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.

The Lawns Kyneton Restoration Australia Season 4 Episode 6

Host Anthony Burke meets a couple who have purchased one of the most significant buildings in the historic town of Kyneton, Victoria.

Watch on iview

With much of the restoration work happening without the cameras present, Burke's narrative is reduced to a holiday travelogue rabbiting on about Kyneton as the picturesque day trip destination of cafes and bric-a-brac. We get more than the usual driving montages with introductions, recaps, summaries and "how will they ballance accurate heritage with modern lifestyle" platitudes. We get a glimpse of the poor Kyneton hospital during his drive around Shannon' s home town. It is derelict and fenced off. Will that ever get revived? There is even a token first nations interlude to mention Mt William Greenstone in the same segment as Kyneton bluestone.

The scripting for all four seasons of Restoration Australia has been uniformly pedestrian. Either the three hosts so far have been evenly matched in their inadequacy for the job of making up their own words, or there has been a consistent bad writer  banging away at the word processor. Whoever is responsible, we miss out on the depth of history that can be revealed in the fabric of old buildings or an appreciation of how that historic fabric influences and enriches our lives.

The Lawns is described as "one of the oldest and most notable surviving Victorian Manor houses of its era, in Australia" and "one of the last freestanding ornate timber buildings from the late 1800s in the area." This seems firstly an unnecessary superlative and unlikely to be true, and the second part a series of qualifications that suggest Burke doesn't really know why it is important. "Manor house" is not a particularly Australian house type, generally confined to the snobbier kind of bed and breakfast, new housing estate, or McMansion. There are far more notable historic buildings named "Manor House" in Lilydale, Hamilton and Bacchus Marsh.

The Lawns is a reasonably attractive Victorian gabled timber house possibly a bit neo gothic but definitely not Georgian. It has a couple of refinement in plaster decoration and joinery but the unusual aspect is its odd floor plan and a wide off-centre facade with mismatched gables at each end. Behind is a fairly standard Victorian double hipped four square centre hall layout. It looks like an addition to make a status statement.

We learn about the original owner's business and horse racing activities from local historial Larina Stauch, and joint author of a wonderful new Kyneton pictorial history. No.69 Wedge Street was built around 1871 for local brewer, Robert Cock, son of South Australian pioneer Robert Cock (also a brewer at Mt. Gambier) who was notable among other things for paying rent to traditional Aboriginal owners.

Robert senior died in 1871, so it might be that the son used the inheritance to build himself a new house in Kyneton. Cock had followed on in his father's trade commencing a brewery in Kyneton with partner Johnson by at least 1865. His younger brother James inherited and ran the Mt Gambier brewery. 

A later owner, draper Hugh Rawson MLA may have been responsible for the extensions, including the odd asymmetry and 1920s looking sideways bay window, so he could entertain his constituents and political donors.

By the time Shannon and Liza Boyers forked out the $1.6 million for Cock's old house, it could be described as rundown with an overgrown garden, but relatively recent and still online real estate agents photos show a reasonably cared for house. What a difference a couple of years of neglect can make.

The series continues the model now well established of showing well off couples paying capable contractors to do the job right. At least the tradies are getting their proper recognition even though they usually only have first names. Shannon has "scoured the country to find the best, highly skilled tradespeople."

He didn't have to go to such lengths for the most part, as neither paint not internal alteration controls exist in the HO, although tree controls do, so the specialist gardeners were a good idea. Permits were obtained in several stages although Burke is silent on the "trouble with council" trope this time.

We see a repeat of the previous episode's abhorrence of colour, as the Victorianish but probably 1980s wallpapers are stripped and everything goes white. There are plans for some wall knockings out and an "orangerie". But mostly its is restumping, replastering and painting.

Scott McMillan is a Scottish plasterer with extensive  experience in historical restoration using traditional methods on behalf of Historic Scotland. He was brought out to Australia to fill a skills gap in Brisbane and was flown dow specially to do the Kyneton job. Here he sources, mixes and applies horsehair-reinforced solid plaster over renovated battens after stripping off the detached and "drummy" old stuff.

