Arent&Pyke’s Golden Light Proves That Great Colour Is Never Just Decoration.

Few Australian studios handle colour quite like Arent&Pyke. Since Juliette Arent and Sarah-Jane Pyke founded their practice in 2007, they’ve built a reputation not just for beautifully layered interiors, but for a particular kind of chromatic intelligence—colour applied not frivolously, but with intent, and with a deep understanding that the right hue in the right room has real power to shift moods, manipulate emotions, and make people feel properly at home. It’s a hallmark that has followed them across every project, every scale, every brief. And in Golden Light, a residence on Sydney’s Lower North Shore, that mastery is on full display.

The brief was clear: a family of six—two parents, four children aged between three and eleven—had lived in the house for years and loved it, but the home wasn’t quite working for the life they were living. Light was being lost. Rooms felt neglected. The layout needed rethinking to give four energetic kids the freedom to roam while keeping them within easy reach of watchful eyes. Arent&Pyke’s response was to rethink the home from floor to ceiling throughout its approximately 520 sqm interior, treating both the practical and the poetic as equally non-negotiable.

Garden House in Lindfield by Polly Harbison Design and Arent & Pyke.

Garden House evokes a sense of tranquillity and timelessness while notably reflecting the clients’ passion for gardens, art and colour.

The spatial moves are confident. Squashed arched entry points now punctuate both levels, many fitted with rounded timber and cathedral glass doors that connect the formal entertaining rooms while channelling light between spaces—one framing a direct view of the garden and pool from the front door. A previously dark, boxed-in staircase was liberated and reborn as a sculpted form traced by a sinuous solid timber balustrade, now animated by sunlight streaming from above. Sweeping cove cornices link the entry foyer, dining, and sitting rooms with quiet authority.

Colour is where the work becomes even more thrilling. The sitting and dining rooms wear walls in a marigold shade with mustard yellow undertones—a deep, sunburst warmth that flows through to a glorified cellar and pouring bar lined with Libreria Del Vino wine racks and Calacatta Viola Antica marble. The toffee-enveloped study. The forest green checks of the children’s bathrooms. The dusty mauve border of the custom rug that cascades down the stairs to meet tessellated tumbled marble below. None of it reads as chosen, but as discovered. It’s as if the house always wanted to be this way.

The kitchen is the home’s operational heart, and Arent&Pyke have treated it accordingly. A timeless palette of eucalyptus-stained joinery, Calacatta Borghini marble, and almond-hued plaster wraps the space, anchored by a sculptural custom rangehood presiding over a La Canche oven and cooktop—copper pans hanging above like polished jewellery. The island bench is deep enough for meal prep and homework to happen simultaneously, its bullnose marble edge softening what might otherwise read as sheer mass.

Throughout, the studio’s curation of art and objects elevates every surface. Works by James Drinkwater, Guido Maestri, Drew Connor Holland, Suzanna Archer, and Lottie Consalvo—sourced largely through Nasha Gallery, Nanda\Hobbs, Edwina Corlette, and Ames Yavuz—settle the generous proportions of these rooms while sparking the kind of enquiry that good art always should. Vintage furniture and design classics (a Cassina Bramante console, B&B Italia Camaleonda sofa, Pierre Chareau alabaster sconces) sit comfortably alongside contemporary pieces, the whole composition subscribing to what the studio calls a ‘last forever’ notion of modern design.

Upstairs, lighter tones prevail. The primary suite is quietly romantic. A custom bedhead in fabric scattered with mushroom pink and terracotta petals extends to frame two vintage Deco bedside tables, while an antique armoire, its doors hand-painted with a triptych of tropical greenery within bamboo frames, anchors one wall with the kind of detail that rewards looking.

Golden Light is a home that has been given back to itself. Rich, considered, and unmistakably alive.

Seamless Integration with Nature: Speargrass House in Queenstown by Arent&Pyke.

In collaboration with Matt Chaplin, Arent&Pyke looked outward for inspiration. The interiors embracecream and grey shades that pull the New Zealand landscape into this country home.

[Images courtesy of Arent&Pyke. Editorial styling by Jack Milenkovic. Photography by Anson Smart.]