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January 31, 2026 — 5:00am
Many people fear heritage listing a home reduces its sale price, but artist and teacher Lynne Eastaway is willing to sacrifice a higher return on her north-western Sydney property to protect a slice of Australian cultural history.
Eastaway, 77, hopes the NSW government will list the home that internationally awarded architect Glenn Murcutt designed more than 40 years ago for her and her former partner, the late abstract artist and acclaimed colourist Sydney Ball. The two-bedroom home is likely to be on the market in the next two months.
“I don’t care, I don’t care,” she said when asked if the listing would reduce the sale price of the Glenorie property, which also includes two standalone artist studios on a 10-hectare bush conservation zone.
“I am a custodian of architectural and art history. It is as simple as that.”
Eastaway said she would be happy as long as she could fund a small city studio to work from after the sale.
A recommendation for the listing of the small home clad in corrugated iron – designed by Murcutt to be as inexpensive as possible – is expected to be considered soon by NSW Heritage Minister Penny Sharpe.
The application describes it as “seminal work in the career of internationally renowned architect Glenn Murcutt”, the only Australian architect to be awarded the international Pritzker Architecture Prize. The home won NSW Architecture’s Wilkinson Award for new homes in 1984.
It is understood that every submission favoured the listing.
The use of corrugated iron (known also as galvanised steel) would go on to become Murcutt’s trademark internationally and it would influence the development of Australian architecture, the application said.
Murcutt’s designs are best known for touching the earth lightly, and the Ball-Eastaway home seems to hover above the ground. Built on a rock ledge, the site was chosen because it – along with fire retardant paint and a sprinkler – would protect the home from fire, least disturb the native bush, and allow water to run underneath.
Architect Daniel North, who nominated the home for heritage listing, said it was supported on 14 slender steel columns that would leave no trace if the house were moved.
“The site would look like nothing was ever here,” said North, who, with his practice partner, architect Catherine Downie, did repairs and updates to the home last year.
Downie said they pinched themselves when they got the job. “Glenn is the reason I wanted to be an architect,” North said.
Visiting the site last year, Murcutt, 89, said: “I think it is a better building now.”
Surrounded by bush, Murcutt’s design couldn’t be more different from those of the large new homes nearby.
From the outside, the house looks a bit like a shed, except for the zigzag wooden entrance and a bright blue arch to mark your arrival. Nothing tips off the visitor to the art on the walls inside, and the views of the bush.
The house includes two verandahs, both without railings, designed to be meditative.
With its view of the bush, the eastern verandah has been described as one of the most serene places in the world. Not the morning of Eastaway’s interview with the Herald: she had been stung by a hornet wasp that had nested under the floor, and angry welts were rising on her legs.
Eastaway met Ball at art school when she was 25 – he was her art teacher and nearly 17 years older. They became lovers and lived in the Glenorie home before splitting up, but they remained lifelong friends.
Ball gave Eastaway half the house and, when he died in 2017, he left her his half, and some money.
Eastaway said: “I used to say, ‘Put it in your name, it is your house’. He would say, ‘No, no, it will all be yours’.”
“It was very hard to separate from Syd, even when we had separated.
“We were still good mates, and there was a lot of loyalty between us. Even now, I’m thinking, ‘What would he think?’.”
The home includes Ball’s large collection of chamber music, and art by Ball and many others. A bookshelf, featuring a small piece Ball made from plastic cake bases, is likely to be displayed at a Shapiro auction. Other items will be donated to public galleries.
Eastaway has lived in the house for the past eight years, enjoying watching small bush orchids flower and die, swamp wallabies overcome their shyness, and noticing how the light hits the bush at different times of day.
“You are always looking out in the bush,” said Eastaway. “It made me feel like I was a tiny speck in the wholeness of nature.”
Afraid she will fall over in the uneven bush nearby, it is time to leave. “I haven’t got any kids. I’ve got nieces and nephews … I’ve seen them deal with their own parents’ death, and seen how hard it is to sort everything out.”
The NSW government announced measures last year to make owning and buying a heritage home less onerous, offsetting fears that owning one would be expensive and time-consuming. These included no longer requiring approval from the Heritage Council of NSW to install solar panels, security, fire suppression and water systems.
