Food stylist and influencer Sunny Han's house is inspired by holidays in the Italian countryside
I had looked forward to that meal, as Han is a famous culinary virtuoso who documents her cooking on Instagram with sprezzatura aplenty. She diligently makes everything from scratch – risotto alla Milanese, tteokguk, soya sauce chicken rice, to name a few – spending hours in her kitchen with nary a hair out of place and ears adorned with vintage earrings – Chanel, no less.
Han's impeccable style and gastronomic preoccupation is traced to a lineage of connoisseurs. Her grandmother was married to South Korea's first naval admiral and hosted many dignitaries, including President Park Chung Hee. Han's mother cooked in South Korea's first bistro before opening the country's first international interior design store.
'She would go to the Maison & Objet Paris fair twice a year to shop, and I would follow her when I was 10 to 15 years old,' shared Han, who studied hospitality management at Cornell University, New York, followed by two years at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley, California.
A meal by the seasoned host is always a thorough affair. Han recapped a recent Easter meal featuring a five-hour, slow-roasted leg of lamb 'cut very thin, soaked in its own pan drippings and served in a variety of condiments and sauces, including silky tahini sauce.'
This was matched with a spring tablescape of a green-outlined, yellow vintage jacquard French linen tablecloth, emerald-green Marie Daage dinner plates Han hand-painted and parrot tulips arranged in a Japanese flower frog. 'I wore a vintage pink gingham Chanel shirt – a classic Easter colour and pattern to suit the occasion,' detailed Han.
An aesthete through and through, she also puts her perceptive design sense to good use as creative director of Singapore's largest high-end co-work operator, The Work Project (TWP), which was founded by her husband Junny Lee. Both of them hail from South Korea but carved a life in Singapore running their business that has expanded to include locations in Hong Kong, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney and soon, London.
The couple made a great pair of hosts during the dinner they invited me to – Lee, with his candidness and humour, and Han with her elegant meal of handmade pasta and beef. The setting was equal part homely and aesthetic, with candlelight saturating the room with atmosphere.
The pair moved into this Bukit Timah detached house two years ago from their apartment in town for more space as well as a different pace of family life with two young boys. They were drawn to the site for the leafy park across the street with 'a handsome, grand-looking tree.'
Han elaborated: 'We love living in this quiet and intimate neighbourhood. The park is such a versatile place for us, where the kids can play in the mornings and afternoons, where we do picnics, and where we can have a glass of wine as an aperitivo before dinner.'
The Italian-inflected house was steered by their love for the country. 'We do a three-week-long summer trip to Tuscany, and some shorter trips over the year to other parts of Italy,' said Lee. These are dreamy days, of Han in her element, wandering into markets to buy fresh produce to whip up Italian dishes as the children play in fields against ombre sunsets.
"I like to cook various cuisines – Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, French, Italian and more. However, if i were to choose one, it is Italian cooking that mesmerises me. I roll different shapes of pasta with different sauces based on what is available in the season. All the inspiration comes from the travels. Italian cooking looks simple but it can actually be very technical in order to do it correctly," said Han.
Diego Molina and Maria Arango of ArMo Design Studio, formerly from ONG&ONG (the house's architect of record), helped design their dream house. Matthew Shang Design Office (MSDO), known for creating narrative-led dining destinations like Revolver and Atlas Bar, designed the interiors. Shang had also designed the couple's previous home as well as some TWP Singapore locations so this partnership was seamless.
While neoclassical Italian villas provided the precedent, the house's expressions are contemporary. 'We incorporated materials like natural stone, timber and [red travertine tiles inspired by] terracotta that age gracefully and resonate with the Italian countryside inspiration. Architectural features such as arches and pergolas not only provide structural rhythm, but also pay homage to classical design principles,' explained Molina.
In the entrance vestibule, a statement staircase finished in smooth stucco curls gracefully to one side like a side-swept skirt, carving a void for Han to welcome guests with seasonal floral displays – for example, large bursts of yellow mimosa in spring and branches of autumn leaves in fall, accessories by pumpkins.
The other parts of the home embody a similar tempered elegance, with marble floors, walls of marmorino stucco (a material used in Venetian palaces of yore), spaces conceived as rooms from one to another, arched doorways of oak, and sun-tipped lemon and olive trees outside the windows.
