Mount Airlie Milton - Restoration Australia Season 4 Episode 3

Host Anthony Burke meets a couple who've bought a huge run-down Victorian mansion in Milton, NSW, and plan to restore its regal beauty and throw open its doors to the local community.

You can watch Scott and Kate Lucas fix up a Victorian Homestead on iview.

Mount Airlie Homestead 34A Woodstock Road, Milton

Mount Airlie as depicted in ‘Sketches in the Ulladulla District, Town and Country Journal, January 20, 1885’.

It is clear by now that this season of RA is not about 'battlers' any more, and yet Burke keeps going on about the financial and personal costs along with the heritage issues. He is still going on about 'original' elements. Since most heritage protection only controls the external appearance, the idea that there would be any real constraint to someone with plenty of money being able to modernise an old building is a bit unrealistic.

The homestead is described in the Shoalhaven Heritage Inventory as being "undoubtedly the finest old home in the district" and is one of about a dozen important 19th century homesteads around Milton, five of which were built by the same stonemason, James Poole. 

An excellent Shoalhaven Heritage Study was undertake by Peter Freeman OAM, which provides context, but only briefly mentions Airlie in reference to its position in the range of architectural styles found in the district and as part of the Milton pastoral landscape.  Freeman's work is often very detailed and well informed, down to analysis of the wallpaper layers in some building. The Victorian-looking wallpaper at Airline is unceremoniously stripped off although it seemed more in character with the historical period of the house than the blank white interiors.

Airlie is on the Local Environment Plan and the NSW Heritage Register (presumably using Freeman's Words), says it is a:

Grand mid-Victorian residence, undoubtedly the finest old home in the Milton district. Notable individual design, derived from Classical and Regency influences. Associated with the Warden family. The work of the distinguished local stonemason James Poole. Survives in excellent condition with well planted garden and fine rural setting as part of the pastoral landscapes of the Milton district.  Local significance (Shoalhaven).

It is also described as:

A large two storey Victorian residence of symmetrical design. The rectangular plan features twin gables with circular louvred gables and there is a gabled rear kitchen wing. Construction is of stone footings and rendered stone walls with tall rendered and decorated chimneys. There is a concave iron verandah to three sides with decorative cast iron columns and stone flagged floor. The verandah is accessed by a low pillared staircase. Windows are arched double hung with matching plaster trims to all openings. Vermiculated quoining to both gables sections to the ground floor. The interior joinery, including fireplaces and stairs, is of cedar. Mature plantings of Norfolk Island Pines and Figs survive from its heyday as a major estate complex.   Modifications: The original shingle roof has been replaced with corrugated iron and the house has been renovated in recent years.

David Warden was the 'big man' of Milton. He arrived in Ulladulla from Scotland around 1837 with brother James, purchased the Mount Airlie estate from the previous, but now deceased big man, Alexander MacLeay, for £640 in 1849 Warden commissioned Sydney architect Mayes to desigh and  renowned local stonemason James Poole to build "Mount Airlie" between 1867 and 1868 (not sure why a stone mason is needed for a rendered brick building, but perhaps he was just a regular builder).  In 1852 Warden became the Post Master, then first patron of the Milton Agricultural and Horticultural Council in 1869 and the first Shoalhaven Council Mayor, serving on the inaugural Council between 1874 and 1877. Warden died in 1885, and the estate was split between four sons passing through the family until it was abandoned for a time. It had been renovated at some stage - probably gaining the corrugated iron roof in place of the 'original' shingles.

Burke calls it a "grand and important house that for decades has languished in disrepair and been closed off from the community". Opening it to the community is the part of the mandatory emotional backstory.

Scott and Kate had previously undertaken restoration projects in Melbourne, so it should all be familiar to them. The Heritage Register citation recommends a Conservation Management Plan be prepared. There was no suggestion in the show that this happened.  We are told that strict heritage rules may dictate what they can and cannot do. 'They’ll need to carefully navigate their way around these limitations. It will require some creative thinking on their part, so they don’t lose what makes Airlie House so unique.' Thats what the CMP is for. It provides the guidance needed to retain and enhance the cultural significance of the place. 

The owners did at least put out a call for old photos to help with their restoration - a commendable effort and entirely consistent with the Burra Charter:

Article 19. Restoration is appropriate only if there is sufficient evidence of an earlier state of the fabric.

Article 20.1 Reconstruction is appropriate only where a place is incomplete through damage or alteration, and only where there is sufficient evidence to reproduce an earlier state of the fabric. 

