Simon McGrath, chief operating officer of French hotel chain Accor, oversees more than 210 Australian hotels and more than 10,000 staff. He and his sports teacher wife, Jules, have nine children between them — seven of them boys.

The couple redeveloped a 1955-built house in the Sydney suburb of North Manly, which overlooks the Manly Lagoon, four years ago.

It is now a sprawling eight-bedder with swimming pool and plenty of deck space so the children, whose ages range from 11 to 21, have sufficient space to entertain their friends.

For McGrath, the hub of the five-bathroom house, which he describes as architect-designed in the “modern Hamptons style”, is the open kitchen and dining table, which seats up to 14.

“What I love is everybody has to enter through the open kitchen, which is the centre of the house,” McGrath says.

“The heartbeat of the house is the kitchen. People can sit at stools, it’s incredibly social, we have a lot of friends. The concept was two families coming together. We wanted the teenagers’ friends to feel welcome — that is why we put the pool in and that’s why there are two decks. It’s beautiful … it works pretty well all year round, and we even put heating in the deck area.”

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The sprawling double-storey house is decorated in contemporary coastal style replete with colourful paintings, while outside there’s a huge trampoline.

“We have a sauna, boxing bag, weights, rowing machine, stationery bike, which the whole family enjoys using,” he says.

McGrath’s day starts at 5am when he reads the emails sent overnight from his Parisian masters and exercises. “I do some running or gym.”

He leaves the house by 7am for the long drive south into the Sydney CBD.

McGrath is the top Australian representative for Accor, and his job involves a mix of marketing and finance as well as human resources and dealing with myriad people, including property developers.

“Relationships are very important to us at Accor, particularly with the government and investors,’’ he says. “Inevitably there’s a lunch or a dinner with people most days of the week. And we try to get to every one of the 210 hotels every year. We want to see the products and people, and drive growth in new development.”

McGrath travels to Singapore once a quarter and Paris twice a year.

“We are so happy,” he says. “We wanted a house that was social for our children; even at night when you come home it’s really rich with life. We love cooking for lots of people; on Sunday nights we always have a family dinner.

“If Jules and I had a hobby it would be our family and our children — that is our hobby.”