This Scenic Villa's Owners Rented It First, Then Turned It Into Their Dream House — "It Feels Like It Was Always Meant to Be Laid Out This Way"

There is a paradox at the heart of contemporary domestic design. At a time when homes are increasingly encountered through carefully curated images, they also risk becoming strangely interchangeable. Algorithms reward familiarity, while interiors are often assembled from the same visual vocabulary of colors, objects, and trends. The most memorable homes, however, are rarely the most perfect. They are the ones that reveal the people who live inside them.

French philosopher Gaston Bachelard argued that a house is far more than a physical shelter; it is the place where memory, imagination, and identity take shape. More than 70 years later, his words feel unexpectedly contemporary. As our homes have become the backdrop to work, family life and social rituals, the question is no longer simply how do we design beautiful spaces? But how do we design spaces that allow life to unfold naturally? This project by Sydney-based Smac Studio offers one possible answer.

Located in Woollahra, one of Sydney's most established residential neighborhoods, celebrated for its heritage homes, independent galleries, leafy streets and village atmosphere, Queen is less a stylistic exercise than a thoughtful reinterpretation of an existing home. Rather than restoring the house to a particular historical period or replacing its identity altogether, the renovation embraces continuity, allowing Art Deco references, contemporary interventions and deeply personal objects to coexist within a single narrative.

In many ways, the renovation feels inseparable from Woollahra. Rather than announcing itself through bold architectural gestures, the house adopts the neighborhood's understated confidence, where heritage, craftsmanship, and contemporary living coexist with effortless ease.

As Smac Studio founder Shona McElroy puts it, Woollahra is "very much an if-you-know-you-know kind of place." Queen reflects that same sensibility: understated from the outside, yet generous in spirit, with spaces designed for gathering and everyday life.

For the owners, Craig and Jenna Carracher, the relationship with the house began long before construction started: "We actually rented the property for two years before buying it. From the moment we moved in, we completely fell in love with the house and the location in Woollahra. We secretly had a plan that if we rented it over holiday periods, maybe the previous owner wouldn't miss it too much and might consider selling. Somehow, it worked!"

Living in the house before redesigning it gave them something architects rarely receive: time. They understood which spaces felt disconnected, where natural light was missing and, perhaps most importantly, how they wanted everyday life to unfold.

Entertaining friends, cooking together, listening to music and, midway through the renovation, preparing for the arrival of their first child all became defining ingredients of the brief. For Shona, the project immediately stood apart.

That confidence allowed the studio to question almost every assumption embedded within the original floor plan. Rather than preserving rooms simply because they existed, the design focused on preserving something less tangible: the character of the house.

The transformation came not through dramatic structural changes, but through a series of carefully judged interventions. Only a handful of walls needed to be removed to transform how the house was experienced, opening a former bedroom toward the kitchen to create a generous family living space and relocating the primary suite to the former study, where it could connect directly to its existing terrace.

"It truly feels like the home was always supposed to be laid out this way," says Shona "The clients now have a much more social ground floor while the primary suite enjoys a greater sense of privacy."

The result is a house where circulation feels intuitive, and spaces that were once separated by corridors and enclosed rooms now flow naturally into one another, allowing cooking, dining, listening to records, and spending time together to overlap effortlessly. More than creating openness, the renovation creates relationships between activities.

The owners affectionately describe the final result as "Modeco", a playful fusion of modern living and the home's Art Deco spirit. "Everything works together; the layout, the colors, the textures, the furniture," they say. "It's modern but still honors the Art Deco character." Rather than chasing a recognizable language of luxury, Smac Studio designed an environment where architecture and everyday rituals become inseparable.

Everything begins in the kitchen. Not because it is the home's most visually striking room, but because it was conceived as its social heart. Rosa Murcia marble sits alongside creamy Calacatta Oro stone arranged in a checkerboard floor, while a generous island deliberately faces the room, allowing conversations to continue while cooking. As Shona explains, kitchens should be conversational, and here the space is designed as much for gathering as for preparing meals.

That philosophy extends throughout the ground floor. Former bedrooms have been transformed into generous living spaces, while curved walls replace rigid corners, softening transitions and encouraging movement rather than directing it. Long sightlines connect the entrance to the garden, dissolving the traditional boundaries between inside and outside.

The furniture follows the same philosophy. Rather than treating iconic pieces as individual statements, Smac Studio assembled a collection that feels lived with rather than displayed.

A sculptural Pierre Augustin Rose sofa gently separates the dining area from the music room, while India Mahdavi's Best Friend chairs introduce moments of color without overwhelming the restrained material palette. Vintage Murano lighting completes the composition, feeling less like curated design pieces than objects collected gradually over time.

The Pierre Augustin Rose sofa had long been on Shona's personal wishlist. "I was so happy when we could finally make it work," she says. "It's the perfect place for it."

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Music becomes another architectural material. Custom brass shelving celebrates the family's record collection, while bespoke furniture transforms listening into an everyday ritual rather than a decorative gesture. Here, objects do not simply occupy the house; they reveal the personalities of the people who inhabit it.

Perhaps this is where the project feels most contemporary. The value of these interiors lies less in the rarity of the objects themselves than in the ease with which they become part of everyday life. Collectible furniture sits comfortably alongside children's toys. Carefully sourced vintage pieces coexist with pizza nights, vinyl sessions, and long afternoons gathered around the kitchen island.

The interiors never feel precious because they were designed first and foremost to be lived in. As Shona puts it, "nothing is too precious. Everything feels welcome to be sat on, used, and lived in." Throughout the house, texture, color, and carefully selected furniture introduce moments of drama without ever compromising comfort.

Upstairs, the atmosphere becomes quieter and more intimate. The newly created primary suite combines warm timber veneers, bronze detailing, and jewel-toned accents with generous natural light, while circular skylights subtly reference the language of the original architecture.

Even the boldest gestures, like the dramatic green onyx powder room and layered marble bathrooms, never feel performative. They emerge naturally from a broader palette defined by warmth, tactility, and restraint.

In an era where homes are increasingly designed to be photographed, this project proposes something more enduring. Bachelard wrote that every inhabited house becomes a "topography of our intimate being."

Queen doesn't preserve the past as a museum piece, nor does it erase it in pursuit of novelty. Instead, it suggests that the most meaningful renovations are those that make room for life itself. The finest homes are not those that ask to be admired, but those that quietly disappear behind the stories they allow to unfold.