Journey

I grew up in Mount Eliza on the Mornington Peninsula, at Toorak College, in a world that had nothing to do with Bali, hotels, or any of what came after. My career started in interior design, then drifted into fashion and magazines, a run of roles that took me through Designers Guild in London, Esprit and Style Counsel in Melbourne, King Enterprises, Witchery, and eventually three and a half years as the Melbourne Editor of Harper’s Bazaar, with features in Forbes along the way. Looking back, it was never one straight line, more a series of jobs that each taught me something I didn’t know I’d need later: an eye for design, a feel for what people actually want, and the stamina to keep showing up.

I met my husband, Ian, and together we bought and ran the Albany Hotel in South Yarra for almost fifteen years. That’s where hospitality really got under my skin, not the glossy version, the real one: early mornings, difficult guests, the satisfaction of a room done properly. In 2012 we moved to Bali with our two sons, chasing something slower and warmer than Melbourne winters. Ian passed away in 2016, after a long battle with cancer. It was the hardest thing I’ve been through. Not long after, I joined The Real Housewives of Melbourne, an unplanned but welcome distraction at a time I badly needed one.

In 2017 I opened Bloomfield Bali, a boutique retreat in Umalas, and I’ve been building on it ever since, room by room, guest by guest. After 43 years coming to and eventually living on this island, the hotel also launched Bloomfield Bali Concierge, working with the best people in Bali to deliver corporate retreats, executive transport and bespoke itineraries for guests who want the island done properly, not the version you get from a tourist brochure.

These days I live in Bali full time with my mum, who’s 85 and sharper than most of us, and my two sons when they’re not off doing their own thing. Nico is an international DJ, touring as Nico Bloom — nicobloom.co. Jules is a surfer at heart, usually somewhere in the water with a camera in hand. Between the three generations under one roof, it’s rarely quiet, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Somewhere in between running the hotel and keeping up with my family, I’ve been sharing my dad’s memoir, the one he wrote before he passed, a project that means more to me than almost anything else, and slowly working up the courage to write my own to sit alongside it.