The only heritage issue raised in the show relates to the brick domed cistern in the courtyard. They have been told by the council heritage person that they have Buckley's chance of removing it. Probably saved them money anyway.   Milton Ulladulla Historical Society members Lyn Merrin and Noel Turnbull are compiling a list domed-beehive wells in the area as of 2013. Burke visits Noel briefly to discuss them. Several examples are shown, which are remarkably similar with their vented tower on top. I suspect there might have been a common hand in their creation. I haven't found the listing but the local paper makes mention. An enquiry to the historical society might be fruitful.

It cost them a bit over a million dollars to buy the place and they planned for restoration costs of $650-700,000 (such a price bracket clearly precludes the program from using the battlers card). Final cost was about $2mill all up.

But of course costs blow out. Why is it the case that cost over-runs are the norm? How come no one, from the small private resto to a multibillion dollar submarine tender can't get the numbers right? Is it because all the contractors and suppliers deliberately under-quote to get the work, knowing they will be able to claim variations due to some 'unforeseen' problem with dry rot or borers or hard to source timbers? Or they blame it on heritage constraints, even though they:

...worked with a heritage consultant, which brings another party into the equation that you've never had to consider before, The heritage consultant is there as the arbiter to say, 'whatever you're doing, it can't damage the fabric of the property (so) that people can't see further down the track what the property originally was'. (sounds like the claw - who decides which little green men will stay and which will go).

Some non essential landscaping, a new drive, and shifting the gates around chewed up a hundred grand. Not sure why though. Perhaps in preparation for a further subdivision?

Lifting the floorboards revealed termites of course. So unexpected.  Except why did they lift the floorboards in the first place? They knew the boards were bouncing, so what did they expect? Scott runs his own business in flooring no less.

Like the previous episodes, the place doesn't look so bad in the 2013 real estate photos - I wonder if they have a 'restoration filter' on their phone camera that hides the cracks and peeling paint.

The outside had already been done before the show start. We didn't get to see this part of the restoration. I imagine it was once bare grey render in imitation or Portland stone.  

A look at the builder's promo on their website suggests this is another tile, splashback and whitegoods-driven lifestyle renovation.  The sandblasted brickwork is a worry too, a throwback to those unfortunate defacements of the 1970s that destroyed the tuckpointed polychrome Hawthorn brick of countless boom period terrace houses. You can tell when bricks were never meant to be seen, because the bricklayer does a shoddy job, using up the short cut-offs and not worrying about the irregular bond pattern or stacked joints.

Another odd bit of misinformation appears when the verandah stonework needs repointing. Burke claims with some confidence that the mortar has shells included in the mix that are 'acting as aggregate'. No!, mortar doesn't need aggregate. The shells are probably residue from burning them to produce lime. Their mortar mix - 4 sand - 1 cement - 1/2 lime, with a handful of shells thrown in, might approximate the appearance of the old mortar, but won't match its strength. Burke redeems himself later, pointing out that the shells (calcium carbonate) were burnt to produce quicklime (calcium oxide), except before it could be used it had to be slaked (i.e. mixed with water and allowed to sit) to produce hydrated lime or lime putty (calcium hydroxide). the one bit of goot restoration advice in the show is thus muddled and useless

Burke seems to be trying to make some sort of statement about status in this episode, making scattered references to prestige, esteem and stature, power and visage surveying the landscape. He described Airlie House to the Ilawarra Mercury as '...a magnificent Regency style home with a great deal of prestige'. The landscape setting is mentioned a few times. It certainly did have a prominent landscape setting, and like many big pastoral properties created from stolen lands, it required an array of servants and indentured labor to make it profitable for the big men. Apart from a glimpse of the former extent in a painted view, we don't really get a sense of what was.

A bit of nearmap browsing turns up a number of nearby ruins, and begs the question, what archaeological evidence was lost either in the demolition of outbuildings and underfloor deposits, or from the extensive landscaping? was there any assessment?

The show raps up with some montages on stripping the kitchen, fixing the creaky stairs, the ensuite through the cupboard and pulling down the shed. I found it all a bit disappointing, and lacking in insight into either the history of the building itself, or the methods of restoration. I complained about the last series that it was Grand Designs meets The Block. this one has given up any pretense of being about restoration.

Just as a reminder, 

Restoration means returning a place to a known earlier state by removing accretions or by reassembling existing elements without the introduction of new material. (Article 1.7)

Maybe the rear shed was an accretion, and leveling the flagstones of the verandah was returning them to a known earlier state, but otherwise, it was just a standard bathroom and kitchen reno.