The photo album that saved a family-built home from demolition

Sydney Morning Herald

2 days ago

With a stream running through its undercroft, mould living its best life, and its verandahs barely hanging on, a mid-century modern home on a steep and difficult block overlooking Balmoral Beach was destined for demolition.
But the Mosman home now known as Cloaked House was more than its walls and beams. It was, to paraphrase the poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, a home built with love, dreams and sweat, by Leonard Early Crawford and his family, including teenage son John, in 1964.
That became clear when John came knocking on the door to show the new owners a family album of the Crawford family building it 60 years ago. It shows John and his late mum Dorothy helping his dad, an engineer who built the house from inexpensive Besser blocks left over from a hospital.
That visit saved the home. Architect Jennifer McMaster, a founder of TRIAS, said it had seemed beyond saving but seeing the Crawfords' photos made them change their minds. 'It showed us the love and care and dignity of this old building,' she said.
That prompted a 'radical renovation' by TRIAS that won Houses magazine's award for residential alterations and additions for a home bigger than 200 square metres earlier this month, and two awards in this year's NSW Institute of Architects Awards, including for alterations and additions. It is shortlisted for the Australian Institute of Architects national awards.
TRIAS deserved quiet applause for its subtle yet profound act of retention, said the AIA jury. 'Rather than erasing the past, the design embraces it, retaining the original structure and cloaking it in a new skin that whispers of modernity while treading lightly on the earth.'
The jury for the Houses award said the home may read like a new build, but the valuable structural layers beneath were existing. Cutting into the existing floor plate had created a new internal courtyard that improved access to light, air and aspect.
The home also won a NSW Architecture award for sustainability. McMaster and the owners, name withheld, decided to keep the original Besser block walls but cover them with a more sustainable and waterproof cloak of timber.