When Keryn and Stephen Nossal first took possession of this St Kilda West home in 2003, they immediately started pulling out walls. Since then, barely a year has gone by where the couple haven’t renovated some area of the Victorian home, which functioned from the 1960s onwards as a boarding house.
Stephen and Keryn (who also goes by Nancy – owner/creative director of Fancy Films and St Andrews accommodation Coastal Luxe, one of our top ‘Stays’ of 2020!) lives here with two of their three adult children, Tess and Joe, two young boys Bruce and Jesse who they are hosting from the Tiwi Islands (graduates of Melbourne Indigenous Transition School, which supports Indigenous students from remote communities to transition to education in Melbourne), and dog Toby. Their best friends also live next door!
18 years later, there’s still always something to do, and the ceiling still regularly springs a leak, but Keryn and Stephen wouldn’t have it any other way.
We haven’t seen every Australian workplace, but we feel confident calling Alexander House the most beautiful office in the country.
More accurately, the building is the self-designed headquarters of design studio Alexander &CO, which is also occasionally used for entertaining after hours by the practice’s principal Jeremy Bull and marketing director Tess Glasson, who live in a separate house next door with their four children.
The entire project came to life over the pandemic, which saw a new house built behind the existing heritage facade in just seven months.
Step inside and you’ll find various work areas to suit private and collaborative work. There are even bedrooms to accommodate interstate team members, and amenities such as a steam room and ice bath!
Even if you love to cook, packing lunch can be tricky since it requires coming up with meals that will pack, travel, reheat well — and, of course, you’ll look forward to. However, with some cons
