Willow Cottage Balmain - Restoration Australia Season 4, Episode 7

Host Anthony Burke meets Martin Nix who is restoring an 1850s workers cottage in Balmain on Sydney Harbour, all while dealing with a recent family tragedy.

Am I getting jaded that a program purported to be about restoring old houses needs a personal tragedy to sell it?  The usual trope for these shows is about the stress on relationships and budgets. But when the people and houses are clearly in the top percentile for wealth and price, the producers need something else to give the show an edge. One wonders what the casting interviews must be like.

The final installment in Renovation Australia is the most expensive property yet. Sold on 2014 for an "outrageous" $2.68 million, $830,000 above the reserve, described as a dump at the time. I guess everyone wants to live on the harbour and only those with the millions to spend can do it.

A couple of years later, still dilapidated, it went for $2.9 million with "awe-inspiring views across the water to the Harbour Bridge and Barangaroo" and approved architectural plans designed to completely renovate the home, include a pool and provide for a stunning transformation into a sought-after family residence. And then again for $2,95 million. Sydney houses are more like Bitcoin than places to live. 

Martin Nix has another $1.3 million to put into the reno, and has engaged Chris from CKJ Builders, who has the experience, both in careful restoration and high end new builds. We are told Mr Nix understands and appreciates buildings because he heads a construction survey company. Then Burke pipes in with his usual warnings of 'stringent heritage controls', 'onerous heritage restrictions' and an 'extreme' historic overlay, as if the council or NSW Heritage Office are some kind of Spanish Inquisition intent on torturing prospective renovators. Burke also claims that 'heritage restrictions mean knocking down original walls isn't an option', and yet the first we see of the interior is a building with most of the internal structure and lining already removed. 

There is plenty of evidence that the heritage values of the site warrant protecting the fabric, including a well-preserved timber shingle roof and very rare brick nogging in the walls. In a strange detail of doubtful heritage administration there is apparently no heritage overlay on the windows. 

The language Burke uses only perpetuates an attitude that heritage is a bad thing that gets in the way of people's right to enjoy their own property. And yet without the regulations there would be no heritage buildings to restore and no Restoration Australia.

Planning approvals can be sourced on-line these days, and browsing them shows that they might have included a range of conditions including deletion of the proposed basement. The Council report states:

Council’s Heritage Advisor has advised that every care should be taken to retain the remaining fabric of this outbuilding and maintain its structural integrity, with any reconstruction maintaining legibility between the old and new sections of the wall to allow interpretation of old fabric and guide future changes to the outbuilding. Visibility to the timber levelling plates embedded in the brick wall must be retained. Different finishes must be used in the addition, to that used in the outbuilding to enable the interpretation of this early construction technique. The modification will be conditioned accordingly to ensure that the elevation drawings are consistent with the floor plans. 

Further to the above, in the event of any approved excavation, a condition of consent for unexpected findings will be necessary.

 There certainly looks like archaeological potential on the site. another condition of their permit was:

Condition 57A of the DA states. "If unexpected archaeological deposits or Aboriginal objects are found during the works covered by this approval, work must cease in the affected area(s) and the Department of Premier, Cabinet and Heritage must be notified through the Environment Line. Additional assessment and approval pursuant to the National Parks and Wildlife Act 1974 may be required prior to works continuing in the affected area(s) based on the nature of the discovery. Council’s Aboriginal Liaison officer is also to be notified.

There was mention of archaeology in the show, despite some treasure hunting banter about old bottles, newspapers and marbles. An underfloor deposit of rubble suggest some potential and a nice section of humic soil over the bedrock is revealed for the pool.

Historian Mark Dunn has a brief cameo to set the scene and remind us of the industrial origins and working class credibility that once came from doing a Balmain renovation. Shame he didn't mention the most famous Balmain boy.

The Leichart historical journal offers the following:

WILLIAM JAMES: The land adjoining the park was owned by William James who combined property development with the trade of woolsorter. He bought the land in 1853 from Griffiths and Fanning and built two houses (Willow Cottages, 1-3 James Lane) facing the water. After his death in 1882 his widow, Jane, who lived in one of the cottages sold the land on Darling Street to a builder, John Dobbie, in 1884. He built a row of six houses which he called Plym Terrace. Marching down to Thornton Park, each house in the terrace has two storeys above the street with a basement opening on to a sunken area. Built of brick and surfaced with stucco, Plym Terrace inevitably suffered later unsympathetic improvements. In Darling Street on the high side of the lane that took his name, William James built Devonshire Cottage in about 1860. Joshua George, one of Balmain's watermen lived there from 1860 until his death in 1884. His widow, Isabella, lived on there until she died in 1912. The cottage is now the nucleus of 33 Darling Street. Next door was another small cottage (now demolished), also built by James at about the same time. The cottage became part of the estate of Captain Lewis Truscott of Balmain East.

 There are a few bits of the old house that survive the renovation and can still be seen. The chimney breast sits in the middle of the house, with the walls around it removed.

A patch of the shingles is revealed in the new attic bathroom...

but another slab is cut out for a dormer.

Some brick nogging behind a glass splashback,

a bit of sandstone is left in the basement,

and a feature wall of sandstone is in the bedroom.

A redeeming aspect of the episode is the story told by the Neil about the previous owner Lex Watson, a powerful advocate for gay rights (when Balmain was still a place open to the masses); his parties in the garden and the sad decline of the house and garden when he became sick and died in 2016. Whether intended or not, the 'renovation as therapy' theme seems to permeate the program, as if a person's health and wellbeing was intrinsically tied to the quality of the finishes and fittings in their home.

The garden is gone of course, first the big Jacaranda...

and then everything else except a lonely palm.

I guess there is no room for natural beauty in the balance between heritage and modern lifestyle.

This appears to be the last episode in Season 4. I think I am glad. Working in the heritage field, you learn about and aspire to best practice and try to adhere to the Burra charter. but in the real world, most heritage conservation work is a compromise that is strongly weighted to the fads and fashions of interior decoration and lifestyle aspirations. Few are willing to live in the small, simple accommodation of the nineteenth century despite the essential needs of shelter, warmth and beauty being supplied by the minimum of intervention.