| When Mel and Jack buy a derelict old Queenslander for $21,000 and move it to their land in Noosa it seems they've scored the bargain of the century, or at least a century old bargain. |
There I was thinking this frustrating and infuriation program had finished and then I see there was another episode. And then another one I haven't seen as well. So as a completeist, I guess I should consider these too. Perhaps the show might still redeem itself.
Harrison begins by pointing out the obvious. The Queenslander is the quintessential, characteristic authentic true blue bonza beauty Australian historic architectural icon. Fair enough.
To recap, the form comprises mostly timber residential buildings with the decorative timber fretwork, wrap-around verandahs, set high on tall stumps to provide underfloor ventilation and protect the main structure from white ants (using tin ant caps). Another element adapted to a hot climate is the exposed frame and absence of lining. The single skin allowed the building to cool down at night and the gappy floorboards and high stance allowed air circulation, but it makes air conditioning practically useless.
$21,000 to purchase it and another $100,000 to have it cut in half, transported a couple of hours away to the farm and stuck back together on new stumps was the initial cost and the couple gave themselves a budget of another $100000 to do everything else including basic septic, power and all the repairs. Its a bargain for what has become a rare collectible.
Inner Brisbane houses in derelict condition have been selling for million dollar prices for years and the fashion for Federation and Edwardian weatherboard houses has become a regional status symbol.
It would seem that chopping them up and shifting them to another site is a standard way of 'conserving' historic Queenslanders.
Years ago we dropped into the collection of relocated historic buildings at Caboolture Historic Village where we asked the information person where we could visit well preserved historic towns nearby, only to be told "we dont do heritage in Queensland".
Smaller timber houses in country towns and farms have always been a bit mobile. Demographic changes, shifting industries like mining and saw milling, and redevelopment of old residential areas, have seen houses follow employment around the country.
Harison is concerned that the restoration doesn't "make a mockery of the old building". He thinks replacing termite-eaten wall boards and the decayed fretwork brackets (even with like for like) "chips away from its old soul, not just the way it looks but the way it feels". Well he didn't have such qualms when the millionaires gutted their Miller's Point palaces.
The show tries to create drama and urgency by inventing deadlines. But this is Queensland. Things take a while and there is no rush.
Makes me wonder what the owners get out of the show. Is it just ego or narcissism. Melissa did credit the show with spurring them on to complete the building. She is given credit for historical sleuthing that led to finding the family of the original owner and builder Henry (Heinrich) Frederick Lindenmayer known as "H F".
As well as a 1941 penny found under the boards that survived the trip down from Binjour, under the lino they found old letters from Lindenmayer.
Somewhere along the way they also found Stanley and Hilda Opperman at their Binjour corner store, a museum piece in itself, complete with its collection of old tins. Stanley's grandfather and great grandfather helped build it and his dad was born in the house with the help of midwife Mrs Bertie Lindenmayer.
The Binjour Plateau was settled by German immigrants in 1909 who were encouraged to emigrate to Australia by the Apostolic Pastor H F Niemeyer, as part of his efforts to establish the Apostolic Church community in Queensland. Much of the population derived from closer settlement schemes that began in 1918, and despite the preference for soldier settlement and suggestions that German settlers were interred as enemy aliens during the war, Lindenmayer obtained one of the settler blocks.
Lindenmayer's property was called Euroa, a cattle stud of some note producing prize bulls such as " Euroa Zane Grey 2". H F was the big man of the town, sitting on the various council, cotton and dairy boards and prize winner with his AIS (Australian Illawarra Shorthorn) cattle. So the claim that this was a simple unpretentious house might be a little unfounded.
It was later "Norris's place" Frederick Norris passed away in 2014, leaving scattered family in the Binjour-Munduberra area and a Norris Corner Road to remember hi by, and a fleeting reference to a house now hours away that was once his home.
Some other myths are related by the Oppermans; that it reflects German traditional building style, such as the cross bracing and steep roof (for the snow?), and that they built the single skin to save money but would line it when they could afford to.
Harrison also drops comments a few times about the painted vj boards. It seems having exhausted his architectural terminology early on in the episode the 'V' jointed vertical lining boards are all he has left to show off his expertise. Despite a richness of endemic Australian vernacular building styles, we have only an impoverished vocabulary to describe and analyse them. Yet this house in particular has such unusual features compared to any modern building and most of the southern vernacular. A glimpse of the circular saw blade sign to the town entrance and a later visit to the timber mill provide some unstated explanation for the extensive and almost complete use of timber in the house, since this was a significant timber cutting and milling area - although the original location at Binjour was perhaps not so heavily timbered originally.
It is only in the last minutes of the show that we see much progress, and by this time Covid19 lockdown has prevented the host from making another visit. So when the film crew captures the finished restoration Mel and Jack are left to show us around on their own. Despite a little hammy reality show acting for the camera, their enthusiasm for the project comes through at last.
They couldn't do a timber floor in the bathroom because of building codes as Harrison proclaimed a little earlier, so they end up with an open tiled area at the end of the closed in back verandahs. I actually don't think they were too bothered about building codes considering the other design quirks of the house.
A lot of the termite chewed boards were replaced and a picture window (as they were once called) is set in the kitchen wall to give them the same lovely view they had in their shed. Not a bad result.
Two elements were missing from the episode. There was really no money/time blow-out drama and no feared heritage advisor or council officer. And it was better for it.
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