Natural connection, in Hunters Hill.

"It’s a peaceful sanctuary, surrounded by trees and gardens,” Beverly says. “When I bought this house, I’d been looking for a couple of well-proportioned rooms and French doors opening onto a courtyard garden.”

She found precisely that - and gradually, something more.

Positioned on the Hunters Hill peninsula, the character-filled semi unfolds across multiple levels and outdoor spaces, balancing traditional detailing with an easy sense of liveability. Timber floors, fireplaces and ornate ceilings speak to the home’s heritage, while those French doors and carefully placed windows pull greenery into almost every room. Upstairs, the main bedroom rises beneath a cathedral-style ceiling, lined with north-facing windows that flood the space with soft natural light throughout the day.

“It has evolved into a quite lush space with a wide variety of plants, chosen for their diversity and textures,” Beverly says of the garden. “I wake each morning and look out onto two magnificent trees - a good start to the day.”

The relationship between the house and garden feels unusually reciprocal. Courtyards extend the interiors outward. Ferns gather in shaded corners. The rear entertaining area catches eastern light through layered planting, while the front garden offers an entirely different microclimate - cooler, quieter, more enclosed.

“The attraction of moving to Hunters Hill was the suburb’s gardens,” Beverly says. “Although mine is small, I enjoy the large gardens on the morning walk and the abundance of stately trees.”

Those walks became part of her creative process. Dried leaves, seed pods and found plant fragments collected along the peninsula often reappear in her still-life compositions on vellum. “The garden here is a mix of plants I’ve painted, some rare but thriving here, alongside others planted to pull it all together,” she says. “One bed in the back courtyard has full sun all year while the front courtyard garden is shaded and lush ferns thrive there.”

The home’s detached garden studio initially seemed the obvious place to work. Instead, Beverly found herself drawn upstairs. “The larger bedroom has excellent north and south light, so it became my main studio space,” she says. “It looks onto beautiful trees and a ‘Jeffrey Smart’ style view of rooftops.”

That tension - nature against the geometry of the city - feels quietly present throughout the house. Softness, but also structure. A sense of observation. Rooms designed not simply to impress, but to notice.

Beverly’s path toward botanical painting began nearly three decades ago after visiting an exhibition from the Shirley Sherwood Collection at Sydney’s SH Ervin Gallery. “It began my move from graphic design toward painting full time,” she says. Today, her own works form part of that same internationally significant collection.

Despite exhibiting globally, from residencies in Virginia to conservation projects in South Africa, Beverly speaks about the botanical art world less in terms of prestige than community. “Plant people and botanical painters are a very collaborative and close-knit group,” she says. “There’s a shared passion for the natural world.”

That same spirit carried into her founding role within the Florilegium Society at the Botanic Gardens of Sydney - a permanent collection documenting significant plant species through contemporary botanical art. “The standard of Australian botanical art was so high it inspired the creation of a permanent collection,” Beverly says. “The works draw attention to the important science and horticulture being done there.”

Back at Ferdinand Street, however, the scale returns to the intimate. Morning light through leaves. A cup of tea in the courtyard. The sound of birds moving through the canopy beyond the garden walls. “This home has been my haven,” Beverly says. “My peaceful place to focus on my painting and the garden. It’s a very civilised neighbourhood - friendly and quietly supportive.”

After fifteen years, she is preparing to downsize, searching for something smaller but still connected to nature. What she hopes remains here is not just the beauty of the home itself, but its atmosphere.

“The peace of the garden spaces and the privacy is very special,” Beverly says. “I hope the next custodian enjoys the history and legacy of the previous owners, and the livable improvements that have been made over time.”

Therein lies the enduring quality of this home. Not reinvention, but continuity. A house that has been carefully lived in, deeply observed and gently shaped by someone whose life’s work has centred on paying attention to the natural world, season by season.

View the listing: 9 Ferdinand Street, Hunters Hill