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Named after the mythical tower of Babylon, the renovation of an award-winning house overlooking Pittwater and the Pacific Ocean has been years in the making – almost a decade.
The home is perched on the crest of a 7000 square metre site on the edge of an Avalon Beach escarpment north of Sydney, a location that threw up plenty of structural challenges. But its lengthy build time was also partly due to the client’s involvement with their designers, Casey Brown Architecture.
Babylon House is perched on the crest of a 7000 square metre site on the edge of an Avalon Beach escarpment north of Sydney. Credit: Zella Casey Brown
“Our clients wanted to be involved in the process. It was very much a collaboration,” says architect Rob Brown, director of the practice.
The interior of the rough-hewn home, named Babylon after a tower-like structure at its top, was renovated for a couple with an adult child and is built on an incline approaching 30 degrees, making access from the street on foot hard work.
To reach the house and overcome the steep ascent, Brown created a carport half-way up the drive and added a cable car.Credit: Zella Casey Brown
To reach the house – designed by architect Edwin Kingsbury in the mid-1950s – and overcome the steep ascent, Brown created a carport half-way up the drive and added a cable car imported from Seattle to ease the rest of the climb to the front terrace.
“You can take the 96 steps to the terrace but we were ensuring that this will be the ‘forever house’,” he said, catering for the couple as they get older. The carport’s roof is make from solar panels.
The original house, with chunky stone sandstone walls, is unconventional. There’s a front door leading to a circular stone rotunda, but one can also access the house from the kitchen and some other spaces.
“The original owners were quite bohemian. They used this space to entertain friends and have performances,” says Brown, pointing out the stage that’s now used as a chaise or daybed.
Complete with stone fireplace and stained timber pitched roof, the house has elements similar to ’60s American architect John Lautner’s work, known for his Chemosphere house in the Hollywood Hills.
Large sandstone boulders anchor the house and also pierce some of the interior spaces.Credit: Zella Casey Brown
The kitchen, part of the original house, was completely reworked by Brown and his team. However, it still speaks a similar language with its stained timber ceiling and an irregular-shaped skylight. New timber joinery, along with stainless-steel benches, respond to the present, while a table-like island bench has a 1950s feel.
The floors in the old house are terrazzo. Its new floors are a combination of polished concrete embedded with large slabs of terrazzo, in varying hues.Credit: Zella Casey Brown
The renovation included transforming what was formerly the main bedroom into a guest wing. A new concrete glass and steel wing was added for the main bedroom suite and a study/library, creating a strong delineation between past and present.
The renovation included transforming what was formerly the main bedroom into a guest wing.Credit: Zella Casey Brown
Brown, who is a master when it comes to working with period buildings, drew inspiration from the original design.
The floors in the old house are terrazzo. Its new floors are a combination of polished concrete embedded with large slabs of terrazzo, in varying hues.
Large sandstone boulders that anchor the house, also pierce some of the interior spaces. The change in level between the study/library and the main bedroom, for example, has been beautifully chiselled into place as if they’ve always existed in synchronicity.
“I wanted to feel as though you were standing on a platform, whether you were on the terrace or in one of the other rooms,” says Brown, who was also mindful of working with some of the established trees on the property, such as an Angophora which frames the new wing.
The home’s original chunky sandstone walls were difficult to rework. Negotiating the many changes in levels was complex. But after arriving at the terrace, either by climbing 96 stairs or ascending in the cable car, the views and experience say it all, which is perhaps why Casey Brown Architecture won the John Verge Interior Architecture Award from the Australian Institute of architects (NSW Chapter) for their work.
Given the complexity of the site and Kingsbury’s original design, it’s not surprising that Babylon House took almost a decade to complete.
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