Honouring the past

The story of this beautiful old Queenslander in Brisbane’s Teneriffe reflects the story of the suburb itself. The elegant, sprawling house was built in 1909 by a retired Scottish sea captain and his wife who enjoyed commanding views of the Brisbane River from their elevated perch. They commissioned local architect, A.B. Wilson (whose descendants still run Wilson Architects, the city’s oldest practice), to construct a house that soon became a focal point for local social and charitable activities.

When the current owners bought it, it had long been a halfway house for disadvantaged men. Its original plan was obscured by its 26 bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, and the serious attrition of its materials. Concurrent with the area’s trajectory to one of the city’s most desired real estate havens, the uncovering, re-establishing and re-thinking of the “beautiful old girl” (as architect, Stuart Vokes of Vokes and Peters refers to it) was the remit for a fine collaboration between architect and client.

“Our clients were visionary about the proposition of the site,” recalls Stuart. “The idea of a house in the garden, and of the civic gesture of sharing the garden with the street rather than marking off territory in a gesture of greed, was appealing.”

The first step in the re-jig was to turn the house 90 degrees and push it back further on the block, easing up generous garden space on the streetside north and offering the length of the house to that aspect.

The connection to the garden is paramount, and aligns with the home’s early history, when all manner of morning and afternoon teas took place in the garden and were served from the home’s undercroft. Reclaiming the undercroft for the main family living spaces is the key intervention in the plan. As most people who have lived in a Queenslander know, the best place to be is ‘down under’.