Our Family

THE SHACK PALACE STORY

Shack Palace is a family owned and run business, founded by Frank & Lorna Macchia and their eldest daughter Samara. 

Frank founded his building design studio over 35 years ago as a new graduate and has since worked on many different projects throughout Australia including restaurants, cafes and wellness centres, however the majority of his work has been designing homes.

Frank’s interest in philosophy and human nature has led him on an ongoing journey of questioning the way we live in our homes, from the design & construction including materials, size and layout, to the rituals in each space that make up our day to day lives. His driving passion is to encourage the creation of homes that inspire a simpler way of living that not only serves us as individuals but better serves the world around us. From this vision, the Shack Palace concept was born.

Our first home design following the Shack Palace philosophies was designed by Frank and built in Noosa in 2017. Designed as a guest home to allow others to experience our vision. You can book your stay in our Noosa guest home here. 

After working with talented artisans on designing and curating pieces for this home, Samara started sourcing pieces for our retail store, which opened in Byron Bay and online in November 2017. Samara continues to manage and curate our store. She also does interior styling for some of Frank’s client homes in collaboration with Frank and his team.

Shack Palace mumma; Lorna who has a background as a sports dietitian, creates our delicious recipes & botanical tea and elixir blends, writes our food blogs, and helps with the sourcing and designing of many of our cooking products for our shop. She also manages the Noosa guest home.

Youngest daughter, Tascha is a personal trainer and runs her own business; Wilda PT Studio. She has also been involved in many aspects of the Shack Palace business since the beginning.

In 2021 Samara’s husband James, and Tascha’s fiancé Christian teamed up to launch their delicious, organic cold drip coffee brand Holy Joe, which is available in our Byron Bay store. 

Since launching Shack Palace, Frank has designed a collection of unique Shack Palace style homes for clients and their own family home in Bangalow which the whole family has been involved in from design to helping with construction & landscaping. 

The Shack Palace retail store outgrew its original space tucked away at the back of the Byron Industrial Estate in late 2018, and is now located in the Habitat precinct (1 Porter Street, Byron Bay) and our product curation continues to grow and develop. 

This is just the beginning! Follow our journey on Instagram, or subscribe to our weekly newsletters here.