A beautiful Edwardian villa built in 1907, designed by William Nixon, the architect of author Patrick White’s house ‘Highbury’ in Centennial Park. A jarring glossy 80s kitchen all whites, greys, granite. The owner, a quilter, loves colour; her father was a professional cabinetmaker. The inspiration – the John Horbury Hunt designed ‘Camelot’, dated late 1880's and listed on the National Estate ‐ a house in Camden with an original kitchen with bold colours and exposed brick walls.
And in an interesting twist, the man who built Camelot, James White, was the granduncle of Patrick White. Camelot was the location for filming of the Channel 7 drama series, ‘A Place to Call Home’. The setting is Beecroft in Sydney ‐ in the nineteenth century a cool hills retreat, similar to the Blue Mountains and Bowral of today. The result – a bright, bold ‘kitchen as furniture’ – designed by architect Hector Abrahams, for a client who loves colour and furniture, and appropriate for the nineteenth century house design.
The best thing about the space for the client: ‘Colour is comfortable’. Artworks in the kitchen: Charlotte Thodey, William Robinson and Minnie Pwerle. Hector Abrahams Architects designed the new kitchen as a liveable family room. The hallmark utilitarian character of the three original service rooms [butlers pantry, kitchen and scullery, which had been combined in the 80s renovation] is evoked by stripping back to original brick walls, exposing 1980s steel beams in the ceiling and making a big bay window seat of steel windows. The room is fitted with specially designed furniture holding all the storage and equipment of a modern kitchen so as to preserve the character of a working furnished room. The antithesis of the ‘fitted’ kitchen, it references history in a positive way. The shady aspect of the room facing east is met by the use of a strong pumpkin colour, complemented with deep blue.
Other HAA work on the house includes an award‐winning pavilion set in beautiful gardens by Tropic of Sydney.
AWARDS – GARDEN PAVILION
2011 Hornsby Heritage Award Winner Category A ‐ the preservation, restoration, reconstruction, or maintenance of a heritage item
2011 Hornsby Heritage Award Winner Category B‐ a sensitively designed extension or alteration to an existing heritage item
