The Stone House Melbourne

After many years and much effort we have it sorted.

Before.

Finally after fixing the house, dressing it up, actually selling it, emptying it, 8 settlement dates falling through, the sale going to god, redressing the house and selling it again with a 120 day settlement, emptying it again, we are now only days away from saying goodbye to it!!!

The last incarnation of the fireplace.

This was our mother, Lois's house, bought after our fathers death and a fabulous house it is too. Sadly she developed dementia and had to move into a nursing home and very regretfully we forced to prepare the house for sale. This seems all such a long time ago. Lois died last september a few weeks after her 87th birthday celebrated with family and a cream sponge cake. She had two serves.

We started the resurrection of the house in May 2011 and it was in a very sorry state.
It was quite a voyage of discovery as we cleared the garden, the rubbish and general flotsam that had blanketed it for years and revealed the house that it used to be.
More of the story of the house is to be found here.

http://thestonehousemelbourne.blogspot.com.au/

The garden was like this.

Lower back garden.

Upper back garden.

Side garden.

Front garden.

Other side.

A bit of high pressure hosing revealed the rather nice marble under the leaf litter.

Inside some novel colour schemes, acres of mouldering carpet, stuff and some very heavy handed curtain action all presented special challenges.

Green aye?

Ruffles R us.

The curtains in the background had little ducks on them and were 3 deep. Behind them is a stone framed sliding door we had never noticed before.

Stuff.

Feeling mellow?

A fireplace evolution.

This was the yellow room.

And this the green.

Revived bedroom. This was an office.

This was a study/gym.

The master.

Front room.

Revived entrance.

Nude fireplace.

Second version of front room.

Now it is all empty and ready for the new owners who are lovely people and I am glad they have bought it. A nice touch is that one of them is a geologist.
I have photographed most of the different stone used and will share it with you soon.
Bon voyage house.

Click photos for hi-res versions

93 The Boulevard Doncaster

Here is my mothers beautiful stone house in Doncaster.It is a unique modernist four bedroom home built almost entirely from stone in the late 70's, recently revived by my brothers, friends and myself to it's former glory.

Needless to say I had a great time dressing up the house after we had completely cleaned it out.

The fireplace in the living room

5 minute video tour of the house

My mother bought the house around 13 years ago after selling the family home she and my dad had built together. She was an artist and enjoyed eccentric and beautiful things and this house really hit the mark.

Details about it's origins are pretty sketchy. The story goes that it was originally built by a stone mason who apparently spent seven years constructing it. I think it would have taken that long just to amass such an amazing quantity and variety of stone to start with.

We fortunately had a special visitor to the house during the open for inspections and he was actually friends with the builder and spent many hours watching the construction and lending a hand. So now finally we have the real story of how the house came to be.
The stonemason who built the house was John Cern. He had a stone yard in Doncaster just where the bus depot is, next to the freeway and a quarry near Castlemaine. The house is built from a collection of favourite stone John had specially put aside. The majority came from his quarry. It was built during the 70's over many years and was a labour of love. Very sadly he never lived in it as apparently those close to him didn't share the love.

The actual approved building plans are from 1979 and I believe the overall design of the structure is pretty typical of Merchant Builders homes from the 70's. The exceptional nature of the house is in the materials used to build it and the incredible use of a huge variety of stone in the interior surfaces. It is also unusual that many of the window frames and even the sliding door are made from stone too. There are black, grey, pink, cream and green marble walls and floors,sandstone walls,travertine walls and others that contain beautiful fossils.

Marble and travertine staircase

Foyer detail

Family room

Stone Detail

The Family room has a stone sliding door

This image gives you a panoramic view from one end of the house to the other

Kitchen

I can't resist the Corningware

Granite Bench Tops

Bar and Dining Room panorama

Archway leads in to the Bar and Dining area

Inside the Bar

Looking in to the Dining area

Lazy Susan

What I love about the home is that to me it was obviously a labour of love to create it and the material used are really beautiful and chosen and placed so carefully with an artistic eye and desire to build something special. You can see that he has saved his favourite pieces of stone for the most prominent settings and some walls have themes, either pictures, swirls or mirror split stone set together for a bigger impact. He also built soaring ceilings so some walls are more than 6 metres high which gives the rooms tremendous sense of light and space.

Front window and fireplace in the living room.

There is new carpeting throughout the house and fresh paint on the few walls that aren't stone.

The house has 4 bedrooms, they are all peaceful spaces that look out onto a marble paved side garden. The master bedroom has a delightful cream marble dressing room and en-suite.