David Meagher
Mar 10, 2026 – 5.00am
When Thomas Hamel first stepped off the plane in Sydney in 1990, he wasn’t planning to uproot his life. A young interior designer from Virginia (by way of New York and London), he was on holiday at the invitation of friends he had met in Paris. Yet within six months, he had left Manhattan behind for good. What he found in Australia was not just a new home but the foundation for one of the country’s most enduring interior design practices, one that now spans decades, continents and generations of clients.
Hamel recalls that first visit vividly: the balmy warmth of Sydney after a grey New York winter, the sense of possibility that came from being in a new city still defining its own design voice, and the generosity of the people he met. At 25, he was not entirely ready to launch his own design firm, but circumstance – and Sydney’s appetite for fresh perspectives – pushed him forward.
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