House Ten in TH Brown’s In Residence series
A home built against the obvious
Some homes are designed to follow a look.
Others are shaped by a stronger instinct.
Ryan and Laura’s Miami home belongs firmly to the second kind.
When they bought the house ten years ago, they were drawn first by location. They wanted to be beachside of the Gold Coast Highway, between the two hills, close to the ocean, close to the shops, close to school, and close to the everyday ease that makes family life feel connected. The house already had strong bones and an architect-designed past, but what mattered most was what they could see beneath it: the possibility of something warmer, more personal and more enduring.
Laura describes the house as once having a Port Douglas feel. But underneath that, she sensed something older and more interesting: a 1960s spirit waiting to come forward. Over time, that instinct became the foundation for the renovation that followed. Ryan and Laura moved out for close to ten months and worked with Kai Konstruct, alongside draftspeople and interior designers Murray and Jess Scott of Sand and Pine, to transform the house from the inside out. What they created is not simply a renovation. It is a house that feels more fully like itself.
They were not interested in following the prevailing Gold Coast formula. Ryan says they “just didn’t want Hamptons or Palm Beach”, and Laura’s love of mid-century modern gave the house its direction. They leaned into darker timbers, richer tones, warmth and tactility. The result is bold, but not showy. Confident, but still deeply liveable.
That sense of being truly lived in matters.
Laura says it plainly: “a house has to be lived in”. She likes beautiful things, but she does not want the home to feel fake. That one line says so much about the way they live here. The kitchen is designed for serious cooking and gathering. Christmas can mean twelve people or twenty. Friends and family move easily through the downstairs spaces. But just beyond that energy are quieter moments too, especially around Laura’s office and the outdoor setting where she can step out, sit down and enjoy the calm of the house.
That same balance of beauty and real life runs through everything they have chosen to keep. Laura’s father made furniture, and pieces of his remain in the home. There is coloured glass, retro barware, a locally found retro bar, pieces from the Elvis film set, and an old trunk that carried her parents’ belongings when they arrived in Australia as Ten Pound Poms. Nothing feels decorative for decoration’s sake. Everything feels held for a reason.
That, perhaps, is why the TH Brown pieces sit so naturally here.
The connection runs deeper than style. Laura grew up in Adelaide and remembered family friends with TH Brown stools in orange. Ryan says they are now the “third generation of buyer, fourth generation of user” of TH Brown furniture in the family. Laura’s grandmother bought TH Brown. Ryan’s parents bought TH Brown. Now they have too.
The Martelle Bar Stools sit in the kitchen with remarkable ease, not just because they suit the palette, but because they continue the same language already being spoken throughout the house: warmth, integrity, craftsmanship and mid-century form.
That is the human truth at the centre of this home.
Ryan and Laura did not build around trends.
They built around conviction.
In doing so, they created a home that feels warm, personal and lasting, a home where TH Brown belongs not simply because of how it looks, but because of what it continues.
Explore more from our In Residence series.
Photographer - Louise Rocher - The Design Villa
