Earth & sea

Modern timber pavilions filled with natural light, raw materials and handcrafted treasures make for a relaxed and easy-to-love coastal home.

- Elizabeth Wilson

THIS IS THE LIFE

It was important to interior designer Billy Innes that her new home embody relaxed coastal living. The lofty proportions evoke a sense of calm and retreat, while the palette of earthy tones and raw materials gives it all a lovely warmth. Tiling the living space was part of Billy’s pragmatic approach. It’s a perfect floor for troupes of beach-loving, sandy-footed children. “The kids even skateboard inside,” she says. “It’s not precious. We have an open door.”

Many people who grow up near the ocean say the lure of the sea remains a lifelong pull on the heart. That was how it was for interior designer Billy Innes, who was raised on a farm near the coast on Victoria’s Mornington Peninsula and always found herself drawn back to that “landscape of ocean and undulating hills”.

After spending her adult years living in Melbourne and inland Victoria, Billy moved back to the peninsula in 2014, keen to give her three children – Olly, now 14, Charlie, 11, and Mim, nine – a taste of the beachy lifestyle she’d loved as a child.

The family moved into a classic 1960s cottage on a 4000-square-meter block of land in Flinders, on the peninsula’s windswept south-east coast. Located a short bike ride from the breakers, the cottage was in good condition, and they lived here for the next three years.

Billy’s original intention was to build an extension around the original footprint, but then she learnt she would need to upgrade the existing house to comply with a 6-star energy rating, the cost of which was prohibitive. “The builders said we were not saving money by keeping the house,” she says. “So we decided to knock down the old place and start again.”