Radovan

“When it was finished and I first came in here, I couldn’t believe it … I couldn’t leave. I slept on the floor!”

Radovan is from Croatia. He has spent half his life living in Australia, and his career as a mechanical engineer has taken him around the world. He’s lived in a wide range of places, from Communist-era blocks to luxurious Middle Eastern apartments, but his two-bedroom home in Nightingale Fremantle is his favourite of them all. “It is the best place I have ever lived in.”

Radovan first came into contact with Nightingale homes through his daughter, who bought in the original Nightingale, in Melbourne. He stayed with her in the apartment and enjoyed the feel of the place. When he separated from his wife soon afterwards, his daughter heard about Nightingale Fremantle and suggested he take a look. The building was “only a couple of walls”, but the Nightingale concept instantly appealed to him.

“I fell in love with it through the drawings: I’m a design engineer, so I could read them quite well. It looked nice, it fit well, and it was all in balance. The space and the volumes just worked together. When it was finished and I first came in here, I couldn’t believe it. I got the key, I entered the apartment: and I couldn’t leave. I slept on the floor! The next day my furniture came, and I had a bed.”

Like the other Nightingale buyers, Radovan had the chance to work with Dimitri and Don (the architectural designer and the development and project manager) to customise his space. He bought early in the construction process, and his request to remove a privacy wall that concealed bathroom and bedroom doors ended up being an inspiration for another resident. “I live alone, and I would rather have the space open than blocked. I feel that it’s not a restaurant, I don’t have to hide the bathroom!” Radovan’s apartment, with its kitchen and central living space looking out onto a balcony garden, feels open yet cosy, with antique clocks and rugs from his former home warming the clean lines. He has put up a shade cloth to protect the aloes and monsteras on his balcony, and hopes that his wisteria vine will grow into the “wall of green” that his daughter has in her Nightingale apartment. “I would also love to have a lemon tree; I’m asking Dimitri if we can plant one in the garden.”

Radovan notes that friends of his generation – he is 70 – take a moment to understand the space when they walk into it. “They say, ‘Why don’t you plaster the walls, or the ceiling? How do you get into the bathtub?’ (because it has a step).” But he likes the unconcealed materials in the design. “There are natural elements: if it was plastered, it would feel more clinical.”

As well as loving the aesthetic of the building, Radovan relates to the central principles of Nightingale. “Being recyclable, sustainable, energy-efficient, social, affordable – these are values that I stand by strongly, I fully support them. I come from Communist Yugoslavia, as it was then, and I was brought up that you live with others, and share with others. There was a lower living standard, so we had to help each other. People were closer to each other.”

Radovan has also experienced the opposite extreme. When he worked for four years in Doha, his apartment was opulent. “It was 120 square metres, with high ceilings, and every luxury you could imagine. We had people clean for us. But it was in a desert. There was no life, aside from pigeons and cultivated lawns. You couldn’t open the windows; it was permanently air-conditioned. The neighbours didn’t socialise with each other. It didn’t feel like home.”

The blend of community and seclusion in Nightingale Fremantle is an ideal middle ground for him. “Privacy is not an issue in a small building like this. There are only three apartments that I share the corridor with and that could see into my apartment if I leave my blinds open – which I usually do – I may shut them at night. It’s not like a ground-room townhouse where all the people walking by can look straight into your house, so you’re always opening curtains, closing curtains. You’re not facing other apartments directly, you’re not hearing conversations from other houses.”

Separated from his wife, and with his children living in other states, Radovan may well have felt lonely if it weren’t for the Nightingale community. He enjoys playing with his neighbours’ dogs, and another neighbour’s little daughter helps him water his plants. He is still close to his wife, who now lives in Queensland, and he chose a two-bedroom apartment so that she could visit. “It was an ideal solution, to live somewhere where people know your name, who you can relate to and share things with, work with on maintaining the building and the common gardens – it feels like a neighbourhood, and that worked out perfectly for me. I’m very happy here.”

Written by Rose Mulready