There’s no mistaking the “Australianness” of the Sagaponack home where Sydney-born entrepreneur Tracey Frost Rensky spends her summers with family and friends. A North Bondi sign in the driveway greets visitors to the relaxed Hamptons retreat while paying homage to the popular Sydney beach destination. Meanwhile, a yellow Land Rover in the driveway is emblazoned with the plates Bondi N2, while the scent of gardenias — a staple in gardens Down Under — lingers in the air.
“I’ve really tried to recreate Sydney in my house,” explains Tracey, the CEO and co-founder of the downtown members-only club Citibabes, which is like a Soho House for families and has counted Christy Turlington, Naomi Watts and David Beckham as clients.
Tracey and her husband, Filip Rensky, an investment banker, bought the house in 2007 after getting married. The couple had both summered in Hamptons share houses before they met and fell for Sagaponack — particularly bucolic Bridge Lane and Sagg Pond, also known as “Goldman Pond” for all the Goldman Sachs partners’ estates that surround it. Indeed, a few driveways down from the couple’s home is 351 Bridge Lane, the estate of retired Goldman Sachs vice chairman Robert Hurst, on sale for $55 million.
A health enthusiast, Tracey had an instant connection with her home. She was at a yoga class nearby when her husband called and said, “You have to come look at this house — now!” She arrived on her bike and knew this was the one: “It was August, the garden was in bloom, the pergola covered in grapes,” she recalls. They paid $3.3 million for the property.
The purchase came naturally to her husband, a born-and-bred New Yorker whose parents emigrated from Czechoslovakia to the US in 1968. He had spent summers in Sagaponack as a child, “back when it was $300 to rent for summer, not $300,000,” he jokes.
They named the home Bondi North, in honor of Tracey’s father, a Bondi lifeguard who rescued her mother in the surf. “Bondi is a bit of an obsession,” says Tracey, who has lived in the US for 18 years and who showcases the famous Australian beach in photographs, art and books throughout the house.
Spreading over nearly 6,000 square feet, the two-story home has artistic roots. Its original owner was the Lebanese-born painter Nabil Nahas, who built the house in the early 1990s, installing huge doors for light and to easily move his large-scale art. It was then bought by an English couple, who maintained the English gardens that surround a long, narrow pool. The Renskys kept the gardener on staff to tend to the jasmine, wisteria, hibiscus and hydrangeas. Nonetheless, they were ready to make big changes.
“We wanted to renovate but still maintain the house in terms of proportion and style,” says Tracey. “McMansions were not what we were looking for.”
They chose Brent Leonard and Sean Webb, principals of Form Architecture + Interiors in Manhattan, for the $1 million-plus renovation, which was planned for 2008, but postponed due to the economic crisis. “We met our architects to review the plans on the day of the Lehman bankruptcy,” says Tracey. The renovations were completed last year, and the family was able to create exactly what they wanted: a seven-bedroom home with one-third more space.
The renovation added much-needed breathing room. In the kitchen, the architects almost doubled the ceiling height by removing a fireplace and a staircase. The room is decorated with contemporary lighting — Tom Dixon’s Beat Pendants, an O’Lampia wall sconce and an Alejandro Sticotti for Net Muebles lamp — plus a custom Corian dining table and vintage chairs. At the kitchen counter, Tractor stools by Craig Bassam are a casual spot for a cup of tea.
The Australian lifestyle is very much in evidence here. Resin plates by Sydney-based Dinosaur Designs and handmade porcelain Mud Australia tableware are used for summer salads. French doors on two sides of the kitchen open out onto a terrace and pergola, where there is a pizza oven and an open fire pit.
The adjoining room has formal dining and living areas, with white Restoration Hardware Sorensen sofas, a Werner Kanner coffee table and Alberto Pinto-style brass pendant chandeliers. Contemporary Aboriginal art by indigenous artists, including Tommy Watson, hangs on the walls.
In the family room, the emphasis is on light and openness. To achieve both, the architects switched out a sliding barn door and replaced it with six windows. Today, the room’s “go-to” spot for Tracey is a white sofa from the shop Montauk, in SoHo, where she sits and reads the papers and where the family gathers on movie nights after days spent surfing, playing tennis, swimming and riding bikes.
But one of the most important pieces of furniture in the house is Tracey’s custom desk, designed by Form Architecture + Interiors. It’s here where she plans Citibabes’ educational classes for children. The Hamptons has been a clear inspiration for the company’s summer programs, such as yoga classes, which are held on the deck of her home.
On the second level, the family’s two young daughters helped set the design tone. Here, 9-year-old Natasha and 6-year-old Chloe have a huge playroom. There are color-saturated vintage Persian and Turkish rugs from West of Hudson Rugs & Home, reversible curtains inspired by Indian daybeds and color-blocked fabrics made by Form Architecture + Interiors. Plush kangaroos can be found perched around this pretty palace, alongside custom beds covered in embroidered Indian cloth. By day, the girls lounge on the beds, which convert into trundles for extra space for family and friends.
In all of the rooms, the designers used “a lot of blues, which worked as great neutral backdrops to wood tones and golds and yellows,” says Leonard. The girls’ bedrooms have windows on both sides, to provide views of cherry blossoms. There are simple, white Land of Nod beds, along with Bondi artwork by Tracey’s brother, Ashley Frost. The master bedroom is down the hall, with a 10-foot-high rain shower in the bathroom, chic blue-and-white glass tiles and a big bathtub for soaking. The guest bedrooms are decorated in neutral tones.
Throughout the house, rooms overlook lush gardens and double French doors open onto a terrace decorated with gem-colored Moroccan lanterns.
Although it may be nearly 10,000 miles between Sydney and Sagaponack, the retreat leaves visitors dreaming of a beach escape Down Under. It’s one family’s own Bondi, transported to the East End.