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Long before thousands of sea changers flocked to coastal areas mid pandemic, fashion designer Chantal Hoare and builder Tom Nissen took the plunge and moved from inner-city Melbourne to Barwon Heads in 2010.
The quiet beach town on the Bellarine Peninsula ‘couldn’t have been more different’ than their former Richmond home, but it conjured up warm memories of Chantal’s upbringing on the New Zealand coast.
The couple rented in the town until purchasing a simple 1980s brick veneer home before having their two children Luca (12) and Olive (9).
‘The house itself was not much to look at — a tiny brick two-bedroom cottage with a saggy tiled roof — but it was ours!’ says Chantal. ‘Architecturally, it didn’t inspire much interest and it was in pretty poor condition, except for the concrete slab, which was in good nick.’
That concrete slab remains part of the house today, which has otherwise been completely reimagined in a recent renovation and extension constructed by Tom’s company Momentom Built.
‘As a young family, we had outgrown the original cottage and we wanted to make sure it worked for our future teenaged children,’ explains Chantal. ‘And for Tom, this was a chance to take on a challenge that tested Momentom Built’s capacity and to showcase what we can deliver.’
Chantal could also flex her design muscles on the interiors, drawing on her experience sourcing materials and selecting colours as the founder of clothing label Textili Kaftans.
The couple worked with Dan Van Architects on the rebuild to create a breezy two-storey home clad with weatherboards and locally-fabricated architectural screens. ‘The white weatherboard felt beachy, fresh, bright and a blank canvas for the garden to eventually shine,’ says Chantal.
Inside, the home showcases a Mediterranean feel, where no two rooms are the same. ‘Each room has different lights, different handles on the joinery, and different paint colours. I wanted them to all be unique but to all work together with a mismatched aesthetic,’ says Chantal.
‘It felt risky as I had never decorated a house before but it seems to have worked. Phew!’
The floor plan is designed to engage with the outdoors, where you’ll often find the family of ‘water babies’, including their Portuguese water dog Frankie, even in the cooler months. ‘If we are not surfing or hanging at the beach with friends, we are in or by the pool,’ says Chantal. ‘Cold plunges are a regular pre-dawn ritual during winter.’
Life is busy, so Chantal and Mike appreciate having a soft and calming base to come home to. Everything they need is within a short bike ride away from the house, but ideally, they would never leave!
Chantal adds, ‘It has us written all over it. ‘We are all homebodies and can hide away in here for days.’
