Inside the $20m+ Byron Bay beach house inspired by Soma retreat
When building a place for their young family on a parcel of prime beachfront in Byron Bay, it was never in question that Peter Ostick and his wife, Ida Almasi, would take some inspiration from Soma, a wellness retreat in nearby Ewingsdale.
Especially not when you learn that the Liverpool-born media and tech entrepreneur is the co-founder of Soma (with meditation teacher Gary Gorrow), which was sold to activewear queenpin Lorna Jane Clarkson earlier this year.
“We wanted our Byron house to be like a meeting place,” says Ostick, who still runs “visionary retreats” at the wellness spa, which was also a location for the first season of TV drama series Nine Perfect Strangers, starring Nicole Kidman. “We took that kind of inspiration from Soma, which did that very well.”
Never in question, either, was Ostick’s choice of his co-founder’s older brother, George Gorrow, for the project. The award-winning multidisciplinary designer was the creative talent behind Soma’s aesthetic, having worked on resorts and hotels in Australia and abroad.
“We instructed George we wanted the place to feel resort-y,” says Ostick, who remembers staying in the seaside Sydney suburb of Tamarama when he first came to Australia for work, a time he describes as “living on holiday”. “That’s the feeling I wanted here.”
Ostick is quick to add that his beach abode also borrows from that mecca of modernism, Palm Springs, where the family of his Californian-born wife lives.
Front up to Ostick’s recently finished beach house, and there’s no mistaking the long, clean lines and flat planes so familiar to the architecture of Palm Springs. The linear definition and overhangs are even starker on the beach side.
But the property really draws ideas from all over, he explains. “We’ve moved around so much, lived in so many different places, you just pick up bits here and there,” Ostick says. He’s selling his beloved creation – which he’s dubbed Saint Rocky’s – because the family is now looking to spend more time overseas.
Underpinning everything is Gorrow’s signature design ethos. It’s what he calls “modern tropical”: an open, breezy style (sometimes with a brutalist touch) that he has polished and refined over the years, working with Balinese-based architect Rieky Sunur and Gorrow’s stylist wife, Cisco Tschurtschenthaler. Think open-plan living and flowing spaces, with a strong indoor-outdoor interface.
“Peter and Ida loved my house in Berawa, just outside Seminyak, in Canggu,” explains Gorrow. “I brought a similar feeling to their house … how it plays with the light, the air, the view. All of that determined the footprint and layout.”
It hits you front-on the minute you enter. Downstairs, there’s a single, long living-dining space sitting under high ceilings reminiscent of Soma. It sweeps you from the front door to the outside deck and raised infinity-edged pool, a feature of Gorrow’s Berawa house.
It’s a similar open-plan set-up on the floor above, with light-drenched living and dining and huge spans of glazing that pull right back, drawing you inexorably into views across Belongil Beach and Byron’s actual bay. Above that is a full-length rooftop deck and garden that take openness, light and views literally to the next level.
“Everything just opens up,” Gorrow says. “We’ve even minimised the balcony, so the upper floor looks like it just seamlessly falls off into the horizon.”
What you also can’t miss coming through the front door is an extra-wide spiral staircase, theatrically curling up through a void, connecting all levels. “It’s the heart of the home,” Gorrow says.
At the foot of the staircase sits an eye-catching desert-like garden garnished with succulents and rocks, and just a hint of the tropical. It gives a nod to the Zen pit Gorrow created at Soma, but also to the desert city of Palm Springs.
Gorrow plays to that desert tune with his use of natural textures, colours, and furnishings throughout, but argues that they apply equally to a beach setting. “The design has a lot of Australia in it,” he says. “I see this as the modern Australian beach house.”
He admits the way he designs is forever a delicate layering of styles and elements. “Everything has to have depth,” he says.
For example, a plywood ceiling and polished concrete floors sit juxtaposed downstairs. Clean-lined stone benches play off against natural-cut timber dining tables. The curved staircase breaks the building’s dead-straight lines.
Gorrow also used textural paints, almost like parchment, with varying tones of oak for the wall panels and floors. However, he also softened the hard-line look with large, sheer curtains and rugs, as well as plush couches, patchwork leather, and chairs with rope detailing. “The whole place is a balance between hard and soft,” he says.
Gorrow says his design is minimalist. Typically, that can be considered cold and undefined, yet here it appears cosy from his abundant bundling of textures and warm tones. “Everything we did has a strong sense of luxuriousness,” he explains, “but it also has a barefoot luxury.”
Sophisticated but not too fancy: like a martini – shaken, not stirred – on the roof in board shorts and thongs.
Byron Bay
17 Border Street
$20 million-$22 million
bed 5 bath 4 car 2
Expressions of interest: Close 5pm, December 11
Agent: Byron Bay Sotheby’s, Will Phillips 0488 508 111
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