Photography: Georges Antoni
Welcome to the home of photographer Georges Antoni, model Phoebe Ghorayeb and their three children, Valentina, Siddy and Zaki, all seasoned professionals on the modelling circuit. Even their new house has been pressed into service, getting the full Vogue Living photoshoot treatment. “We’re very lucky because we got the cover.” says a proud Georges. The unassuming house in Bilgola Plateau took five years to find and transform from its 60s post-modernist guise into their unique creative vision. Creamy coloured curves and textured micro cement walls soften surfaces and draw you into the enormous centre of the structure, and family life.
Georges: “Our whole house revolves around the kitchen. The kitchen takes up, I would say, 30% of the main living areas. It’s the main living space and is massive. I think it’s 9 metres long, it’s 12 metres long if you include the breakfast booth.”
Phoebe: “Is it?”
Georges: “Yeah, it’s so big .. it’s massive. I remember trying to convince our designers that we didn’t want a butler’s kitchen. We wanted a loud and proud kitchen. I know there has been a trend over the last 10-15 years, where people try to hide the kitchen. This is counterintuitive to the way we want to live our life. Being Lebanese, my whole childhood, in fact my whole life anything that was important was discussed and analysed in our family kitchen. So we didn’t want to hide the kitchen, that was not what we were about. We wanted it to be the heartbeat of our home. So, It is now the centrepiece. It is where the kids do their homework. It’s where they have breakfast. When people are shouting to get someones attention inevitably they have to shout through the kitchen to get to another area. It is not just all about food … it’s about life and energy…. It is really the cornerstone of our family.”
Phoebe: “It’s our pastime, I think. We’re so passionate about food for many different reasons and I think we’re really passionate about passing that on to our children as well. We try and, as much as possible, involve them in cooking, you know, George loves making breakfast with the kids in the morning. I love baking with them.”
Georges: “We love to open them up to all different sorts of food and flavours from all around the world. They actually cook and cook well. We get them to cook because there are so many developmental advantages for children, they understand the source of the food, they need to understand numbers and weights as well as the tactility of using their hands for mixing and cutting etc. They also tend be better eaters and not waste too much, because they’ve made it themselves and they feel engaged in the process. So they’re very good eaters as a result of that. They eat everything from chilli to pickles too. I think they are good eaters because of our constant focus on food.
Georges: So today’s a great example of our focus on food as a family. My mom and dad arrived today, they’re the first of a 22 strong family outfit that will be coming over and staying at our house for the next two weeks. Yesterday we went and bought the fresh produce and today mom, dad, Phoebe, my sister and myself were all making very traditional Lebanese food that we’ will be eating over the next two weeks. We’ve been in the kitchen, all day, like I mean from 8 o’clock in the morning, and they’re actually still going and it’s 10pm at night.’
With life centred around cooking and eating together, this foodie family, Georges especially, have relished the difference a Gaggenau makes. The Vario grill cooktop, “I can do a really beautiful ‘tastes-like-charcoal’ chicken, and it actually does, it’s crazy. It drives me mad how they’ve done it.” The induction cooktop and the fridge are just a pleasure to use and finally, “The steam oven. I just don’t see the need for a microwave. We use a steam oven pretty much for everything. We probably use it to steam stuff we shouldn’t. It’s also just been amazing in the sense that it’s given us the opportunity to do really quick meals that are healthy for our kids. For example, if we want to do dumplings, we can do, you know, beautiful dumplings in 12 minutes on 100 degrees in 100% steam. And they’re perfect, every single time. In that 10 minutes we can prepare their sauce and then they’re eating, within the all-important 15 minute mark, they’re eating!”
What’s normal life like in this wonderful home?
Phoebe: “If you wanted to describe the average day: ‘Exhausting’.”
Georges: “But if you look at that question in regards to the house, there’s really beautiful ways of answering it. Waking up with the kids. In the bedroom with the view. Moments in the pool.
We lived our whole life in 2 rooms previously. [Their previous Bondi Beach apartment] Now it’s enjoyed in multiple rooms for different reasons. And I think that is a beautiful change in our new life: enriching the possibilities that we could explore as a family.”
Summing up their new home in three words, they both come up with their own. Phoebe starts, strong. “Memory-making. Authentic. And timeless.” George then cheats. “You might be able to paraphrase it better, for I want this place to be the place that the children remember as their safe place. If anything ever goes wrong in their life, This is where they will come. Like a safe haven. I don’t know if there’s a better word, if there’s a better way of describing it. No matter what happens in the next 30 years. This is where they will feel they’re most comfortable.
It’s also where I would love to see growth. Growth of us, growth of our children and growth of how the home changes with the changing needs of our family.
And then love.”
