Gordon House dates from 1918, but by the time Sydney-based designer Greg Natale and his studio were engaged, much of its Federation character had been renovated away. The box bay windows, the front porch, and the clay-tile pathway were all stripped back in the 1970s. The project was, in Natale's words, about "reinstating the Federation character that had been lost," returning to the house a sense of architectural integrity while ensuring it felt genuinely inhabited rather than merely restored.
The clients, a family of six with a tennis court, swimming pool and a two-storey residence to fill — came to Natale having seen his work on heritage homes and trusting that he could hold both things at once: the past and the present, the particular and the personal. That balance is, in many ways, the guiding principle in everything Natale does, and at Gordon House it plays out through a design language grounded firmly in Italian precedent. Stucco, Murano glass, marble, and softly arched ceilings inform a material palette that carries warmth and craft, but also a timelessness that keeps the interiors from tipping into nostalgia. Postmodern gestures and mid-century references surface throughout, layered alongside the home's original Federation bones, but always pulled back into coherence. "The design is contemporary in its eclecticism," Natale says. "They're all layered together in a way that feels cohesive rather than referential to any one era."
