There are countless metaphors for describing how a home appears within a landscape. Houses can be dropped, grown, plonked or nestled into a site. Elemental House by Alexandra Kidd seems as though it had to claw its way up through the Bellevue Hill bedrock, yet somehow it emerged into the light like its dressed for a sophisticated soiree.
Conceived over four years by Alexandra Kidd Interior Design, in close collaboration with architect Marcellino Sain of M.A.R.S and builder Cumberland Building, the home tackles a modern paradox. On one hand, new construction offers extraordinary freedom; on the other, it can easily feel too pristine, lacking the accumulated layers of life that give older homes their character.
Studio director Jessica Gombault sought to bypass this sterile trap by anchoring the design in Italian sculptor Giuseppe Penone’s manifesto: “The definition of art is the vitalisation of nature, revealing the vitality of the material.” This crystallised into three core ideas for the project — the relationship between a body and nature, material expression, and a dialogue between organic and geometric forms.
“We wanted every material and gesture to feel intentional, but never so perfect that the human touch was lost,” says Jessica.
That tension crackles through the home’s vertical choreography. You begin deep down in the basement and lower-ground levels, where deep timber veneers, bronze and natural stone create a rich, cave-like enclosure for private entertaining. But the spatial progression is not a simple march from dark to light; it shifts deliberately from grounded and enclosed to open, calm and almost weightless, as the rooms become seemingly suspended by the surrounding trees. Vertical lighting elements maintain a striking rhythm and height, casting linear trails that reveal the raw textures of both timber and stone while visually stitching the four levels together.
Nowhere is the synthesis of brute geological force and polished luxury more apparent than in the kitchen island — an ambitious labour of love carved from the earth. To house complex joinery, while avoiding the dead weight of solid stone, the team used monumental 125-millimetre-thick granite slabs that required additional structural floor reinforcement. The natural rock face was painstakingly hand-carved in a demanding collaboration between the stonemason, the client and Jessica.
The composition unites the ruggedness of split-face granite with a polished Patagonia granite benchtop, precise metal detailing and finely resolved timber joinery. Jessica explains further: “The island embodies [Giuseppe’s] thinking, revealing the character of the stone through the very act of shaping it.”
In the powder rooms, meanwhile, rough-cut marble edges are left completely exposed, reading like a geological cross-section set against the razor-sharp precision of surrounding mirrors and joinery. Nearby, a custom sliding door adorned with hand-formed aged silver handles features multi-directional timber and a flush bronze inlay that seamlessly retreats into the wall. Taylor Made Joinery’s work crafts a captivating dance between clean geometry and tactile rawness.
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Yet, amid the architectural ambition, the most arresting moment is wonderfully quiet: a central ground-floor courtyard anchored by a solitary tree. “The surrounding rooms wrap around this slice of nature; offering an immediate pause — a collective breath out as you move into the beating heart of the home,” shares Jessica.
And, because a house needs the fingerprints of the people inhabiting it, a touching detail sits underfoot. During construction, the client and her daughters gathered offcuts of marble, glass and stone, hand-casting them into bespoke terrazzo floor panels embedded right at the home’s threshold.
Ultimately, Elemental House succeeds because it refuses to remain static, encapsulating moments that “connect the family to the home, to each other and the natural world around them.” By day, it is an open, sunlit pavilion tuned to the coastal rhythm of passing jacarandas; by night, it embraces its glamorous alter ego where the ocean hums in the blackness and bronze surfaces catch candlelight. It is home that doesn’t just shelter a family, but patiently seeks to wear in with them.
