Close to home
Fergus Milne has built many homes, but this one that he created for his family in beautiful Beaumont was a whole new experience.
When you help build people’s dream homes for a living, there’s a certain expectation when it comes to going through that process yourself. Builder Fergus Milne and graphic designer wife Bianca embarked on the mission to create their own perfect abode in Beaumont that encapsulates everything this creative duo loves.
With the help of Arc Two and AFD Interiors every detail of this four-bedroom home has been considered so carefully that even in its simplicity, it exudes fascinating character.
The couple, who met 10 years ago and are getting married this month, have undertaken two renovations in their own homes over the years, but this was their first new build. They were living across the road in a renovated Beaumont mid-century home when the parcel of land came up – a stroke of luck given they’d already fallen in love with the foothills.
Fergus and Bianca Milne with their son Owen in front of an artwork by Madeleine Collopy, which was a 30th birthday gift to Bianca. Photograph Ben Kelly.
“We found we could be more creative and get exactly what we wanted out of it,” Bianca says. “When you’re renovating, you’re compromising with size and layout but we were able to really tailor the home to what we needed. This house is a result of trial and error with past houses. We know what we like and what we don’t like.”
Fergus says that while his days are spent building homes, it’s impossible to know what you really like until you live in the setting.
“Doing it ourselves really ascertained what worked for us,” he says. “Even in terms of house orientation and air conditioning set-ups. We knew we got gully breeze from across the road, so we wanted louvres to try to get the air in.”
The combination of Fergus, founder of Milne Projects, being a builder and Bianca being a graphic designer was a winning one when it came to the design process.
“It’s a fairly simple design, but sometimes I think that’s harder,” Fergus says.
“There’s nowhere to hide. If you’re going to do it simply, it has to be really good.”
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Crazy paving in the outdoor entertaining area and pool adds a layer of interest and softness.
From front to back, inside and out, white is the champion, with clever textures and materials adding interest to the canvas, that is anything but stark.
“In the last house, we did a lot of black and timber, so for this house, we wanted to mix it up,” Bianca says. “Being an all-white house, you can’t do all the one texture or material, otherwise it’ll look too flat.
“Where you don’t get a difference of colour, you get a difference in texture.”
Outside, Prominence cladding takes the building from what could be a smooth, white house, to something with character and dimension.
“We have elements outside such as the crazy pavers and the greenery to soften it,” Fergus says. “It could have been quite harsh, all white with concrete floors. There’s a lot of warmth with the cabinetry. I’m originally a carpenter by trade, so I definitely liked timber.
“We thought running the timber joinery all the way throughout was the best way to soften it.”
Boston oak and marble pair with the home’s star tone — white — for the kitchen.
The couple is a fan of the modern mid-century style, so they’ve leaned into that – with more of a focus on the modern side to the genre.
“It’s not traditional, but we do get inspired by houses from that era,” Bianca says.
The tone is set immediately from the home’s facade, which invites guests in with large off-kilter concrete steps, leading to a whole palette of textures in the same white tone.
The garage is clad in white vertical panelling, while the top storey is covered in a thinner vertical batten, and a white-painted brick wall conceals a courtyard off the master bedroom.
The texture of the bricklaying is seen in stunning detail in the wall’s curve, a theme that is used very subtly throughout, including a curve on the concrete bench in the living space, a curve on the rangehood and another around the pool area.
“We didn’t want to overdo the curves because they are a trend,” Bianca says. “When you build a house, you want it to
last decades.”
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Glass has been used cleverly all throughout the home to usher in light and warmth, negating the need for excessive heating in winter, while the home’s positioning means it never gets too hot in summer.
Timber and marble extend into the home’s bathrooms, merging the warm and cool tones.
That same bagged brick technique makes its way into the home, a continuation of the front wall extending into the entryway. Greenery from the backyard greets everyone upon entry through the tall timber door; a blurring of the outside and inside one of the key design briefs.
Floor-to-ceiling glass panes line one side of the corridor from the front to the back of the home, ushering in the pool and garden views. In the master bedroom, the courtyard was built specifically around a honey locust (gleditsia) tree and in the master ensuite, a green oasis has been planted just outside yet more floor-to-ceiling windows, creating the feel of a tropical villa.
With about a year and a half of growth, the garden, created by Greenwell Landscaping, is thriving and full of ivy, foxtails (pennisetum) and tractor seat plants (ligularia).
In the walk-in-robe, timber dominates – although, it’s not too warm, not too cool – and extends out into the bedroom, where the bedhead and integrated side tables also make use of the material.
When designing, the future was always in their mind and before too long, that future came along in the form of their son Owen, who is now one-and-a-half.
Upstairs is a haven for Owen, complete with play area, bedroom – and a spare – and a balcony area that will come in handy as he gets older.
The indoor and outdoor dining spaces merge thanks to the thoughtfully designed sliding doors that bring them closer together.
“I’d built a house that had a kids’ wing and it really just works,” Fergus says. “If we have another child, they can both be upstairs. We can keep some of their toys away. We don’t want to live in a show home because we understand it’s very much a house, but it means the kids can go upstairs and make a mess, and there’s only a few toys down in the main area.”
When Fergus and Bianca are entertaining, the kitchen, dining and living space can be closed off by a door that otherwise recedes into the wall. The sliding door also comes in handy to close off the space when the fireplace is on, quickly warming it up.
The master bedroom’s courtyard was built around an existing beautiful honey locust tree.
The kitchen is one of the areas that features different tones; Savannah grey marble sits atop Boston oak joinery for a mix of cool and warm tones that just works. One of the decisions the couple made was to keep the butler’s pantry open, leaving off a door to close it up.
One side of the pantry, which can be seen in part from the living spaces, has closed cabinetry, while the other side that’s completely obstructed from view, has open cabinetry for ease of use. Tucked away in that space is a climate-controlled wine room – essentially a refrigerator built into the pantry. All doors in the home extend up to the three-metre-high ceilings, adding a tasteful sense of grand scale. Fergus’s experience helped during the process in many ways, but he says one of the left-of-field things that is often an afterthought is bin storage – so they’ve created an enclave specifically to conceal them.
Beams and cladding on the ceiling in the living space pay homage to the mid-century aesthetic, while also helping create a cosy feeling.
Other practicalities include hydronic heated floors in the living space, although clever design negates the need for too much heating or cooling.
“In summer, we get no sun on the concrete in the living area and kitchen, but in winter, the sun goes right back to the island,” Fergus says. “We haven’t been hot in summer or cold in winter.”
