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We needed a trip to The Special House. Life in Sydney, with its quietly quickening pace, had run away with us, and my best friends and I had somehow let months slip by without a weekend together to just be: to spend slow afternoons cooking in a music-flooded kitchen, to waste a morning stretched out in the sun, to gather around a table stacked with cheese and good bread, and talk about the things keeping us up at night – and the things making us smile as we drifted off to sleep. Maybe I’m easily influenced, but the word I kept thinking as we left behind our weekend in this sun-soaked little house was special: how special it is to spend time with people you love, in a space that somehow makes every moment a little more beautiful.
Just over an hour's drive from Sydney, this thoughtfully restored 1940s cottage confirmed my theory that the most magical stays are the simple ones – that the winning formula of a house with friends in a laid-back coastal town is hard to beat.
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Hiding behind a whitewashed fence on a quiet street in Ettalong Beach, The Special House is the passion project of creative director and artist Caroline Presbury and her husband, Sunny. After falling in love with its 1940s double-brick bones, the pair set about restoring the building’s charm in a way that works for Sydney’s design-obsessed weekenders, and lordy, have they overachieved. Informed by a "wabi-sabi" approach (a Japanese philosophy that celebrates simplicity and the beauty of imperfection), the aesthetic is a perfectly minimalist curation of natural fibres and carefully crafted furniture, and from every angle it’s a delight on the eyes.
Though it’s definitely pared back, the beauty of the space isn’t accidental. Sunny and Caroline carefully sourced furniture and lighting fixtures from around the world, and the Scandi-coded kitchen (a masterclass in quiet luxury, complete with Le Creuset egg cups, perfectly sharpened knives, huge Falcon oven and solid stock of copper pots and iron skillets) was built by hand by Sunny and his dad, with a huge farmhouse-style sink that makes washing your market veggies a genuine pleasure. The main room is dominated by a huge modular sofa draped in blue-and-white striped linen and illuminated by Noguchi-style paper lamps – with stacks of board games ready to be unfolded onto the heavy antique coffee table. In the main bedroom, a record player waits with a stack of records beside a low, linen-draped bed.
The corner plot means the house is almost always flooded with light, and the wraparound garden has everything you need and nothing you don’t – freestanding bathtub and outdoor shower included.
A six-minute walk down the wide, tree-lined street will bring you to the shores of Ettalong Beach, where cute-as-heck dogs frolic on the sand and antique boats sway on the glittering water. It’s less than two hours from Sydney, but Ettalong feels worlds away from city life. We came here as soon as we arrived, bought takeaway margaritas from the kiosk, and spent an hour walking along the sand. Before we left, we came back and lay by the shore until the weak winter light had warmed our skin enough to persuade us to swim. Back at the house, the sheltered oasis of the garden was serving as a sun trap, so we made one last pot of tea with herbs from the garden and sprawled out under the vines for one last hit of holiday time.
The Special House is available to book via Airbnb from $310 per night. Although the space can sleep four guests (and the gorgeous oversized dining table is begging to host a long group dinner), the layout of the second bedroom (generally used as a sunroom – home to two daybed-style single beds) is better suited to smaller guests. You can learn more and book over here.
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