Designers at Home | Richard Unsworth
Accessible only by boat and overlooking the shimmering expanse of Pittwater, Trincomalee is a lovingly restored 19th-century retreat by landscape designer Richard Unsworth. For almost a decade, he has been regenerating the garden, allowing the native growth to guide the design.As the co-director of Garden Life and design practice Studio U.C, Richard Unsworth is well-known for his elegant inner-city garden designs. However, in the secluded pocket of Lovett Bay, an hour from Sydney’s city centre, he has been working on a personal project: the gentle restoration of a magical century-old garden with an utterly unique property at its heart.
Trincomalee and Unsworth’s history with it stretches back 30 years. He first visited in his early 20s, when he was invited by his long-time friend and now co-owner Justine Johnston. “I spent a couple of summers there and I just thought that spending the night in the boatshed was the most romantic idea,” recalls Unsworth. “It was wonderful to hear the lapping of the waves and to wake up and jump in the water.”
The house itself has an incredible story. Built in 1896 as a retreat for a Scottish opera singer, it was owned by the family of famed businessman Mark Foy, who named it Trincomalee after a favourite Sri Lankan holiday spot. From 1979, the home belonged to Johnston’s family – and when her mother required a more accessible place, Johnston and Unsworth were given the opportunity to purchase the property together. Since then, they’ve been thoughtfully updating it. “We will have been here 10 years next year,” says Unsworth, “and it’s still a work in progress.”
The interiors were renovated in the early 1980s with a modernist flair. Defined by a rich array of rare Australian hardwoods, such as red gum, Huon pine and celery top pine from Tasmania, Unsworth notes that the house “looks like the inside of a cigar box, with timber going this way, timber going that way”. Angular door frames of varying sizes, stained-glass windows and heritage features add to the residence’s singularity. “It’s hard to put my finger on what the eccentricity of the house is,” he says. “I don’t think there’s a house full of more character. Yet it’s quite a graceful house as well.”
While leaving the structure intact, Unsworth’s main focus for the interiors was injecting colour and texture into the timber-heavy home. “I introduced a ban on brown because of the many timbers already in the house,” he says. Unsworth brightened up the space with vibrant fabrics, textured rugs and eclectic armchairs. However, the location itself presented plenty of challenges. “We had one opportunity to move in with trucks,” he says, “because you literally float them across on a barge and unload them at your wharf.”
As Unsworth is an avid collector, the home’s furnishings are an intuitive mix of vintage finds, contemporary pieces and mementos from travels. “I’ve always loved mid-century furniture,” he says. “I’m not a purist at all – I just collect things that I love.” Treasures include Tuareg mats sourced from Morocco, a metallic Tom Dixon lamp that gleams against the dark wood and a feather from a red-tailed black cockatoo, a rare visitor to the site. “One of my favourite things is this original painting of a Japanese sakura and rising sun above the inglenook,” he adds. “I love the fact that it’s part of the fabric of the house – it reminds me of the sun rising at the back of Scotland Island, and the rays coming through the house.”
Nature is Unsworth’s first love and one of his greatest inspirations. Growing up in the north of England, his passion for gardening began while helping his parents in their veggie patch. When he moved to Australia, he pursued formal study in urban horticulture before focusing his career on inner-city garden design. Yet approaching the garden at Trincomalee was a different beast altogether. Unlike his commercial work – where mature trees are planted for their instant impact – the process has been slow and responsive. “I wasn’t in a rush to plant things,” he says. “I just wanted to really be in the landscape and understand it. It was like nature was my client, in a way.”
At the beginning, the 4,000-squaremetre garden was infested with weeds and overgrown. “The hero of the whole landscape is the surrounding grove of spotted gums, but there was a lot of ‘noise’ in the garden that stopped you seeing that,” he says. The property, ringed by native bushland, shares a boundary with a reserve that is owned by the council. “I felt I had a responsibility to the reserve next door,” he says, “and I knew very little about bush restoration, so I joined the group that meets there every month. That’s really where it all began.”
That experience guided a long phase of clearing and observation. “It was a huge learning experience for me,” he says. “I think for the first three years we were just removing weeds. I planted some things – often with no success – because wallabies are everywhere on the property.” Over time, he began putting in tube stock and endemic species that thrive without irrigation: banksias, wattles, native gingers, blueberry ash and grasses. Still, the garden remains a hybrid, both restored and inherited. “It’s not a purely native garden,” he says. “There are salvias and perennials that work well and don’t get eaten by wallabies. I’ve moved around some succulents, and if an exotic was thriving, I’d generally leave it – unless it was a weed.”
Looking back at the first phase of weed removal, Unsworth describes it as being incredibly cathartic. “I’d recently lost my mum in the UK and the physicality of gardening was really good for me at that time,” he reflects. “I still consider it a very healing place. There is an X-factor about that whole property – not just the house or the garden, but the place itself has a beautiful energy. It is magic.” His favourite spot in the garden is a circle of sandstone set into the lawn at the meeting point of garden and reserve, offering views back across the house and water. “It’s a natural amphitheatre in a way,” he says. “When you’re in the circle, with the trees behind you and the house and windmill in front, you feel like you are right in the middle of the property.”
Trincomalee has offered Unsworth a different approach to garden design, one based on regeneration, naturalistic styles and working with native plants. “Watching what comes up after you’ve removed the weeds was something I hadn’t really ever considered,” he says. “It was about taking out what you don’t want and planning something new. Whereas with bush regeneration, a garden actually emerges before your eyes. Then it’s about editing the regrowth.” He sees the garden fitting into his larger body of work due to its simplicity. “It’s about trees and grasses really,” says Unsworth, “and letting the landscape speak for itself.”
He also recently renovated the one-bedroom caretaker’s cottage that sits slightly north of the main house, facing the reserve. Designed as a scaled-down version of the main dwelling, the updates – a new kitchen and bathroom, using local trades and cabinet makers – were guided by Johnston’s brother, architect Conrad Johnston.
Unsworth ultimately sees himself as the custodian of the site and finds great satisfaction in sharing the property and his knowledge with others. He hosts educational bush walks on the surrounding foreshore, directing proceeds to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation. “I think shared knowledge is so important,” says Unsworth. “It’s good to be generous. And I think being of service like that is something we need more of.”
In this way, his work is a form of care as much as design. “Gardening is a generous act and an act of love,” he says. Trincomalee continues to evolve as a home, a sanctuary and a piece of history, as Unsworth adds the next chapter to its story.
Interior design by Richard Unsworth. Landscape design by Studio U.C.
- 项目文案：Emily Riches
- 项目摄影：Anson Smart
- 转载自：The Local Project
- 图片@The Local Project
- 语言：英语
- 编辑：序赞网
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