Craigie Lee

Palm Beach

2000

This heritage project involved the restoration/renovation and pavilion additions to a "Arts and Crafts Timber Bungalow" designed by James Peddle in 1916.

The house sits on the hill surrounded by bushland, one of the few houses of the period to retain its sense of place.

The building had been untouched since 1921 and presented many problems including poor physical condition, tiny scale and the difficulty of extending/modernising such a building while preserving its unique character.

The brief sought a poetic solution which understood the site and the everchanging needs of a growing family.

The new design is a deliberate, sensitive heritage based solution seeking minimal change to the original house by providing additional accommodation in pavilion form. The careful siting of the addition, the small relative scale and the subtle connection to the original, maintains the dominance of the early house in relation to the original.

This is a place not so much about architecture but a home, a place for the soul created out of timber by craftsmen in 1916 and 2000. Craftsmen of equal passion and sharing an innate understanding of the material of their craft.

Builder: Bellevarde

Engineer: Ken Murtagh

Awards:
2002 RAIA Lachlan Macquarie National Award Craigee Lee
2002 RAIA Francis Greenway State Award

Read the Siobhan O'Brien Essay

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