A Barn in England. A Warehouse in Detroit. A Villa in Bali.

Every Corner Told A Story.

This is a story about:

• A four-hundred-year-old barn built from the timber of a ship

• A warehouse on Woodward Avenue in Detroit

• A villa in Bali that somehow became both of them

• The people who made it possible

• And what happens when the dots finally connect

The Barn

I moved into the barn when I was ten years old.

It was four hundred years old, and the roof structure was built from the timber of a ship. Massive beams that had crossed oceans long before they became the ceiling above my childhood home.

You could feel the history in every corner

• The weight of the walls

• The texture of the brick

• The scale of the space

I lived there until I was twenty-one.

Looking back, the barn did something to me.

It instilled a love of architecture.

• Of character

• Of history

• Of spaces that tell stories

But my strongest memories aren't of the building itself.

They're of the people inside it.

My parents were incredibly social and the house was constantly full of people.

Fifty wasn't unusual.

Everyone gathered beneath the enormous ceiling and around the galleried landing above.

• Roger would sit at the piano

• People would sing

• Conversation would flow

• Music filled the space bringing everyone together

The barn didn't just give me a place to grow up.

It gave me a way of seeing.

And I would carry that feeling with me for the next thirty years.

Detroit

After selling our first villa project in Bali, Sara and I decided it was time for a change.

The obvious next step was Detroit.

At least, it seemed obvious to us.

Most people raised an eyebrow.

Detroit had a reputation.

What we found was something completely remarkable.

A city being rebuilt by people who had endured the harder decades before we arrived.

• Warehouses becoming lofts

• Old buildings finding new purpose

• Artists, entrepreneurs and creators turning empty spaces into something extraordinary

We moved into Kirby Center Lofts, a converted Hebrew school built in 1922.

Like so many buildings in Detroit, it had been given a second life.

The story of Detroit wasn't lost on me.

We were enjoying parts of the city's rebirth while many others had lived through the difficult years that came before.

• That inspired me

• And it humbled me

I didn't realise it at the time, but Detroit was already influencing the way I thought about design.

The warehouses fascinated me.

• The brick

• The steel

• The concrete

• The oversized windows

The stories those buildings seemed to tell simply by existing.

But as much as I loved the architecture, it was the people who left the biggest mark.

One of the first people we met was an electrician named Neil.

We got chatting while he was finishing some work in our apartment.

He noticed a guitar and asked if we were musicians.

I explained that Sara was actually a pianist. Because we moved around so much, we rarely had room for a piano. The guitar was my attempt to solve that problem, but she never plays it ... because she's a pianist.

We laughed about it and thought nothing more of the conversation.

The next day we came home to find a keyboard leaning against our apartment door.

Attached was a note.

"No musician should be without their instrument."

It was from Neil.

The following day we returned home to find a keyboard stand.

Another note.

"Sorry. I forgot the stand."

To this day, I still think that's one of the kindest things a near stranger has ever done for us.

Detroit had a habit of rewarding curiosity.

One Labour Day, my parents were visiting from New Zealand when I discovered Bill Clinton was leading the annual parade while campaigning for Hillary Clinton.

"Let's go meet Bill Clinton," I announced.

It seemed unlikely.

Twenty minutes later I was shaking his hand.

Whether you agreed with his politics or not was beside the point.

I had just met someone who had genuinely shaped history.

As we walked away, Sara looked at me.

"You're about to cry, aren't you?"

She wasn't entirely wrong.

There was something about the moment that moved me.

Not because it was Bill Clinton.

Because it was one of those rare moments where history suddenly becomes real.

Detroit had a habit of producing moments like that.

Long before I realised it, the city was influencing something we were about to build on the other side of the world.

The Warehouse Drive

Before moving to Detroit, Sara and I had bought more land in Bali.

The plan was to build again.

Sara needed to prepare the architectural drawings for the builder.

Characteristically, she started with a pencil, a ruler and a blank sheet of paper, mapping the shape of the land and working out the available build space.

She needed one thing from me ... what the villa was going to look like.

"What do you want it to look like?" she asked.

I thought about it for a moment.

"Let's get in the car."

A few minutes later we were driving up Woodward Avenue.

• Past warehouses

• Past converted factories

• Past buildings that had already lived several lives

The sorts of buildings that had fascinated me from the moment we arrived in Detroit.

Then I pulled over in front of a huge industrial warehouse.

"That," I said.

Sara looked at the building.

"Which bit?" she asked

"All of it." I said

She looked at me the way she sometimes does.

"What do you mean, all of it?"

So, I started explaining.

• The exposed brick

• The steel windows

• The concrete pillars

• The scale

• The confidence

The more I talked, the more I realised I wasn't really describing a warehouse.

Sara wanted details, I was describing a feeling.

I wanted:

• The warmth and character of the old barn I had grown up in

• The brick, steel and concrete of Detroit

• The history

• The authenticity

The sense that a building could have a story before you even walked inside it.

