When a Sydney couple buy a colonial cottage in one of Australia's most protected heritage areas, they get more than they bargained for. How will they transform a home from the 19th century into a family home for the 21st?
Hmm? Looks like season 3 started and ended on the same note - the multi-million dollar Sydney Rocks real estate bubble that defines the aspirations of the Emerald City as a place where rich people chuck out poor people and turn their ghastly working class tenements into fabulous trophy homes. here on iview
Fashion is fickle, including the fashion for what style of house or what neighbourhood is desirable. The Rocks has been through many phases of being in and out of fashion. From a desirable place for the Cadigal people rich in resources, to the realm of convicts, then the lofty parcels of merchants and mariners, slums and social housing, developers (thwarted) opportunities, to some of the most desirable and expensive domestic real estate in Australia.
While the Rocks archaeology projects, including the Big Dig, which was featured in the show, focussed on the working class and slum neighbourhoods, sections of Millers Point contained affluent enclaves, with Argyle and Lower Fort Streets known as 'Quality Row'.
And yet if not for the likes of Jack Mundey and his feared and hated Builders Labourers Federation, the lovely colonial domestic architecture that is so sought after in harbour-side inner Sydney, would have been razed for Seidleresqe concrete minimalism.
Grimes Cottage, was the sixteenth of 293 properties and the main prize of the state government sell-off of public housing at Millers Point, which netted the state government almost $38 million up to 2016. The sell-off was to some extent the result of a Parliamentary Inquiry, but one suspects it was as much a means of moving the housos away from the potentially salubrious Harbour views so more deserving types could move in, and in the end even the much fought Sirius building was sold off.
The sell-off faced significant opposition from the local community, but unlike previous Millers Point auctions there were no protesters. The sale was at the McGrath auction rooms on a Thursday night, so they may have been thwarted by this subterfuge. The proceeds from the auctions in Millers Point and The Rocks were supposed to be used to fund the new supply of public housing, and an argument was even made that private ownership would see better restoration of the historic houses. In the mean time, NSW public housing spend is a pittance compared to what is needed and shows no increase from the supposed earnings from the sell off. Compare the $900 million, most of which is for maintenance and already committed projects, with the Victorian $5.3 Billion recently announced.
Grimes Cottage and its neighbours were first tenanted by the Department of Housing in 1982, and like many government owned residences, received only rudimentary maintenance and repair, and sometimes unsympathetic alteration. It came into Government ownership only because the Sydney Cove Authority had acquired most of the "charming heritage properties" or as it saw them, redundant old buildings ripe for redevelopment, and engaged various bright planners and architects to come up with ideas. Harry Seidler was one of these, and his proposal was a pile of white stripey multi-storey Brutalist tower blocks that covered everything down to the waters edge.
Then of course, Mundy and the BLF instigated the Green Bans and the rocks was saved. (Well there is more to it than this) And if it were not for an incipient heritage movement we may not have even learnt that these old-fashioned run down places were something worth keeping. This very house was where the first murmurs of the Rocks conservation movement began. In 1958 it was repainted in heritage colours by Taubmans who had been encouraged by architect John Fisher and actor/artist Cedric Flower (described as a "flamboyant dresser in corduroy trousers, suede shoes and tie-dyed hessian shirts"), in the first attempt to draw attention to the historic and aesthetic value of the Rocks.
Fisher was head of the Institute of Architects, on the Cumberland County Council Historic Buildings Committee and the Council of the National Trust of Australia (NSW)., and National Trust of NSW honorary architect for two decades. The Grimes Cottage exercise meant Fisher was able to negotiate leases for a number of historic buildings in the rocks so that they would be refurbished and occupied. Various medical societies took them on as now desirable status symbols including Bligh House (later Clyde Bank) and houses in Windmill Street. He was also prominent in the push to establish good design in small houses through the Historic Buildings Committee, he "...enlivened the trust's interest in a small-houses scheme, modelled on the one in Scotland, where the trust bought small, derelict townhouses at risk of demolition and gave them a new lease of life. He also came to the aid of architects who were proposing developments involving heritage items. As the founding chair of the Architectural Advisory Committee, he provided architects with a forum, allowing them to consult with a group of knowledgable architects about their proposals before they had gone too far."