With an Australian offsider Paulie he pulls down the Gyprock plaster board and the water damaged ceiling in the hall. We don't get to see how they get the new plaster to stick above their heads - a task that would seem impossible to anyone taking their reno queues from The Block. 

Stonemason Huntly Barton is one of the few skilled dry stone wallers in Victoria. Conveniently situated at the longstanding Kyneton stonemason WT Jones just up the road. He has responsibly for the OCD sawn stone threshold and edging in the garden since there is neither mortgaged stone in the house or dry stone walls in the garden. A waste of his talents really.

Roland Hiller is woodgrain faux bois painter. He gets to redo the front door, while traditional locksmith Aaron reconditions the carpenter lock, even polishing up the key- possibly a newly made one. It feels like the Boyes are playing up to the cameras with this one. "Performative restoration."

Luke (Sinderberry) from VR Builders uses all the right terms -  "like for like", "period correct", "authentic materials". He knows his stuff.

The women gardeners don't get names but they do have the right terms determining "period specific species" to make the grounds as heritagy as the building. They may be from Ranges Landcare Group, who we see sieving and spreading topsoil  

The wealthy versus battler switch is best represented by the hunt for the right chandelier. Unashamedly referred to as "...a symbol of luxury and social standing emblematic of the upper echelons of society". Shannon was after all a tour guide at Glin Gastle and steward and butler at Government House. The orangerie, which must be the ultimate in conspicuous consumption, is abandoned due to time, money and covid constraints, and instead the 1950s altered outbuildings are restored. This reveals a possible earlier building, perhaps a built in verandah. Have we missed the archaeological assessment?

Burke struggles to make the drama happen. All the stress supposedly created by their commitment to authenticity and detail is dissipated by the calm efficiency of the tradespeople doing all of the actual work.

It is a lovely enchanting house and garden that shows what money can do. $1.6 mill and $600G for restoration without the orangerie. And not a mention of the heritage officer.

Signalman's Cottage Battery Point - Restauration Australia Season 4 Episode 4

Host Anthony Burke meets retired couple David and Mandy who take on the transformation of a hugely significant historic cottage in Hobart, Tasmania.

Watch it on iview

A couple of images of colonial sandstone and timber fretwork held promise for this episode about the former signalman's cottage at 2 Battery Square, Battery Point. Everything at Battery Point sells for a million or two, of five on the waterfront. This place doesn't seem to have been on the market for a while, so presumably the long term owners are doing an upgrade.

We even get shown some flaking render and serious timber damage that cries out for a careful repair.

It soon transpires that restoration is even a greater misnomer this time round, since the first thing they do is demolish a sizable part of the house to make way for a big modern architecturing extension. Sort of like the big glassed family room at the back of the terrace house, but because the cottage predates the subdivision its back is to the street, and the front verandahs, instead of commanding expansive views across the harbour, it looks onto the back fence of some bland '30s flats. As a consequence, conservation of the setting and significant views has long been unachievable. Inward-looking architecture prevails over respect for the public face of a historic building. 

Burke is gaslighting the cottage, proclaiming the "heritage restrictions are mountainous" and it has "a heft of heritage constraints". It's as if he is gunning for the owners to defeat these heritage zealots. Blimey, does he not understand what heritage is for - and that if not for the mountainous restrictions, the cottage would have been demolished long ago for another of the bland blocks of flats that surround it. The original cottage remains structurally intact only "as per the heritage requirements". Didn't the owners actually want to preserve their historic cottage, or would they have preferred to demolish the lot and build some shiny new thing from scratch. 

The architects didn't seem to see heritage as much as a negative as the show's host did. As Heritage Tasmania explained in their feature article on the building's "sensitive and generous addition":

They worked with the heritage authorities to understand what was of low or no significance that could be removed, and to develop a number of principles to guide the approach of the new work, Beyond removing intrusive elements introduced in the 1980s, the principles defined that the new work should be subservient, lower in height and sympathetic and interpretive in scale and form. As the main façade faced the waterfront, it was agreed that the street end should read as the backyard....Inspired by colonial drawings of the area, the new additions reference the outbuildings that historically occupied the site...and the addition of the chimney references the memory of historic kitchens out the back

Mandy is quite perturbed because she can't make the roof higher to get the tall ceilings she wants so desperately. and then they have trouble lowering the floor level because the old building has no foundations., but they put in a concrete beam and raft structure, that looks like it involved digging out a fair bit potentially removing 160 years of archaeology. 

the architects

the foundations

the archaeology?