Then I thought about the barn.

"The ceiling needs to be nine metres high," I said.

"With a galleried landing."

Sara nodded.

I could already see her thinking.

"You need to be able to stand on the second floor and look down into the heart of the building or up to the top of the ceiling."

Like the barn.

Like all those evenings growing up with people gathered below and music filling the space.

The galleried landing wasn't just architecture.

It was memory.

That was how it always worked between us.

I tended to focus on vision.

• Story

• Experience

• How something should feel

Sara focused on the things that actually make projects possible.

• The dimensions

• The layouts

• The drawings

• The details

The thousands of practical considerations that turn ideas into reality.

Without the warehouse drive, the vision stays in my head.

Without Sara, the warehouse stays on Woodward Avenue.

Instead, something remarkable happened.

• A feeling became a sketch

• A sketch became a drawing

• A drawing became a building

And once the plans existed, other people could join the journey.

• The builder

• The furniture makers

• The artists

• The painter

The countless craftspeople who would eventually help bring the vision to life.

The project didn't start when the first concrete was poured.

It started on a street in Detroit.

Standing in front of a warehouse.

Trying to explain a feeling.

The People Who Built The Vision

The first call was easy.

There was only one builder we wanted.

Made.

Trust had already been earned.

Not because everything had gone smoothly on our first project together.

Quite the opposite.

There had been challenges.

Some were theirs.

Many were ours.

But we worked through them.

We learnt from them.

And somewhere along the way, a business relationship became a friendship.

Made was one of those rare people who immediately put others at ease.

• Warm

• Genuine

• Funny

• Generous

• Occasionally ridiculous

• And incredibly knowledgeable

He held a PhD in Structural Engineering from Michigan University and lectured at a university in Bali and was one of the most down-to-earth people I've ever met.

That Made and Putu had lived in Detroit while he completed his studies made the relationship even more remarkable.

Years later, when an Australian couple arrived in Bali wanting to build a villa inspired by Detroit warehouses, he understood the reference in a way most builders simply wouldn't have.

The villa was inspired by Detroit. Designed while we were living in Detroit. Built in Bali. By an Indonesian builder who had once lived in Detroit. At some point the dots stop looking random.

If Made was the personality people noticed first, his wife Putu, was often the quiet force beside him.

• Warm

• Welcoming

• Steady

She had a habit of standing slightly in the background laughing at Made's latest idea.

Not critically.

In the way of someone who had seen this movie many times before and loved it every time.

One day Made invited us to his nephew's wedding as he thought we'd appreciate the cultural experience.

When we arrived, I spotted someone I recognised across the room and wandered over to say hello.

We had a warm conversation before Made appeared at my shoulder looking genuinely confused.

"How do you know each other?"

I explained that we'd met while sourcing furniture for one of our projects.

Made stared at me.

"Andrew. That is the mother of the groom."

Only in Bali!

Made and Putu were at the centre of the project.

But they weren't alone.

There was Putri.

A remarkable furniture maker running a warehouse in the back streets of Bali who somehow managed to turn sketches, photos and the occasional napkin drawing into beautiful furniture built from reclaimed timber and steel.

There was Edy.

Our painter.

• Quiet

• Shy

• Methodical

• One wall at a time

• One beam at a time

• One brushstroke at a time

Bit by bit he brought the entire place to life.

One day he turned up wearing a Sisley t-shirt.

I still laugh when I think about that.

Then there were Asep and Didi.

Two brothers we met through an art gallery in Bali.

We wanted artwork that told stories.

What they created was astonishing.

Some nights I would still be on site at midnight and they'd be there too, quietly transforming blank walls into something extraordinary.

Watching them work felt a little like watching magic.

Looking back now, I realise something important.

Every one of these people brought different skills.

Different experiences, different talents.

But they all had one thing in common ... They cared.

The Final 5%

By the time I arrived back in Bali, the villa was largely built.

• The concrete had been poured

• The steel had been installed

• The walls were standing

From a construction perspective, most people would probably have considered the project complete.

I didn't.

There was still one final stage.

Turning a construction site into an experience.

For the next month, I lived on site.

• Twelve-hour days, sometimes fourteen

• Inspecting details

• Solving problems

• Coordinating deliveries

• Reviewing artwork

• Adjusting finishes

Making hundreds of small decisions that most people would never notice.

Which is precisely why they mattered.

One by one, the pieces started arriving.

• Furniture

• Artwork

• Lighting

• Decor

Everything had been designed specifically for the project.

• Nothing had come from a catalogue

• Nothing had been selected because it was convenient

• Every piece had a story behind it

One of my favourite examples was the dining chairs.

Over the years, I had developed an unexpected fascination with chairs.

Travelling exposes you to thousands of them.

Many restaurants have one hundred identical chairs.

Others have collections.

• Different shapes

• Different histories

• Different personalities

• Mismatched

Yet somehow perfect together.

