Burwood Residence.
The brief was built around a shared love of Kelly Wearstler: her drama, her scale, her refusal to be quiet. Furniture, wallcoverings and accessories were sourced directly from Los Angeles, each piece chosen with the certainty of someone who had already decided long before the project began.
The starting point was a house that had not yet found its voice. White walls, dark carpet, black leather against empty space. What followed was a cosmetic renovation and restyling that touched every surface, every room, every detail.
The RESULT does not whisper.
It ANNOUNCES.
The ENTRY and Office
The entry of Arabella Residence makes its intentions clear before you have set down your keys. Walls clad in Kelly Wearstler's signature graphic wallcovering, its layered pattern pulling from ebony, raw gold and earth. The furniture and accessories that follow are Wearstler too, imported from Los Angeles: each piece selected in person, each one earning its place.
A Kelly Wearstler black-and-white checkerboard console sits beneath a sculptural framed mirror, dressed with a silver bull's head mount, a white ceramic vessel and a tufted lips cushion. A Kartell chair in warm caramel sits opposite. The polished porcelain tile floor carries the light from entry to living without interruption.
The office beyond is fully furnished in Kelly Wearstler, every piece imported. A Sputnik-style brass chandelier hangs overhead, its arms casting warm fractured light. The dark timber desk, the brass dining chairs with raw woven seats, the circular mirror on the deep charcoal wall: all Wearstler, all chosen with intent. Where there was once an empty room with black leather and no direction, there is now somewhere worth working.
Most entries ask you to move THROUGH them. This one asks you to STOP.
This is a LIVING room that does not compromise.
The LIVING and DINING Room
The existing fireplace was always the room's best feature. It just needed a room worthy of it. The black marble surround now anchors an open-plan living and dining space furnished entirely with Kelly Wearstler pieces, imported specifically for this project. Every chair, every table, every object chosen with the precision of someone who had already decided what she wanted before the brief was written.
Custom timber joinery flanks the fireplace floor to ceiling, warm and architectural, built to hold the things a life accumulates. Above it, a large-scale abstract canvas: raw, graphic and unapologetic. The Wearstler furniture fills the space with the kind of considered ease that only comes from pieces designed to do exactly this.
This is not a ROOM designed for quiet retreat. It is designed for people who READ Vogue and mean it.
The Upstairs SITTING Room
The upstairs sitting room is where the brief reveals itself most completely. A large-scale canvas by Australian artist Lister dominates the wall: gestural, graphic, a dark central figure beneath a vivid rainbow arc in dripping yellow, orange and violet. It is the kind of work that changes a room's atmosphere the moment it arrives.
Below it, a charcoal sofa carries a single deep plum velvet cushion. A glass coffee table is styled with a curated stack: Grace Coddington, La Dolce Vita, Hollywood in Kodachrome, Louis Vuitton Fashion Photography. A brass orb sculpture sits beside them. Black-and-white geometric bookends hold the line. A slatted brass floor lamp throws warm light from the corner.
The Master BEDROOM
The before photograph of this room tells the story as clearly as the after. A crimson crushed-velvet headboard, a quilted satin bedcover in deep red, dark bedside tables with crystal hardware. Committed, certainly. But a different language entirely.
The new bedroom speaks in the language of the whole house. A Kelly Wearstler-influenced woven wallcovering wraps every wall in soft champagne gold, its textured surface lending warmth without weight. The bed is sculptural and total: a deeply pleated custom headboard and base in ivory leather, its curved silhouette the centrepiece of a room that earns that word.
Greek-key bedside tables in pale washed timber sit either side, topped with mirrored surfaces. A pair of diamond-form brass wall sconces flank the headboard, their slatted geometry casting warm shadow across the wallcovering. Overhead, a Murano-style bubble chandelier in frosted glass. A faux fur throw at the foot of the bed is the single moment of softness that makes everything else land.
In the corner, a textured white plinth holds a brass modular sculpture beside the frosted glass wardrobe panels. The panels were always there. They just needed this room around them.
It’s a ROOM designed for SOMEONE who knows the difference between decoration and DESIGN.
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