Mr Dan Mitchell has come a long way from Newcastle. But it’s Newcastle that got him to where he is today: padding around his beautiful Brutalist bolthole in Bali. “I owe everything to Newcastle, really,” says the 36-year-old, sun-kissed, yoga-gear-wearing creative, in a Geordie accent that he insists has softened, but is still fully in evidence. “I grew up in a very working-class family and I lived with my grandad, who was sick, which forced me to grow up fast. I was looking after him when I was 10 years old, doing his shopping, getting his army pension. It wasn’t the most conventional upbringing, but it taught me a lot about life.”

Through this lens, it’s impossible to be green-eyed about Mitchell’s divine-looking set-up in Canggu, surrounded by lush greenery, a kilometre from incredible surf and close to a mini cultural hub with a wealth of vegan cafés, galleries and hotels.

Mitchell’s journey to get here has been fuelled by immense hard work, great taste and an uncanny instinct for what’s next. He started out when he was 16 on the shop floor in Newcastle. By 19, he’d moved to London (“It was beg, borrow and steal for my lunch”). Soon after, he was travelling to Milan and Paris, buying Raf Simons, Prada and Gucci for footwear store Post.

He was early to hop on the e-commerce wave, joining pioneering menswear site Oki-Ni, before setting up east London’s first major concept store, LN-CC, with fellow buyer Mr John Skelton. Then in 2010, he bought a plot of land in southeastern Bali in his wife Hilda’s native Indonesia. It’s as if he predicted the lifestyle trend Venn diagram of working from home, off-grid living and sustainability more than a decade ago.

They started building their fantasy home in 2015 and moved here in 2018. The 512sq m house is inspired by three architects: Brazilian Mr Paulo Mendes da Rocha and Indonesian Mr Andra Matin, but mostly the American modernist Mr Ray Kappe, whose open, split-level home in Los Angeles Mitchell once visited and fell in love with.

“As you walked in, you looked down at the living room and you could also see up to his kitchen,” he says. “You had all these different levels that were separated, but still connected. I loved that. That’s what I wanted to do with our house.”

Mitchell worked closely with architectural studio Patisandhika to create a Balinese take on the Kappe residence. “The walls are just glass and there are structural pillars,” he says. “As you walk in, you look up and you can see the library and the music area. I have a yellow box that sticks outside the living room, which is now my studio. And I wanted to try and bring nature indoors, so there are trees growing and plants everywhere. We’ve got this beautiful ecosystem around us.”

Turtles, birds and sometimes 1.5m-long monitor lizards pop in to say hi and, as we talk, Hilda, the children and family pets – Zuma, a Shiba Inu, and George, a rescue dog – flow in and out of the house behind him. The creeping, vibrant vegetation feels like part of the furniture and pops of colour and warm bankirai wood shelving soften the otherwise unsparing structure. A pandan tree planted in the middle of the room provides a gentle zone where Mitchell practises his morning rituals.

“I wake up at 5.00am, meditate, exercise and do some form of learning and reading,” he says. “It’s really peaceful. That’s become a sacred time – when the kids are all in bed and nobody else is around. I’m getting up early, spending time by myself, making space for myself. And it’s beautiful because the kids now join me doing yoga or meditation. They get into it, which is the opposite of my upbringing, when I didn’t know what yoga or meditation were.” Just as Mitchell’s life feels other-planetarily perfect, he grounds his conversation with a reminder of his roots.

Although they’ve been in the house for nearly four years, it is only recently that Mitchell has truly been able to enjoy the space. When he moved to Bali, he intended to give up work, be self-sufficient and live off the land, but almost immediately he was offered a job as creative director of Desa Potato Head, the island’s most famous hotel and “destination for good times”.

After years of late nights and early mornings and a new post-pandemic outlook, Mitchell gave up the role early last year. “It was amazing, but I wasn’t making space for myself,” he says. “I was just overworked and not really spending much time with the family. The pandemic forced me to be at home, so I’m blessed to be able to finally enjoy what we’ve created.”

With time to reassess, he set up Space Available, a sustainability and circularity-focused studio that consults for brands that are already embracing eco practices but need to modernise their messaging.

“I was searching for something,” he says. “I was looking more at spirituality, started going to meditation and began looking into the more natural side of things. That’s when I started exploring trying to live more sustainably. We’ve had a period of reflection and are working out how we can try and instigate some change in the world. On a personal level, it was the right time to do this and, on an environmental level, I thought, the whole world has stopped and, in these times of disruption, big ideas can grow.”

It’s this sustainable approach that Mitchell already had in mind when he started building the house. In his early twenties, with “high ambitions and a low budget” for building the LN-CC store in Dalston, he teamed up with set designer Mr Gary Card, who helped him realise how he could create an inspiring space using mostly found materials.

Since then, he’s been more conscious of low-impact ways to build, but admits it isn’t easy. “With the house, we wanted to do something that was mega sustainable and made of bamboo and ground earth, but unfortunately the technology just wasn’t here in Bali at that time, so we thought, OK, let’s stick to minimal materials with concrete and wood and keep the energy down,” he says.

The space was created to encourage air circulation to negate the need for air conditioning, has concrete brise-soleils to protect the windows from the sun, recycles rainwater and uses solar panels to provide energy.

Mitchell is finally getting around to cultivating his own food, too, with aubergines, chilies, spinach and lettuce all flourishing in his garden. “When I came to Bali, my goal was to grow vegetables and never get a job,” he says. “And as soon as I got here, I got a job. I didn’t end up growing the vegetables, although I finally have during the pandemic. It only took me eight years.

“We’re getting back to nature, learning about regenerative cultures, living more sustainably. Bali is very much the lifestyle I wanted to live.”