Symmetry, colour and proportion are carefully considered with features like teal- and artichoke-coloured silk panels, and dark green Verdi Alpi marble portals flanking a faux red travertine hearth in the living room. 'It is always difficult to do a 'fake' fireplace in the tropics but here, the marble accents and scale make it a wonderful focal point,' said Shang.
Han also contributed vintage Murano glass Venetian sconces bought in an online auction. 'I have been adding small furniture and decor items everywhere in the house since we moved in. I think adding stories and layers to every corner of the house as you live in it is the real beauty of home decorating,' she said.
Many special pieces came from the couple's travels. 'While the house was being built, I was pregnant with my second son, and we went on a long trip to Tuscany as a babymoon. We met so many local artisans in different parts of Tuscany, hand-making all sorts of things – from ceramic floor tiles to brass door handles and hand-carved wood appliques,' said Han.
An artisan in Florence made one of these appliques – a vanilla-coloured piece now attached to her custom cooker hood as a centrepiece in the kitchen. This space sees constant addition not just of decor, but also of cooking apparatuses, other culinary paraphernalia and 'kitchen stories'.
'The kitchen is very much the heart of the home – not just in function, but in how it brings the family together,' Arango commented. The large island often sees family and friends gather around to chat with Han as she preps and cooks.
The professional-grade kitchen incorporates a red La Cornue stove and everything that Han had always wanted in her workspace, including a rotisserie that works its magic every week for a regular Sunday roast. Events in this room segue into those in the backyard through large doors that are kept open in the late afternoons.
'The children truly love every part of the house. Yet, it is definitely the kitchen that they enjoy the most. Since our pool is connected to the kitchen, it has become a ritual [for them] to swim before mealtimes, and watch me cook and prepare meals. By appreciating these daily rituals and slow lifestyle, the children have gradually made the home their own,' Han reflected.
Arango observed that this connection between the inside and outside spaces 'reinforces the open, relaxed spirit of the home, where boundaries between living, cooking and leisure are gently dissolved.' She and Molina had shifted the original driveway here to another side of the plot to allow for a bigger pool that they clad in the same red travertine as the kitchen floor in the style of Mediterranean kitchens.
I asked Lee if he cooks and he chuckled: 'I used to quite a lot but my skills have been rendered useless. On the odd weekend, Sunny will let me do the poolside barbecue. But my job is to play with the boys, and get them really hungry and tired.'
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The rustic kitchen is presided over by two grand conical Wastberg lamps that appear like abstracted upside-down chefs hats. Walls of oak storage include glass-fronted cabinets showcasing Han's collection of plates and crockery.
'These displays add a personal and lived-in character to the kitchen, making it not only a functional workspace but also a space that tells a story – one that is always evolving with the seasons, meals and memories made there,' said Arango.
The dedication of Han's hosting is found in a 'party closet', accessed by a butler's corridor. Here, Han keeps her heirloom silverware (some have been used by past South Korean presidents), serve ware, piles of neatly folded linen, et cetera that take their turn to be admired at gatherings. 'I like to buy vintage and objects that looks used. A lot of them were inherited from my grandmother,' said Han. There are also vintage espresso cups belonging to her mother.
Guests close enough for a tour upstairs often marvel at the peach-coloured walls tracing the round void of the stair core on the second storey. The shade was chosen to match the terracotta downstairs. 'Since it's the kids' area, I wanted it to be more vibrant, yet still in keeping with the Italian language. It was really hard to arrive at that colour,' said Han.
The library and doors to bedrooms encircle this void. One of the doors leads to the couple's suite in the attic that has a dedicated bar area.. 'We spend a lot of time here in the evenings,' said Lee. For the space, Shang was inspired by Italian architect Piero Portaluppi's classic Milanese modernist interiors. Rather than downplay the quirk of the slanted ceiling, he celebrated it with rich polished green stucco plaster.
I asked the couple what a normal day is like in this home after the children have returned from school. 'We have the kids at the playground, then have dinner, and then reading time in the library. Then they will go off and get ready for bed. Usually, I will do a little more work at home, a bit of reading, listening to music, then a nightcap and go to sleep early before 11pm,' narrated Lee. Han mused: 'We sound like old people.'
Clearly, family life is given serious attention. But so too is fun with friends – such is the couple's joie de vivre attitude to life. 'When we entertain friends, we invite them to the living room first with a glass of champagne to start before dinner. Then we all move to the kitchen where I cook and entertain simultaneously,' shared Han. 'Afterwards, we continue to the upstairs bar with a digestif or two. It always ends up in a small house party with endless songs and drinks through the night.'
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