- Date published: 29.11.23
- Category: Home Tours
- Author: Alexandra Carlton
How Lisa Danielle Brought the South of France to Byron Bay
The content creator’s 80-square-metre French farmhouse was thoughtfully designed to bring her dream vision board to life.
Editor's Note
After a brief hiatus (and the launch of our much-awaited The Makers book), we’re thrilled to welcome you back to The Makers. We’ve renovated, if you will.
We can’t think of a more heavenly home to relaunch the series with than Lisa Danielle Green’s breathtaking farmhouse in the Byron Bay hinterland. Building her dream home after a stint in France, you can see how the style, architecture and relaxed elegance – synonymous with cities like Paris and Provence – influenced the space. We hope you love it as much as we do.
Thank you for being here,
Genevieve Rosen-Biller, Co-Founder, Bed Threads.
O n the surface, Lisa Green – AKA @lisadanielle__ – appears to have it all. The 35-year-old designer, creative and all-round aesthete travels the world shooting beautiful imagery for brands, holidays in exotic far-flung destinations, and, most recently, jets around Australia promoting her burgeoning accessories line, Louie Bloom.
But, privately, Lisa has always held on to a deeper and more personal ambition. “I remember about 10 years ago I made a vision board,” she tells Bed Threads. “I drew a house in the hills of Byron Bay. I was a mum, and there were three kids. That was my dream.”
Fast forward to now and Lisa is a mother to three-year-old daughter, Gigi, with husband and photographer Jamie Green. Alongside the completion of the family’s new home in the Byron Bay hinterland, all the pieces of Lisa’s dream puzzle seem to be falling into place.
About 10 years ago I made a vision board. I drew a house in the hills of Byron Bay... That was my dream.
- Lisa Danielle
The three-acre block of land where the family’s home now sits came into their life with a mixture of good luck, good judgement and good timing. “We found a block of land in the Byron Bay hinterland and we were about to go away to Paris for a few months. Jamie said, ‘let’s just go for it’. He’s such a go-getter whereas I’m a bit more cautious,” Lisa says.
Thankfully, Jamie’s more intrepid nature won out and they made an offer which was accepted. The family went to France as planned and much of the work on their dreamy farmhouse-style build was done while they were away.
-
-
Limoncello Tablecloth, Terracotta Placemats, and Terracotta Napkins styled with the exclusive Gemma Bamforth x Bed Threads plate collection.
-
In fact, it was this trip to France that sparked much of the design inspiration for their home. Working with French architect Carole Huard, Lisa and Jamie’s Provence-style estate came together more quickly and easily than they expected. Perhaps this was due to the building’s small size, coming in at a compact 80-square-metres. Its eventual purpose will be as a guest house, with a larger main house on the block to be completed at a later date. But for a home with such a tiny footprint, Lisa says guests always comment on how large it feels. The secret? The enormous ceiling height and pitched roof, which give the home a sense of airiness and spaciousness.
The soaring ceilings create the drama, but perhaps it’s the smaller, finer details – namely, how Lisa and Jamie have lit their home – that bring true elegance and warmth inside. There are the grid windows that drench the home in sunshine, the ‘very Parisian’ oversized arched doors at the front of the home, the onyx stone lights in the bedroom finished in the soft, uneven curves of a seashell and a large Italian-made pendant light which takes centre stage in the kitchen. “It’s one of those things that everyone who comes into the home goes, ‘Ah!’” says Lisa.
Textural interest comes via the primary material of the home itself: the walls are built of sustainable hempcrete, a sound-insulating and chemical-free matter made from hemp hurds and lime. “There’s a natural limestone render over it which gives it this beautiful rough surface,” she says. “That natural texture is one of my favourite things.”
For a home with such a tiny footprint, Lisa says guests always comment on how large it feels. The secret? The enormous ceiling height and pitched roof.
One part of the home’s design nearly tipped into disaster, at least at first. “The bathroom was the hardest thing to design in the whole house,” Lisa says, as the couple struggled with the overwhelming number of choices. It was their architect who initially suggested the use of terracotta, a common material in the South of France. Lisa and Jamie agreed to pave the bathroom floor with reclaimed terracotta roof tiles, and then added a blush-pink limestone finish in the shower. “We put them together and we were like… We hate it,” Lisa says with a laugh. It was only when they added the styling of the basin, the lights, the mirror and a beautiful brass shower head that it all came together. “Everything else in the house is so creamy, whereas this space feels so warm,” Lisa says. “Now, we love it!
The house may be a crucial component of Lisa’s vision board, but that doesn’t mean the family’s travel is likely to stop any time soon. Before having their daughter, Lisa and Jamie vowed children wouldn't slow their wanderlust lifestyle, so now Gigi happily joins her parents on their adventures (“She even went to a little kindy when we were in Paris,” says Lisa). Even when we caught up with Lisa for this interview, she’s fresh off the plane from Paris Fashion Week, and already prepping for a Louie Bloom event in Sydney’s Pittwater. Lisa’s life might be busy behind the scenes, but when speaking to her, we found her to be strikingly at ease.
Recreate Lisa's look with the Oatmeal & White Stripe Bedding Bundle, or the Oatmeal & White Stripe Bedding Set and the Oatmeal & White Stripe Sheet Set.
It wasn’t always this way. A Gold Coast native and a middle child of four siblings, Lisa spent a lot of her early years wondering what she was going to do with her life. As a kid she had always wanted to be an actress or a musician, but when she got into the workforce nothing felt quite right. She worked in fast food for a while, and then tried her hand at makeup artistry before working for various fashion houses. “I always felt a little bit lost,” she told us. “I was never a hundred per cent satisfied.”
-
Recreate Lisa's look with the Oatmeal & White Stripe Bedding Bundle, or the Oatmeal & White Stripe Bedding Set and the Oatmeal & White Stripe Sheet Set.
-
-
It was only when she began taking photographs with her now-husband Jamie that she began to feel the first hints of where her career might ultimately lead her. “Jamie and I were living in Melbourne and we loved getting out of the city. So we’d take these drives down the coast and get into nature and go to waterfalls. I got obsessed with finding these beautiful hidden spots and sharing them online.”
A move to Byron Bay followed, where Lisa began doing marketing work for fashion brand Spell, and suddenly a career creating content looked like a very exciting reality. Her big break came when the official Australia Instagram account shared one of her photos. “I went from around 500 followers to 2000 overnight,” she remembers. “And I thought… this could really be something.”
From there, Lisa pursued a career in content creation while still working for Spell’s digital arm, and before she knew it she and Jamie were travelling the world creating beautiful pictures, sharing scenes from Moroccan riads, Sicilian beachscapes, Vanuatuan vistas and beyond.
But for now, the lure of their Byron Bay home may be enough to keep the couple a little more grounded. Lisa, a self-described ‘sleeper in-er-er’ loves nothing more than a long, lazy morning in linen sheets, with coffee brewing and records playing in the soft morning light. They cherish having friends over to entertain, and they plan to finish the outdoor landscaping and add an al fresco kitchen area. Still, there’s no rush. “I feel like we can relax a little bit now,” Lisa says. The extra pieces of the vision board look like they’ll fall into place when the time is right.
Watch the full video by pressing play at the top of this article, or on YouTube here.
For more from Lisa Danielle, follow her at @lisadanielle__, her home at @le_.jardin and her accessories line at @louie.bloom.
