’ desire to create an Australian version of a timeless and sophisticated English-style country home ideal for entertaining family and friends, as well as a retreat from their busy lives in Melbourne.
The owners are a young, stylish and fun couple,” says Charlotte, so her design had to take into account their modern lifestyle as well as being appropriate for the home’s stately nature. “A challenge was achieving the right balance between classic and contemporary.
Fortunately, there was no major structural work required and the ground-floor footprint remained the same with some repositioning of doorways for improved functionality. However, spaces were reimagined in line with the couple’s anticipated lifestyle.
The former cloakroom was refashioned into a bar adjoining the dining room with some of the space borrowed to enlarge the powder room. And the original billiards room became a cocktail lounge.
With the English country-house aesthetic front of mind, Charlotte took inspiration from the work of British interior designer David Hicks, and Robin Birley’s elegant private club in London’s Mayfair, 5 Hertford Street.
As well, Ralph’s in Paris and Milan crystallised ideas for using plaids, tartans, paisleys and stripes for the soft furnishings. For the palette, muted blue, caramel and green colourways were chosen to complement the lush gardens.
We wanted to push the boundaries of design to do something that hadn’t been seen or done before,” says Charlotte, “but this meant challenges in creating the custom products and features for the project. For example, we were concerned about how the upholstered wool walls in the formal dining room would interact with natural light as the room was already a dark space. So we had to experiment with many different textile colours, lighting elements and rug designs to achieve the perfect balance of light and dark.
No surprise that this room is one of the many triumphs in the house, serving up a plushly enveloping feel generated by the redtrimmed olive green upholstered walls, and the antique-style table and upholstered chairs from Graham Geddes nestling under a contemporary Murano ‘Udine’ chandelier from eModerno.
One of the owners’ must-haves was a grand country kitchen and rather than trying to cram too many functions into one open-plan space, Charlotte removed the table and extended the bench to allow it to do double duty as a workbench and casual dining area. Charlotte endeavoured to give each room a distinct purpose.
he cocktail lounge created in the space of the old billiards room is furnished with an array of flexible seating options that allow guests to sit, stand or move chairs around to chat in comfort. The conservatory was redesigned to maximise the view of the surrounding landscape, echoed in the green furnishings and floral wallpaper by GP&J Baker.
Charlotte has also skilfully introduced contemporary elements throughout to interact seamlessly with the classic. The original flagstone flooring, coffered ceilings and timber railings were retained providing a traditional backdrop to the injections of personality in the form of the clients’ art and objects.
The owners are revelling in the delights of the home and use every room, they say: “Sometimes just the two of us, or sometimes in full swing with 50 black-tie-clad guests sipping champagne and dancing the night away.
Charlotte has captured each room’s original intended use and designed it in a way to meet our lifestyle and reflect a more modern way of living in a house that’s made for entertaining.
While the garden is the obvious aspect to fall in love with, it’s the purposeful function that each room offers that has become our favourite feature.”