Malvern House
From a stately, late Victorian-era house in inner Melbourne, interior designer Ali Ross of Ali Ross Design has created a relaxed, modern home for her family that treads the line between clean, contemporary style and classical grace.
With its ornate moulded details, cast iron lacework and stately bay windows, the house had a sense of grandeur that was calling out to be accentuated and renewed. Over its more than 100 years, the house had seen several renovations, including being compartmentalised into three flats in the 1910s before being returned to a single family home in the 1970s. Despite these changes, the rooms were beautifully and amply proportioned, with original stained-glass windows forming a particularly appealing feature for the designer.
Working within heritage guidelines, with architectural detailing aided by Katherine Stewart of Page Stewart Architects, Ali Ross carried out a sympathetic overhaul of the building, beginning with the previously peach coloured exterior. The new calming palette of white and soft green carries through to the soothing aesthetic of the interior spaces, which retain an essence of the formality of the home’s roots but with a touch of restful simplicity in every room.
While much of the layout was tweaked and shifted for modern needs, a new living zone was required to replace its 1970s predecessor. Spanning the length of the ground floor, this area includes an open-plan kitchen, featuring Arabescato Corchia marble, and a dining and living space, furnished in a cohesive collection of both modern and vintage furnishings, that opens to the garden and pool area. While modern in layout and specification, the overall style of this addition is in keeping with the classical lineage of the home, with arched steel-framed doors linking to those seen in the entrance foyer.
Other changes include a reconfiguration of the first-floor bedrooms to include ensuites and wardrobes. Bathrooms have been updated to a luxurious standard using Carrara marble and Elba for a cool, minimal look. Checkerboard flooring in a downstairs bathroom echo that seen at the front entrance, while the upstairs main bath opens to a terrace perched over the addition. The gardens also follow the cue of the building’s old-world charm, with Sophie McLean-designed landscaping including white stone chip pathways, ornamental trees and flower gardens that favour a lilac and spring green colour palette, complete with lavender and trailing succulents.
When making furniture choices, Ali Ross’s dedication to sourcing interesting and unusual items is on full show here. In the living room, a modern customisable Ingo Maurer Zettel’z 5 pendant coexists happily alongside a vintage timber side table from Amsterdam, which was anecdotally carried home via hand luggage from a European sojourn. Under the designer’s considered eye, these elements of eclectic juxtaposition gracefully carry the glory of the heritage building into a new era.
