Lofty Ambitions

The industrial heritage of this apartment has been honoured with an expert renovation that achieves the owners’ goal of combining the rough with the smooth

Converting a commercial building into a comfortable home can be a formidable task. The one that houses this waterfront apartment once operated as part of a naval port and later as a wool store before becoming artists’ studios. Finally, in 2003, it was converted into apartments for residential use.

That rich history informed this renovation by visual artist Caroline Austin and her lawyer partner Andrew Luchich, who had admired the building for some time and were renting a similar property nearby when Andrew unexpectedly bought this apartment in 2012. Caroline hadn’t even set foot inside.

“The purchase wasn’t planned,” she explains. “I was working in Haiti and wasn’t due to return home for weeks when the apartment came onto the market, so Andrew bought it right away, then rang to tell me. He was a bit nervous showing it to me when I got home!”

Of course, all was well, and the pair lived happily in their new purchase for five years before approaching interior designer Ian Wrightson of Wrightson Stewart to help make it their own. His approach was to honour its original features – timber floors, tall sash windows and exposedsteel and timber ceilings – while providing a blank canvas for the couple’s art collection.