Product

Poplar Burl, Four-Way Match (Radial Match)

Interior Design

Arent & Pyke

Architect

Sam Crawford

Project 

Salsa Verde

Photography

Anson Smart

Styling

Claire Delmar

A former worker’s cottage in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, Salsa Verde is a vibrant and deeply personal home transformed by Arent & Pyke for a family whose years living between New York and Hong Kong had instilled in them a love of colour, art, and the art of entertaining. Renovated structurally by architect Sam Crawford several years prior, the brief to Arent & Pyke was to inject warmth, layering, and joyful energy into every corner – and the result is a home that is unmistakably and completely theirs.

At the heart of the transformation is the kitchen – a bold feast of materiality where Verde Guatemala marble meets glazed off-white Moroccan tiles, soft terrazzo floors, and the rich, tactile presence of Briggs Veneers’ Poplar Burl. Assembled using a four-way match, the veneer’s swirling grain radiates outward symmetrically from a central point, creating a jewel-like visual effect across the cabinetry that is at once organic and deeply considered – a counterpoint to the drama of the marble and the crispness of the tiles, and a detail that would go on to define the material language of the entire home.

That language travels. The Poplar Burl reappears in the main ensuite vanity, where it holds its own against the muted purple veining of Calacatta Viola marble – grounding the space with natural richness while anchoring an interior defined by its fearless use of colour and pattern. Throughout the home, a creamy pink nougat applied to the oak joinery acts as a unifying thread, softening the bold palette and allowing the veneer to speak with quiet authority in each setting it inhabits.

Winner of the 2023 House & Garden Top 50 Rooms Best Kitchen and Room of the Year, Salsa Verde is a testament to what happens when a studio is trusted to go all the way – and when a material as distinctive as Poplar Burl is placed in exactly the right hands.