Inside a Ceramicist’s Airy Apartment on Gertrude Street (That You Can Stay In)

Published on 31 October 2021

Step into a compact space studded with local art and settle in. In partnership with Airbnb, we speak to ceramicist Chela Edwards about how her love of Australian design informed the creation of a truly artistic home in the heart of Fitzroy.

It took four years working as a textile designer in New York for ceramicist Chela Edmunds to realise how much she’d missed her home in Australia.

“I just kept wanting to go to the beach,” she says. “So I thought, ‘What am I doing in America then?’ While I was in New York I took up pottery, which I absolutely loved. And then when I came home, I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to start fresh and do something new with my career.” Upon her return, Edmunds created Takeawei, a homewares studio producing colourful, functional ceramics in Torquay.

false

Edmunds wasn’t looking to open a retail store when, in 2020, she found herself wandering along Gertrude Street in Fitzroy, one of her favourite Melbourne neighbourhoods. She passed a vacant store with a classic Melbourne shop-top apartment above and her interest was instantly piqued. She envisioned an eye-popping retail space on the ground level and a city break apartment filled with works by Australian designers – both on the walls and represented by the very furniture itself – upstairs that could serve as her home away from home (and a potential home for guests).

She set about putting her personal artistic stamp on it in January 2021. Edmunds wanted to keep the apartment simple, spacious and comfortable. “I wanted something that was bright and colourful, and looked like that artist’s apartment that I always wanted when I was going through design school,” she says. “Something that wasn’t boring but was nice and uplifting to be around.”

The narrow open-plan space flows from end to end with white-painted walls and timber floorboards. Edmunds’ favourite part of the apartment is the grapevine-covered balcony at the back of the building, a secluded spot which offers views of inner-city rooftops and the city beyond them. “It’s a nice spot to sit back and have a glass of wine at the end of the day,” she says.



Edmunds has used the space to celebrate her love of Australian design; her time in America gave her a greater appreciation of artists back home. So when it came to selecting furniture and artworks for the apartment, she selected pieces that reflected the incredible depth of homegrown talent. “We’re so lucky – we have so many great makers here,” she enthuses.

Fellow creatives from Ashmore Arts (a commercial hub for artists in Torquay) feature heavily: the striking timber bench that runs down one side of the kitchen – originally from Edmunds’s Torquay home – was crafted by Form Concrete Studios. On the apartment’s walls are several artworks by Torquay artist Rowena Martinich, who also created the energetic mural on the building’s street-level facade. Award-winning Geelong design firm Dowel Jones was commissioned for the chic two-seater dining set.

For the apartment’s living-room centrepiece, Edmunds kept it in the family: “My sister [Kalu Edmunds] has a furniture sourcing business called Mood Objects. I went to her and asked for a couple of pieces, like an Australian-designed sofa second hand. She came up with that one,” she says of the atomic-green Numero couch, designed in the 1950s by Geelong icon Grant Featherston.



When she’s not in Melbourne, Edmunds offers her apartment to visitors on Airbnb. She hopes it helps attract people to the area as the city emerges from 18 months of lockdown. “I love Gertrude Street and its little boutique-style shops,” she says. “I like that the stores have their own individual character – you always find something interesting when you walk along there.”

Gertrude Street is also home to a gaggle of restaurants and bars. Edmunds’s apartment is close to Archie’s All Day, a perfect spot for a late brunch, then a wander down to Smith Street to check out the vintage stores and record shops. The Everleigh nearby serves up unmissable cocktails and Marion is the ideal location for a decadent dinner.

To Edmunds, the most important aspect of the apartment is that it feels cosy without the feeling of being “crammed together like sardines”. It’s full of small, personal touches without feeling over-decorated or crowded. “I want a place for one to two people to come and feel like they have space around them,” she says.

Set in the heart of a buzzing neighbourhood, the Gertrude apartment is the perfect place to experience the city as it emerges from lockdown. “I want it to be a sanctuary that you come back to after a day out shopping or going out to lunch or dinner,” says Edmunds. And maybe, a place that inspires you to fill your own home with Australian art.


false

This story is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Airbnb. See more Airbnb homes.