I loved that idea.

For our dining table, however, the chairs needed to work physically as a set.

So I came up with a compromise.

• Six identical handcrafted timber chairs

• Grouped in pairs

• Each pair a different shade of green

• Distinct

• But connected

• Individual

• But belonging together

I tried explaining the concept in my best Bahasa Indonesia.

A broken, optimistic and probably baffling conversation.

I left thinking there was absolutely no way this was going to work.

Weeks later the chairs arrived.

• Six chairs

• Three shades of green

• In pairs

• Perfect

Every time I looked at them, I smiled.

Sometimes trust begins as a broken conversation in a language you don't fully speak and ends with something better than you imagined.

The chairs weren't the only moment like that.

Every day another piece arrived.

Another story found its place.

The giant dining table.

Three metres long.

Built from reclaimed timber.

Massive.

Beautiful.

It took a small army of people to carry it into the villa.

Watching it finally settle into place felt like watching another piece of the vision click into position.

At the same time, Asep and Didi were still working on the artwork.

Walls that had previously been blank were gradually transformed into something unique.

• Murals

• Paintings

• Stories

Meanwhile Edy was still quietly moving around the property, adding final touches only he seemed capable of seeing.

Every day the villa felt a little different.

• A little warmer

• A little more complete

• A little more alive

Eventually the tools disappeared.

The dust disappeared.

The construction site disappeared.

And what remained was something entirely different.

Sara and I then lived in the villa for about four weeks.

It was perfect.

Most mornings followed a similar pattern.

We'd slide open the doors.

Walk out onto the pool deck.

And dive into the fourteen-metre pool.

Then I'd turn around and look back at the villa.

And every single time I did, I saw two images.

The warehouse on Woodward Avenue.

And the finished villa standing in front of me.

• The inspiration

• And the result

• The idea

• And the reality

Standing in that pool, looking back at what we had created, was the moment it really hit me.

• Not the completion date

• Not the final inspection

• Not the furniture deliveries

That moment.

Looking at the finished villa and realising that somehow the thing we had imagined while standing on a street in Detroit now existed on the other side of the world.

• Nine-metre ceilings

• A galleried landing looking down into the heart of the villa

• Exposed brick

• Steel

• Concrete

• Handmade furniture

• Bespoke artwork

• Stories everywhere

Everywhere I looked there was another connection.

• Another memory

• Another person

• Another story

Every corner told a story. And I knew every single one of them.

Looking Back

The funny thing is, we probably didn't appreciate it as much as we should have at the time.

• We celebrated

• We enjoyed it

• We lived there for a month

Then, like we always seem to do, we started thinking about the next project.

• The next challenge

• The next adventure

That's probably one of the strengths and weaknesses of entrepreneurship.

You spend months, sometimes years, building something.

Then the moment arrives.

You achieve what you set out to achieve.

And before you've fully absorbed it, your attention starts drifting towards whatever comes next.

Looking back now, I see it differently.

People see the architecture.

What they don't see are the people behind it.

• Sara

• Made

• Putu

• Putri

• Edy

• Asep

• Didi

• The countless conversations

• The years of relationships

• The trust

• The generosity

• The experiences

The dots that somehow connected.

The villa may have been built in Bali.

But pieces of it came from everywhere.

• A four hundred year old barn in England

• A warehouse on Woodward Avenue in Detroit

• The back streets of Bali

And the remarkable people we met along the way.

The extraordinary thing wasn't that we built a villa.

The extraordinary thing was how many people contributed to it.

We were connecting dots.

• Dots scattered across decades

• Across countries

• Across cultures

• A barn in England

• A warehouse in Detroit

• The back streets of Bali

• Friends

• Family

• Builders

• Artists

• Craftspeople

• Dreamers

Each one leaving a mark.

Each one adding something.

Until eventually those dots became a place.

A place that told the story of all the people who helped create it.

The villa was simply where the dots met.

About Connect Business Academy

Looking back, one of the reasons this project means so much to me is that it reinforced something I've seen repeatedly throughout my career.

Great things are built by people.

People with different skills.

Different experiences.

Different perspectives.

A shared vision.

Success is usually less about the project itself and more about the people behind it.

That's a belief that sits at the heart of Connect Business Academy and the leadership, business and entrepreneurship qualifications we deliver.

Our nationally recognised courses are designed to help people develop the practical skills, confidence and capability to turn ideas into reality, lead others effectively and make a meaningful contribution wherever their career takes them.

Entrepreneurship

BSB40320 Certificate IV in Entrepreneurship and New Business

Leadership & Management

BSB50420 Diploma of Leadership and Management
BSB40520 Certificate IV in Leadership and Management

Business

BSB50120 Diploma of Business
BSB40120 Certificate IV in Business

Looking to accelerate your growth?

Double Diploma of Business + Leadership and Management

— Andrew Sisley
CEO & Head Trainer
Connect Business Academy