Our ‘magnum opus*’
*Magnum opus (noun) - a great or important work.
Marcus is inherently a dreamer. For as long as I have known him, he has had grand ideas and - for more practically minded me - he opened my eyes to the possibilities. Before we had kids, we used to watch MTV Cribs and Teen Cribs and dream of the day when we would create our own house that our family and friends could enjoy with us - and the place our kids’ friends would all want to come to hang out (so we knew where our kids were!).
This is probably where our inspiration for this home originated from, as we have found ourselves irresistibly drawn to American style homes since. The craftsmanship. The roof lines. The proportions.
At the time (before Pinterest!), I was addicted to house and design magazines and used to spend inordinate amounts of money stocking up on every magazine I could find at our local newsagent in order to flesh out my vision for what this dream home would one day look like. One of those magazines featured an impressive mountain home in Whitefish, Montana and it made both of us stop and say ‘that’s it!’.
So when the time came for us to create our ‘magnum opus*’ - as I came to think of it during the build process - we had a fairly definite vision of how this home could look.
Through recommendation from a friend, we met Eric from Eric Sette Architects to discuss our ideas. Eric instantly understood and seemed excited by our vision and began to develop our plans and help us to adapt this style of home to suit both the products available on the Australian market and the specific constraints of our site.
That was nearly ten years ago now.
A couple of years ago, when our feet became itchy for our next project, we decided to sell this beautiful home. In doing so, we discovered that many other Australians found our vision appealing too. This home became one of the most popular listings on realestate.com.au for 2018 and the feedback we received during that process was overwhelming. This home was a labour of love and every decision was ‘us’; no interior designer, no special project manager - just Marcus and I - so to know we had struck a chord in the hearts of others was certainly validating.
Over the coming weeks, I will share our journey for building this home, including the thought process behind some of the design decisions we made. I hope in doing this you will be inspired to work with us to create your own ‘magnum opus*’!
Jenny