It's only the fancy minimalist extension that gets the good PR. 'The Hobart Magazine' tells us that Fred Ward and Cath Hall from 1+2 Architecture had to work within heritage conservation requirements, which meant "thinking of innovative solutions that often weren’t considered with new-build projects...The challenge was to offer a contemporary approach with a design sensitive to the cottage’s layers of history...” The implication here is that the usual approach is to ignore sensitive design or even make it purposely insensitive.

It even won the Australian Institute of Architecture's peoples' choice awards because of "A clear yet complementary relationship between old and new has been sought. Playful, abstract reference is made to fragmented historic forms, materials, and memory of the archaic function of the site."

At least Delperro and Clement (the builders - only 'builder Bruce' gets a name check in the show) got some handy free advertising on Google Streetview.

But what happened to that nice bit of Edwardian looking timberwork on the back verandah?

It might be the the 1956 of 1980s addition (fortunately the Tasmanian Archives make the building approvals accessible).

If the building is 1850s as claimed, how come the machine-made bricks in stringer bond - looks like a 20th century cavity wall. Elsewhere we can read that "Remnant walls from the original cottage remain within the core of the house which has seen a series of modifications and renovations and extensions between the 1850s and 1906, in 1985 and most recently in 2020." So the brickwork might be 1906 - still fairly early for cavity brick wall. The four red brick chimneys are also 1906.

Burke tells us that the "pick facing" of the stonework is typically Georgian. I wouldn't have thought Georgian really captures the style or appearance of the house, and certainly is not especially associated with pick dressed stonework, that could be of any period. Heritage Tasmania clears up the dating sequence: 

...the original stone section of the building was built in 1853 to house the signalman. Over the years, the stone building has been heavily modified. In the 1870s, a new Georgian-style entry was added to the western side of the building; in 1906 a large brick extension was added to the east  and a Victorian-style verandah was introduced; and in the 1980s further additions were incorporated

We are not party to the details of the building's history, but it can be surmised from the above, and from the glimpses of various bits of fabric. The shingle roof is partly in place. This appears to be exposed above the former front entrance hall. 

The thick internal wall Burke points out is probably off this hall and marks the original east elevation, so the 1853 part probably comprises only the two western bedrooms.

At least some of the stonework is cleaned back and retained in the new bathroom. This would have been the south wall of the 1853 building.

There is not really much evidence of a 'Georgian style' entrance, although there is some early stonework that conservation stonemason Warwick Young has to deal with. render over the decaying stone has trapped moisture, so his job is to cut out the old and match new facing slabs. He at least appreciates the value of a well built stone house, and puts down the problems to the fact that "it just needs some maintenance". This is probably true of the timberwork too, although Bruce the builder just pulls out the Huon pine balustrade timbers and runs through with the circular saw to see what the timber is, then declares them unusable, although careful conservation work would almost certainly have been able to save almost all the tiber. He plans to but some stirrups under the rotted posts and disguise them with some capping, rather tan do a more conservation-minded splice would be more in keeping with the 'like for like' and 'do as much as necessary and as little as possible' philosophy of the Burra Charter.

Apparently '...meticulously searching through records, archives and plans of the building' results in a 'shed out the back' design for the extension. From Rex Cox at the Maritime Museum, and Brendan Lennard - Senior Cultural Heritage Officer with the City of Hobart, we learn about the semaphore signals, the gun batteries and the nearby magazine tunnels, which leads to a 4 1/2 tonne reinforced concrete chimney with inset grooves mimicking the semaphore mast, evidently saying 'bushrangers are here' - although this sounds like one of those chinese character tattoos that says 'wanton soup'

The signalman's cottage was part of a semaphore network  which passed messages between Hobart's Ports, and could send a message to across to Port Arthur in 15 minutes. 

the signalman's view

Eric Lyon's House Beaumaris - Restoration Australia Season 4 Episode 2

Host Anthony Burke meets a couple who are transforming their Mid-Century Modern 1950s house into a family home suitable for 21st Century living, in a beachside paradise just outside Melbourne.

