I’ve always been most interested in homes that give you little clues about the people who live in them.
The slightly odd thing brought home on holidays. The painting bought years before the sofa beneath it. A collection that began with one piece and somehow became twenty. Things inherited, found, moved from room to room and kept simply because somebody loves them.
This perhaps explains why I found myself lingering over Chyka Keebaugh’s home in this month’s Mornington Peninsula Magazine.
And while looking a little further into Chyka’s approach to her homes, I discovered something I hadn’t expected.
She is a serious collector.
At her Peninsula home, an entire wall is given over to green cabbage plates. There’s a rooster chandelier, baskets stacked on books and a wonderfully eccentric bespoke lamp populated with cows, eagles, birds, butterflies and bees.
Her Melbourne home takes things further still. Chinese porcelain and ceramic birds sit alongside antique furniture, contemporary art and cabbageware. Above the kitchen hangs an extraordinary collection of antique French copper pots.
There are pieces brought home from India, Morocco, Hong Kong and New York. Things found at flea markets and auction houses. Things she’s owned for decades.
Some are valuable. Some aren’t. That’s the point.
Chyka has been collecting since she was a child, when travelling with her parents meant bringing home a small tea strainer, picture or whatever else caught her eye.
Decades later, those individual finds have become something much more interesting. A home filled with memories.
Perhaps my favourite thing about Chyka’s interiors is that provenance doesn’t appear to matter nearly as much as personality.
Seventeenth-century chandeliers coexist with wicker shades. Old Indian suzanis become upholstery. An auction find sits comfortably beside contemporary furniture.
It’s not about assembling the correct things. It’s about assembling your things. And there is freedom in that. A home doesn’t need to be completed in one decorating project. In fact, perhaps it shouldn’t be. The most interesting bits are often the things that arrive later.
For someone with formidable collections, Chyka doesn’t appear particularly interested in preserving them behind glass. She rearranges things. Uses them. Displays them. Her collection of cabbageware lives openly in the butler’s pantry because, as she points out, things hidden away in cupboards tend not to get used.
And then there are those copper pots hanging above the kitchen. Legend has it that one came from the kitchen of Louis XV and isn’t allowed anywhere near dinner.
Fair enough.
And then you fill the house with people. This is where Chyka’s approach becomes particularly interesting to me.
Because for all the collecting, the objects don’t appear to be the main event. People are.
The home has quite literally been designed around entertaining. Food, flowers and gathering around a table aren’t finishing touches. They’re part of how the house works.
Before people come over, Chyka prepares flowers or foliage. Nothing elaborate necessarily. Herbs from the garden will do.
The important part is making it apparent that somebody was expected. That somebody coming through the door mattered enough for you to do something about it.
And I think that’s a rather lovely way to think about a home.
Those familiar with our Home Style Quiz might understand why I’ve become slightly stuck on Chyka.
All that collecting, curiosity and willingness to bring home something simply because she loves it feels decidedly Curious Collector.
But a house arranged around feeding people, filling vases before they arrive and making guests feel considered? There’s an awful lot of Generous Host there too.
Perhaps the things we collect tell one part of the story. What we do with them, and who we invite in to share them, tells the rest.
Read Chyka’s Mornington Peninsula Magazine feature, Home Is Where the Heart Is →
