Timeless renovation in Norwood
This 1910 Queen Anne return verandah villa has been sympathetically renovated to champion its north-facing orientation.
Five years ago, Anna was on the hunt for a new home, enlisting her friends to accompany her to open houses every weekend.
After her offer on another home around the corner didn’t pan out, she came across 30 Brown Street and she knew it was the one.
“I was going to all of these opens and dragging all of my friends around with me and they were helping me with their opinions,” says Anna, the managing director for a wholesale jewellery brand.
“Then I walked into this and I hadn’t gotten anyone else to come and see it and I just bought it.
“My friends were like, ‘Hang on a minute, we have just been to 10 houses with you, and now you’ve just gone and bought one that none of us have seen.’
“I feel like the perfect house always finds you.”
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Anna was looking for a character home with a modern renovation already complete that she and her two young daughters could move straight into.
“I fell in love with the house because it had just been newly renovated and done so beautifully and the aesthetic was completely me,” she says.
“I wanted a character home that had a modern addition that was done in a really sympathetic and understated way.
“I’d been looking at a lot of renovations and they were full of stainless steel and a lot of ultra-modern things that just looked very harsh and not warm.”
The previous owners engaged Melbourne-based Heartly Design Studio in 2018 to complete the renovation of the 1910 Queen Anne return verandah villa.
Oak floors and cabinetry paired with stone features and a light and bright palette throughout create a seamless transition between old and new and afford the renovated home an almost Scandinavian aesthetic.
The home was recognised by Australia House & Garden Magazine’s ‘Top 50 Rooms’ in 2018 for the laundry and the kitchen was featured the same year in Kitchen & Bathrooms Quarterly.
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“The couple who renovated it spent a lot of time and money on beautiful details and beautiful finishes that have really stood the test of time in the five years I’ve been here,” Anna says.
“Everything is really high quality and I really value that because you see a lot of renos that look nice on the surface but they might’ve been done a bit cheaply or they just don’t last.
“But everything is really high quality and beautifully done here … it is neutral and understated and I think that does give it a lot more longevity.”
The only changes Anna has made are to the exterior of the home – she had the front and back re-landscaped, new fences installed and had the return verandah retiled.
“It [the verandah] was originally a terracotta colour tessellated tiling which I had replaced with a dark grey, beige and white pattern, which was also a traditional pattern that was used,” she says.
“I had an amazing tiler at my house for around three months … I picked probably the most complicated pattern for him to do.”
The home’s rear is north-facing so sunlight streams though the extensive Eco Glass walls all year round highlighting the light and bright aesthetic.
“I’ve never been in a house with a north-facing orientation and the sunlight is amazing,” Anna says.
“I didn’t realise how good it is – I’ve heard people talking about it and say, ‘Always get a north facing position’, and I never knew what they meant.
“But now I’ve got it and it’s amazing and I’m definitely looking for that in my next home.”
Now that her daughters have finished school and flown the nest, Anna is looking to downsize to something still full of character with a north-facing aspect.
The sale of 30 Brown Street, Norwood, is being handled by Georgie Todd and Henry Gower Tillett of Harris Real Estate.
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