You can watch Laura and Wilf restore their house here 

MCM is hot these days. A subset of house designs in the 1950s and 60s, it could well reflect the post-war optimism of a new generation breaking from the traditions of the past and even dismissing the 'Australian Ugliness' of transplanted British stodginess or imported American garishness. The council with the most MCM describes it thus:

Mid-century modern architect designed houses feature new design approaches, including use of light timber or steel framing; materials such as cement sheeting; flat or skillion roofs; north facing windows and easy connection to outdoor decks and gardens.

Sometimes structurally daring, the style of architecture is distinct for its use of clean lines, open plan layout and a different approach for maximising vistas and utilising natural light with floor to ceiling windows." 

I am ambivalent about the architectural and interior decoration style as heritage. Only because of the intrinsic biases that it embodies. On the one hand, the idea of the 'modern' attracted me early on. As a teenager at the end of the 60s and beginning of the 70s the changes in Melbourne were something to explore and enjoy, whether pretending to be a left bank intellectual at one of the few street cafes......

....or exploring the defunct nineteenth century development sites and watching the change from a brick and stone city to one of steel, concrete and glass. From Princess Bridge there was modern art in the animated neon of the the Allen's sign or the musical minimalism of the pile driver at the concert hall site. There was a feeling of prospect and promise in the new things happening.

On the other hand, it all seemed to be for rich people. I never went near Beaumaris, and few of the bright, open, spacious, modern houses of the period made their way to the northern and western edges of Melbourne. Spec-built weatherboards on floorplans little changed from the 1930s, migrant half-houses waiting for the money that would eventually allow completion, and big (to us) brick veneers, growing to two stories with arches, concrete balustrades, terrazzo and lions (or eagles) for the migrants who made good. This is the other side of modern houses from the mid century that no one fights to preserve.

I associate Beaumaris with middle-class families that looked down their noses at working class and migrant kids from the western suburbs. The kids didn't care mind - wealth to us was just another ethnicity; no better or worse than Maltese, Yugo, Pom or Skip. The fancy houses oppressed us with their demands to take your shoes off, to be seen but not heard, or just get outside in the fresh air. But that was just my prejudice. I only imagined what rich people might be like.

Eric Lyon's house has its fans. It is on Facebook. There is a conservation group gunning for it. It is well documented in a heritage study. It was even Domain house of the week. 

But on the other side are owners worried that heritage listing will devalue their property prices. 

Anthone Burke puts it: "It's not just your house that needs saving but a whole suburb worth of houses. How's that gonna go down in the hood?"

The City of Bayside twentieth century heritage study has had a difficult time; commissioned, then stalled, then cancelled. Then started again. 

 The Hun went as far as claiming that the "Heritage plan tears neighbours apart". 

Plans to slap a heritage overlay on dozens of Beaumaris and Black Rock homes have been scrapped by Bayside Council after furious homeowners spoke of anguish, anger and a community divided. The council last year sent letters to 51 Beaumaris and Black Rock residents, telling them their mid-century modern homes would be put on an interim heritage overlay until a study was completed.

Fiona Austin of Beaumaris Modern reckons there are about 500 good MCMs in her suburb and they would like to see about 100 protected although realistically, maybe only 50 would make it. But bayside council can only offer 19 for an interim protection under a self nominated scheme that the former head of the National Trust described as a "“cop out” that left “huge gaps, which will continue to emerge every time a significant place comes under threat".   

There is always a risk of course that many other owners get the demo crew in before their place gets a heritage listing 'slapped on it. Or after. On a Sunday. Or with a team of experts and lawyers. 

(N.B. heritage listings are always 'slapped' on, just like a place is always 'riddled' with asbestos. You can't just have a bit of either heritage or asbestos).