And at the other end of the housing scale, as one part of the architect firm Fisher Lucas, he was commissioned by the State Planning Authority to restore Elizabeth Bay House, which led to the formation of the Historic Houses Trust of NSW in 1980. There could not be a more relevant connection to be made in a show called Restoration Australia, but clearly Fremantle Media do their research on the cheap. There is no mention of this connection, and barely a toot about the battles to save the rocks from avaricious developers.
Originally known as “Grimes Cottage”, this single-storey dwelling was built for George Grimes, a seafaring captain between 1832-33. “Commander of the Barque “Woodlark” George Grimes was incidentally the son of Charles Grimes (1772-1858) who served as Surveyor General, and was the first white person to row up the Yarra River proclaiming a suitable spot for settlement 30 years before Batman.
When the 184-year-old house was sold for $4.23 Million (was this a record per square metre?), lawyer John Schembri and his wife Karen were "expected to undertake a sympathetic restoration and renovation of the rundown property."
As one of the oldest surviving residential buildings in Sydney, Grimes Cottage came "with some of the strictest heritage guidelines of all the former public housing properties". Of course, this is where the dramatic narrative must be pinned when Stuart Harrison and whoever writes his script start to tell the story. In fact we are told many times about how onerous, difficult and problematic the heritage restrictions are, how it comes with the Conservation Management Plan from Hell, and how the creative freedom of the owners can be thwarted by the mere whim of a complaining neighbour, or they will be forced to live in miserable steaming Sydney summers because the council will refuse them an air conditioner.
How come this show has had to present heritage protection measures and conservation policy as such an evil? The show would not exist and the lawyers and developers would not have homes to restore, if it weren't for the past efforts to save these houses from both demolition, and unsympathetic alterations. The council is always presented as the invisible bureaucracy that blocks the honest restorers, but in this case Grimes Cottage is on the State Heritage Register, so one presumes it is a faceless state government bureaucrat causing problems.
This aspect of the show is infuriating. Why do they keep winging about having to preserve a historic house? If they wanted a free for all, they could have bought or built elsewhere free of these restrictions. As a result of this style of production and presentation, Restoration Australia has done little for the cause of historic preservation in Australia.
But what were the restoration issues?
A heritage architect Colin (Israel I think, but again no surnames allowed), and two colour consultants including Australian paint royalty Julie, and then Mary, cannot help Karen decide on a colour scheme for the front joinery and door. She likes a yellow door after rejecting some heritage greens and a puce. But this is where the neighbour complains (an ally of the former housos perhaps). In the end, it just all goes black - door, window frames, shutters, verandah. Colin makes some dig about the fashion for greys so I guess he is proved right.
We even get the archaeologists come to wield their incredible power. Builder Dean seems to have dug up the basement floor, destroying 180 years of archaeological deposit, and is now in fear of getting in trouble He reckoned he burst out laughing and thought someone was pulling his leg. Archaeologists Nadia and Frankie come along and scrapes away any worry, finding not very much it seems. So we head off to the Big dig to see some real archaeology - buttons and pins apparently.
The floors are striped out, the slate roof is stripped off, the render, plaster and paint are stripped away, the timbers are replaced or strengthened, and then all the status finishes come in - the marble tiles, the gaudy wallpapers, the black concrete bath, the modernist light fittings and the Italian bespoke kitchen.
And what's left? The shell is still there, it looks much the same from the outside, it is mostly still standing. But the scraping, replacing, refitting and all that restoration, takes away the layers and patina that let it feel old. At the end of this show we are left feeling it is just a prettier version of the houses on The Block, or any other renovation show. Where historic building fabric manages to come through, it is grudgingly, rather than embrace and celebrate the opportunity to preserve, conserve and restore what is already there.
Never get tired of reading reno projects!
ReplyDeleteWell one thing that comes to my mind together with renos are the stuff and other thing you're stripping of the place. Good thing there are some self storage companies to help us keep it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting article, you seem to very critical of the restoration job on this property but your vision / answer as to how these types of houses should be restored is not very clear — what would you do differently?
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