Australian Design Review

The Neutral Bay House is a much altered Federation Arts and Crafts house; an architectural style borrowed from a cold climate with a fondness for flat green land as a foundation. This was not such a site, however, so the makers of this home benched the land heavily, carving out a sandstone platform to locate the house. The house sits high above the street, with a view of the harbour beyond; but at the rear of the site is a stepping sandstone escarpment climbing to a level twelve metres above the floor level.

The brief was to remodel the existing informal living space, an infill to the horseshoe shape of the original plan, into an open new room that would embrace the garden and mediate between the house and the sandstone escarpment. The driving idea was to lift the roof to follow the slope of the land. The space is organized so that the kitchen addresses the room and the garden. The rear doors can be completely opened to allow the room to open on to the wet, maidenhair fern-covered wall.

To the street front, the convict built, crumbling sandstone wall was rebuilt using the old stone to retain the original weathered patina.

*Team* Architect: Shaun Carter; Designer: Matthew Peterson