A Home Like Alice, Yeperenye Centre, Alice Springs

“A Town Like Alice”, Nevil Shute’s famous novel of Outback life, tells the story of a woman who marries a cattle station ringer and sets up a fashion business to brighten the lives of bush wives like herself. Selling things of beauty for the house, A Home Like Alice continues this famous tradition of “civilising” the Outback, which long ago outgrew the dusty, cowboy stereotype.

“When we go to trade fairs,” says co-owner Suzanne Bitar, “people say, ‘My goodness, do you eat off plates in Alice Springs?’ They do not realise that there are some very fine houses here in Alice and sophisticated people with high disposable incomes wanting to decorate them elegantly.”

Suzanne originally came from Canada. She arrived on a passenger ship in 1974 and began working her way around Australia. The wages were low and she was running out of money. She came to Alice Springs because her aunt lived here and took a job in the local ice-cream parlour.

She was about to leave Australia when Fate intervened and she met Harry Bitar, a young Lebanese man who worked in the building industry. They married and planned to live on the east coast but came back to Alice to visit friends and relatives and never left. Alice Springs is like that, a magnetic little town.

Harry worked as a tiler and for a while, Suzanne was his labourer. They founded a successful bathroom fittings and plumbing supplies business called “Taps, Tubs and Tiles.” This was how Suzanne met her business partner, Lynette, because Lynette’s husband Kym was and still is the manager of that firm. Suzanne and Lynette started A Home Like Alice in 1996.

They knew that when clients had built their beautiful homes, they would want accessories. Because they are independent of the chain stores, Suzanne and Lynette are able to offer a range of products to suit local taste and the casual Alice Springs lifestyle. 

At A Home Like Alice, you can buy pretty and useful things for all the rooms in your house. There are also gifts galore and not only for people with permanent homes in Alice. If you are a tourist and tired of the usual souvenirs, visit the shop and check out the Australian-made china or the kangaroo and koala cookie cutters. If you ever do leave Alice, they make great gifts to put in your suitcase and carry home.  

Suzanne Bitar and Lynette St. John

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