On A Roll

Landscape designer Matt Leacy bought a hilltop home on sydney’s northern beaches and used all his skills to make the steep garden fit for his children.

- Natalie Walton

Landscape designer Matt Leacy wanted a family home with a firm connection to the garden. “I feel strongly about providing an environment where our kids – Sienna, 11, Amalija, nine, and Thomas, seven – can be kids, and where we all feel connected to the outdoors, even when we’re inside,” he says. It was a sentiment shared by his wife, Marie, when they bought their four bedroom home on Sydney’s northern beaches in 2012.

Built in the 1980s, a time when orange brick veneer was popular and gardens were often an afterthought, the house had a small, tiled front patio with brown tiles and columns, no driveway and no decent lawn due to its steep slope. Matt, whose landscape design business is based on the lower north shore, had spotted the home while viewing other properties in the area. “It looked bad, with no real street appeal, but there was something about the place,” he says. “At the time, I told Marie I would move this far out for it.” Three weeks later, they bought it.