The council adopted an "...opt-in system whereby the owners of the relevant properties will be able to self-nominate their properties for heritage controls." As if! The Mayor reckons that “...council is committed to protecting Bayside’s heritage for future generations and recognizing the significance of mid-century modern architecture to our prized neighbourhood character.” Unless its worth more to knock it down of course.

RA ventures surprisingly close to this argument with ABC balanced vox-pops down the Bowls Club. The big heritage question in the well-shod neighbourhoods is always: "should the rights of private property owners to realise the maximum value of their biggest asset outweigh the communal desire to keep the character and amenity of their neighbourhood? Professor Burke is sympathetic to both sides of the argument but offers no answer.

The argument between the 'preserve character' and 'maximise profits' sides, however, is not new and has been going on since the beginning of the sandy streets subdivisions in the 1950s.  

Half of it is normal suburb, the other half is an Australian phenomenon. This second side of Beaumaris is the one loved by the majority of young families which have made their homes there since the war. The streets wind in and out a glorious tangle of tea-tree, banksia and gum trees. Through a curtain of boughs, you glimpse low, light, timber houses, white pergolas, oiled board walls, vivid splashes of color. You can stand in many populated streets and see nothing but trees and sensible modern architecture. This is the Beaumaris that attracted hundreds of progressive home-builders since the war. It has character, a happy quality of its own somewhere between a sophisticated studio-flat and a holiday camp. And it is thoroughly Australian. If anyone doubts Melbourne's accomplishments in advanced small house design, they should drive off Beach Road and wander the sandy back roads. (But be careful to pick a dry day.) 

(1954 'BUILDING AND DESIGN --', The Herald 8 June, p. 14.)_

IT is the one and only district in Australia where modern design and tree-conservation are clearly favored by at least half the population.

The origins of this attitude might go back to the Garden City vision of Wallace A Bartlett, who arrived from Sussex, England in 1937 to run the Dunlop Rubber Company and put forward plans to relocate the Montague Factory to a new site at Beaumaris where the company designed an Industrial Garden Village for 5,000 People (The Argus 9 Dec 1944 p. 8).  

It never happened, but the idea seems to have stuck.

The Lyon house at least made it into the heritage overlay (HO783), 

- 10 Valmont Avenue, Beaumaris - constructed in 1952 and extended in 1957, to a design by architect Eric Lyon is significant. 

The statement of significance (stripped of some of the heritage) tells us it:

• is one of the earliest houses built in Valmont Avenue  
• demonstrates the particular development phase of Beaumaris in the 1950s and 1960s, and post-war demand for housing in Melbourne 
• is an intact and good representative example of an early mid-century modernist style house with very few changes 
• reflects the profound influence of the International style, vis: a single flat roof structure; extensive panel glazed windows; ‘H’ shaped floor plan, zoned living, service and private areas; exposed structural elements and use of contrasting materials and texture; and the setting of the house which incorporates a courtyard and the retention of indigenous plants. 
• is a fine, intact and rare example of the residential work of Eric Lyon, 
• displays progressive concepts regarding the spatial integration on internal and external living areas that emerged during the post-war period. 
• has manipulation of form, articulation of function, honest expression of structural elements and materials and a courtyard for outdoor recreation reflective of the progressive ideals of modernist residential architecture of the time.  

Love a bit of articulated function. 

I can't find much else by Lyon except a spiky Murrumbeen a Church and 17 Hepburn Avenue Beaumaris but I gather a lot of architecture goes unnoticed, since we have little public conversation about it, despite the democratisation of media in the digital space. Perhaps Eric, despite his evident profile at the time, worked quietly in the background.

The State Library gives us a glimpse of what it looked like when nearly new - some wooden shackiness appropriate to the beachside location.

and the cement tile veneer reflects the experimentation with new materials.

Just like the 1960s AV Jennings school I went to.  Who knew we were taught quadratic equations in cutting edge architecture? - why didn't anyone mention that crack in the wall? It makes me feel ill at ease.

We have plans:

and Eric's son John has a fabulous collection of slides and home movies, at least some of which look like they have been scanned, at least by the programmers.

