Monday June 22 2009

Francesco Natale, a Calabrian immigrant, left Italy in search of a new life and found it in the south-western suburbs of Sydney. Settling on a patch in Punchbowl in 1962, he encouraged his then-fiancée Michelina to follow and in the years to come, they welcomed five children and moved three times within the same street.

Their youngest child (and only son), interior designer Greg Natale, enjoyed an idyllic childhood at number 53, the family home since 1978 and still the venue for many of the extended Natale family activities. A visit to Casa Natale goes a long way to explain the rich palettes and fondness for decadence that defines Greg’s interiors projects, as well as his instinctive understanding of family spaces.

Michelina always knew her son, who speaks fluent Italian, was destined for a career in design. “At the age of 10, he was saving up to buy Australian House & Garden and redecorated the house in the school holidays when he was 13,” she says with a laugh. So when Michelina complained about the family home’s disjointed floorplan and dark rooms – a gripe she had held since the early 1980s – Greg jumped at the chance to revitalise the home he’d lived in since he was four.

The project began three years ago and was not as easy as Greg had originally envisaged. “My mother was very insistent on things,” he says. “She’d waited decades for this opportunity, so she was hell-bent on how it was going to be. Let’s face it, she had a lot of time to contemplate it!”

Michelina’s involvement didn’t end with her strict brief; like any client, she gave her opinions throughout the process. When she had an epiphany, there was no stopping her. “Mum rang me one day after mass to tell me that the painting in the informal dining room just had to be burgundy,” he says. “She had seen it at church and was convinced it was exactly what the area needed. And she was so right!”


The first step in the renovation was to create a series of informal living spaces that were light, airy and colourful. Ever practical, Michelina requested easy-care vitrified tiles on the floor. Greg agreed, so long as he could specify a beautiful paisley rug in vibrant pinks to lay over the top for warmth. Ultimately, the jewel colour palette in the downstairs room is a direct response to Michelina’s request for a departure from the rarely-used formal rooms with traditional timber elements.

Keen to avoid Italian design clichés, Greg hesitated at Michelina’s suggestion of granite benchtops in her new kitchen. Now it’s in, he is pleased with the drama it contributes to the space. A simple combination of oak and white polyurethane cabinetry allows the granite to take centrestage. The kitchen is truly the heart of this home, and treats with reverence the edible bounty produced by Francesco’s incredible garden. Surplus fruit and vegetables are a fact of life here and this patch has produced abundant cucumber, chokos, chillies, tomatoes, lettuce, pomegranates, beans and olives for years, as well as plenty of basil – enough to flavour the 200 bottles of delicious tomato sauce Michelina turns out every year.

Although Michelina and Francesco are now the sole occupants, downsizing is not an option for the couple. “Whenever I ask them about it, my mother just throws her hands up and says ‘Why would I ever want to leave this?’,” says Greg, “and my father asks where he would put all the plants!”

With a family this size, Greg was always destined to be kept busy. Two of Greg’s sisters have commissioned him to design their homes, plus he is working on a design for a 16-person crypt at their family plot. He has the preliminary concepts in place and, unsurprisingly, is lobbying for a dramatic black marble facade with a pink marble insert. “It will be beautiful,” he says. Of that, there is no doubt.