Three-Level Sydney Harbor Garden Blurs Indoor-Outdoor Boundaries

On a steep Sydney Harbor hillside, landscape architecture firm Secret Gardens of Sydney achieved the designer's holy grail: a landscape indistinguishable from the architecture. Designer Matt Cantwell created a navigable, view-rich environment for his sister's family—enjoyed as much from inside as out.

Vertical Property, Three Landing Zones

From the top balcony, the property's verticality is clear. Three primary areas—patio, pool, lower terrace—connect via paths and staircases. Plants frame key views and obscure others.

Architecture Projecting into Water

The home appears to flow fluidly from hillside into harbor. The landscape grounds the composition, letting water-side viewers appreciate the design.

Seamless Indoor-Outdoor Transition

The living room ceiling cantilevers to become the patio overhang. A raised lap pool occupies an entire patio side, redefining the landscape-water-coast relationship. Materials and obscured edges create continuity in a small space. Australian hardwood decking adds warmth to a cool palette—"the interior warmth comes from solid wood furnishings, mimicked with timber decking outside." On cold mornings, the deck literally warms your feet.

Privacy and Access

Slender Weavers Bamboo screens the pool—lithe silhouette and feathery foliage softening minimal geometry. A built-in staircase and concealed gate access the pool and hot tub, maintaining a continuous vista to the water.

Material Continuity

Italian sandstone paves both patio and interior, sandblasted (not polished) for exterior durability. The loose connection between spaces achieves the transition.

Lighting and Plant Palette

Daylight showcases bamboo color and foliage along the entry staircase; night illuminates the path while subtly hinting at bamboo silhouettes. Silvers, blues, greens, and dusty grays dominate the hillside descent. Low-water agave and yucca—non-native but complementary to architecture—replace typical coastal plants. Loose organization creates visual harmony: fluid grasses against compact agave rigidity, with simple hedge backdrops.

Lakeside Lawn: A Special Request

An expansive flat lawn beside the water—graded specifically for parties, games, and social events—offers that incomparable feeling of coarse grass between toes after swimming. The rest of the terrain is primarily vertical; this area was designed for gathering.

Photography by Peter Brennan.

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