A Taste of Ricotta House: the Canberra cottage with an international following
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A 1927 Spanish Mission cottage in Griffith, a furniture designer’s eye, and a deep love of Canberra sunlight have come together to create Ricotta House.
On a winter morning in Canberra, Ricotta House does exactly what its owner hoped it would do: it soaks up the sun. Light floods in through floor-to-ceiling sliding doors, settles on the stucco walls and warms the tan leather of restored Camaleonda sofas by Mario Bellini.
Owned by furniture designer Sarah Gibson, co-founder of DesignByThem, and her husband Richard, Ricotta House began life as a modest cottage built in 1927. Nearly a century later, it has been reimagined in collaboration with Paul Tilse Architects, interior designer Vanessa Hawes, builder Brother Projects and captured by photographer Anne Stroud, earning national attention and a place in an international interiors publication World’s Best IV – 80 Interiors from Around the Globe.
In the hefty coffee table book, it may be sandwiched between Casa Álamo in Madrid and Project Museum in Antwerp, but Ricotta House does Canberra proud and looks right at home as an example of clever architecture and superior style.
In any event, Sarah, Richard and their two young children are delighted to live there, where it is a place for growing up, having fun, walking to school, living equidistant between both sets of grandparents who live just streets away, and relishing the luxury of space after years in a small Kingston apartment.
When Sarah and Richard returned to Canberra from Sydney eight years ago with two young children, Hugo and Stella, they were looking for something Sydney could not offer: a garden, grandparents, and that distinctive Canberra light that they both grew up with.
The search for a home took years. Location mattered, but so did orientation. Sarah knew she wanted a north-facing addition that could draw warmth into the house through the colder months. When they found the Spanish Mission cottage, its original charm, established streetscape and family geography were irresistible. Her parents live nearby (one street away, in fact), Richard’s parents are also close, and Sarah describes the arrangement as their own “happy Bermuda triangle”, where grandparents, school, sport and home sit within an easy orbit.
The house also held a longer Canberra story. Before Sarah and Richard bought it, this home was a Government rental shared by three generations of one family. Sarah welcomed them back for a visit during the renovation process.
From the street, Ricotta House remains deliberately modest and not dissimilar to how it would have looked as a fresh build in the fledgling national capital: white rendered walls, terracotta tiled roof, a low hedge and a front room that maintains a conversation with the neighbourhood. Sarah wanted the home to feel open and connected to neighbours and passers-by rather than walled off.
Behind the frontage, the house unfolds into something extraordinary, or what Sarah describes as a “sneaky big cottage”.
While the couple initially sought a sharper contrast between old and new, with a concrete contemporary form clearly separated from the heritage cottage, the ACT Government’s heritage restrictions insisted on something different.
“Rather than fight the mandate the government set, we decided to lean into it.”
In fact, the original render even found its way inside, providing interest and texture amid the modern expanses and lending itself perfectly to the name “Ricotta House”.
Arches and terracotta colours throughout the kitchen further soften the experience, while steel-framed glazing, set-in glass and careful detailing keep the home feeling contemporary.
The vast main living area is Sarah’s favourite space and any parent will understand why. From the kitchen, the view stretches through the room and out to greenery, pool and sky.
While the garden is still evolving, next door’s camellias provide a focal point through the kitchen window/splashback, hedging and crepe myrtles provide seasonal colour, and deciduous planting to the west filters harsher summer light.
“Like any builder’s home being the last to be finished, I still have some furniture I need to sort out,” says Sarah.
But her newly covered original Grant Featherstone dining chairs around her own table design are a triumph. She also loves that the house unfolds beneath the original footings to a cavernous basement level with space for a kid’s rumpus, huge gym and guest wing. Through the ingenious use of a gridded steel deck upstairs and a sunken garden bed, the much-loved sunlight from above carries downstairs to this subterranean level. It means the original brief to capture that magic light has been doubly met.
The design team of Paul Tilse and Vanessa Hawes enjoyed working with Sarah on the project and her vision sat with their design sensibilities.
“In the end, it was all about making the different ideas come to life in a cohesive manner,” says Vanessa.
“We believe that heritage homes like Sarah’s are some of the most interesting to work on when combined with strong architectural forms that contrast and not replicate what is already there. The key is to make the new form complement some of the more interesting elements that were already there for 100 years, like the charming arches and the heavy textured render.
“Hopefully this was successful, and we were thrilled that Beta Publishing included us in their latest World’s Best IV Interior from around the globe.”
Photography by Anne Stroud.