Burke explains the stained timber facade as due to post war brick shortages. Except most of the rear is brick. So perhaps it was an aesthetic choice.  It went blue for a while.

The real estate agent had two bob each way when it sold in 2013:

Designed and constructed in the early 50s by renowned local architect, Eric Lyon, this classic corner positioned, 4 bedroom home is a testament to innovative, post war architecture. Lived in by Eric and his wife since day one, this coveted Deauville Estate positioned residence is now presented unchanged over the decades. In fact a step inside is like entering a time warp. The original fixtures and fittings have worn well over the years but this home really is ready for a complete restoration by an architectural purist. Or, if you are game, it could be a potential new home site (land size approx 725 sqm, 18m frontage). Featured in magazines such as Period Home Renovator, the experimental, timeless design provides delightful garden outlooks from every room. Equipped with multiple, purpose designed storage solutions, the home was built in two separate wings. All four bedrooms (with BIRs) are set to the north with exposed masonry block exterior, whilst the two living zones, lower tier home office and kitchen are set to the front. A brick wall with OFP to one side divides the front lounge and dining rooms and the every day living zone includes a servery into a separate kitchen with built in diner style meals zone and original milkmans delivery chute! Off the hallway, the bathroom is divided into three separate rooms. With wonderful garden views, timeless design and rich creativity, this classic Beaumaris home also includes an under level carport.

It's one that really didn't look like it needed restoration. Just a lick of paint and new carpets.

Except for the asbestos, and some tired wall finishes, and from the older aerials the rusty flat roof. Did it leak?

So what does Prof. Burke have to say about it?

His mantra is similar to the last RA host Harrison - "how can they update the house for modern lifestyles?". As if humans can't adapt their lifestyle to their environment.

Adapting to modern lifestyles seems to mean stripping out and refitting the kitchen and bathroom, taking out the wall to the dining room and replacing some tiles. An en-suit is essential. A few towel rails and a bathroom cabinet are reused, and the cork floor is kept, while the originally-planned but never realised deck will be finally built. Not really much to change then. 

The quality of the work is worth noting - which might be due to the $360000 budget, but more so to "head carpenter Adrian". He is really the star of the show - making possible both the ambitions of the owners, and creation of quality work. Adrian Moscatt of Top Level Carpentry.

When a shadow line timber is accidentally cut up, Adrian remakes it to original spec.

He makes a really nice door with wedge-tightened mortice and tennon joints. He also shows that wonderful self satisfaction craftspeople get from a really nice bit of work when he installs a hide-away sliding door with perfectly matched timber lining.

Another Restoration hero is Arne Groskopf, who is a quiet and reserved, and doesn't have a big head at all, but works quietly restoring all manner of things. He strips down and remakes the Beco light fittings - who would have thought such things would be part of the retro-fetish home decorator thing. Anyway -see his work here.  

So what is to be done with this place? While the floor plan remains much the same, the 50s feel fades when the old fashioned elements - stainless steel sinks, cupboard doors in the kitchens, old brown tiles, etc - are removed. The bright ceilings with their shadow lines, the cork tiles, the Beco light fittings, even the painted mural in the dunny all stay. So maybe I should concede that this is a pretty good restoration.

A few of the unusual elements that reflect both the owner's extra effort to tailor the house to his family's own needs (and lifestyle) are evident: Built in book cases abount; a sound system piped (really wired) all around the house; and a clever milk and bread delivery hatch that has found a new use for contactless, online shopping deliveries during covid.

But what is to become of the MCMs? All around units, dual occupancies and McMansions are going up. The measure of class aspirations have changed. The connection to the outdoors and openness to the street and it's suburbanite communities has been replaced by the home theatre and indoor-outdoor room. I presume people with architectual training design these too. Optimistic openness has been replaced by private insularity. Full realisation of their most valuable asset is more important than getting on with the neighbours. One biddy at the bowls club reckons if they want to preserve the houses, they can preserve their own.

Hopefully the trend will swing again. The residents and members of Beaumaris Modern will be campaining for it to happen in any case.