A tour of author Bri Lee's cosy bookish sanctuary in Kings Cross

Lawyer turned award-winning author Bri Lee’s meticulous spreadsheeting revealed a brief lull in Sydney’s property market in the depths of 2020’s COVID-19 lockdowns.

The fact that the apartment she set her sights on was in bustling Kings Cross, opposite a virus testing centre and in “a pretty dire state”, may have also played a small part in her being able to clamber onto the property ladder, she suggests with a laugh, but that didn’t take the shine off the momentous occasion.

“I still felt so awash with gratitude for the security of having my own place, and I will actually never forget the feeling of arrival and calm, compared to being at the whims of a landlord,” says Lee, whose advocacy work and writing explore issues of social justice.

“I think it’s a very grave indictment of Australia that one-third of the population is just sort of strategically locked out of that.”

Lee’s slice of Sydney is a 60-something-square-metre two-bedder she shares with her husband and their beloved dog Judit, in a block where, she (half) jokes, she can hear if her neighbours are hungover.

The couple may have replaced the illegal kitchen and disgusting old bathroom with beautiful, space-efficient modern designs, but the emphasis for Lee is on relaxation and comfort, she says, rather than style.

“For me, because I travel so much for work, home is mostly wherever my husband and dog are, but it’s also calm, comfortable; it’s not performed,” she says.

“I don’t want a beige couch that my dog can’t be on. Nothing is precious. I have gigantic, beautiful rugs, but they’re second-hand, so that when I have dinner parties, it doesn’t matter if someone spills their wine.”

Living and working in a small space calls for certain concessions – for those dinner parties, the dining table extends out and office chairs do double time.

Storage stretches vertically (the joy of high ceilings), and possessions have to be either “very useful or very meaningful and beautiful” to be permitted to stay.

The rules do become a little hazy around Lee’s “naughty habit” of collecting antique vases – something she picked up while researching the character of antiquities appraiser Pat for her novel The Work – and the way they now also balance atop the cabinet she bought to store them in.

Or the hundreds of books organised by the colour spectrum on the Tasmanian blackwood floor-to-ceiling bookshelf Lee designed with creative woodworker Nathaniel Grey.

Here she stores titles from recent trips with Bibliocarta, her boutique travel company for readers, as well as those discussed in her newsletter, News and Reviews, along with dog-eared favourites.

Inspired by the words of her writing hero Charlotte Wood, Lee says she likes to think of the world of books as being akin to a flowing river – let them go, and others will come to you.

“I give a lot of books away, and I don’t keep books once I’ve read them unless I genuinely think I might want to revisit them,” she says.

“If a friend is over and they go, ‘Oh!’ and point to something on the bookshelf and say, ‘I’ve always wanted to read that!’ I give it to them.”

Lee proudly displays her mother’s paintings, a portrait of her dog by artist Rainbow Chan and a sketch by her husband.

She finally allowed herself to buy a quirky “baguette lamp” from ceramist Milly Dent when a deal was inked for the French translation of her book. “Bread is the bottom two-thirds of my food pyramid!” Lee says.

It sits on her bedside table alongside a retro clock, an effort to keep the bedroom phone-free.

Many of Lee’s favourite keepsakes have been collected on overseas trips: the solid timber chopping board from Indonesia, a beer opener that resembles a gavel from Kenya.

In the lounge room hangs a framed map of the coastline of Antarctica, where Lee spent a month in 2023 to research her latest novel Seed.

The break from regular programming in such a hauntingly beautiful landscape proved life changing, and made Lee value home all the more.

Upon “re-entry”, sitting at her large desk in the converted second bedroom, Lee decided to hand-write her manuscript in an attempt to slow her thoughts and recreate the meditative calm she felt in Antarctica.

In stark contrast, the back alleyway below her study window provides colourful people-watching and eavesdropping fodder.

“I love living in Kings Cross; it’s the closest I’ve ever found to New York in Australia,” she says.

“I love that no matter what I do, or where, I am always the least interesting person on the street. I love that it has such an incredibly storied history. I feel quite privileged to feel like the latest in a long line of artists and activists who have given and received from this area.”