is more of an “offshoot” than a typical
Woolley house, reflecting the architect’s
unique relationship with Pettit, for whom
he built many private homes, and more.
Woolley and other great Australian
architects – Michael Dysart, Harry Seidler,
Russell Jack and Neil Clerehan – had all
designed affordable housing for Pettit and
Sevitt, which built around 3,500 homes
through the northern suburbs of Sydney
and Canberra from the early 1960s to 1978.
Coincidentally, Greg and Louise’s first
home was one of Pettit and Sevitt’s earliest
Lowline designs by Ken Woolley, built in
1964 at Elanora Heights. Greg had grown
up with design. His father Russell had been
a boat designer/builder and a commercial
photographer. His aunt was the flamboyant
modernist illustrator, designer and milliner,
Hera Roberts. They could have never settled
for an ordinary house.
“We had an architect draw up plansof its elements intersecting or colliding.
It’s all very informal but structured.”
Being ostensibly an adult retreat, its key
spaces are the living area, overlooked by a
luxurious main bedroom. These are gathered
up under two steeply pitched roof peaks,
intersecting above the stairs. Both the living
room and bedroom face north with views
up the Pittwater to Barrenjoey Lighthouse,
winking at night.
Behind the bedroom, the plan splits
under a shallow skillion roof with a skylit
ensuite, terracotta tiled, followed by two
interconnected studies, facing west and
south into the rear bush garden – a feature
of most Woolley houses, along with
meticulous craftsmanship.
Walls, posts and beams and the
cathedral-like ceilings are all clear-finished
Oregon, sculpted with millimetre precision
by a team of German carpenters. It’s
reminiscent of other notable works by
Woolley, including his own house at
Mosman and the stunning St Margaret’s
Chapel in Surry Hills – his first
independent commission.
The living room opens to the northerly
waterfront terrace through floor-to-ceiling
glass. A low wall of timber joinery housing
a fireplace and bookshelves partitions the
more enclosed dining room, facing south
onto the rear terrace. The nearby all-white
kitchen, still in excellent order, also opens
to the rear terrace, where the procession
of outbuildings and structures includes
an arbour, a watchtower, water tanks, a
series of cascading ponds and the more
introspective guest wing. Facing into the
garden, the two bedrooms with ensuites
and a screened-in sleep-out are also timber
lined under steeply pitched roofs.
Certain details, like the living room’s
corner bar and the large sunken circular
bath upstairs, might suggest Pitt Point04 Corrugated roofs
protrude like huts among
the trees, while cedar
weatherboards blend
into the bush.05 Themainbedroom,
under a steeply pitched
roof, offers views north
up the Pittwater to
Barrenjoey Lighthouse.06 Two connected studies
face west and south
into a rear bush garden,
a common feature of
Woolley’s houses.04