{"id":258093,"date":"2025-11-02T18:36:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-02T18:36:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/258093\/"},"modified":"2025-11-02T18:36:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-02T18:36:19","slug":"the-stunning-revival-of-a-bush-modern-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/258093\/","title":{"rendered":"the stunning revival of a \u2018Bush Modern\u2019 home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Photographs\u00a0Sean Fennessy<\/p>\n

We ended up here because after 10\u00a0years in the city we wanted trees and fresh air,\u201d says Sean Fennessy. He and his wife, Jessica Lillico, are sitting at their dining table in their home, Fisher House, in the Melbourne suburb of Warrandyte. \u201cThe beauty of this place is that it\u2019s only 40 minutes from Melbourne. But when you\u2019re out here, it feels totally isolated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both Lillico and Fennessy grew up in Tasmania, one of Australia\u2019s remotest regions. (\u201cThe next stop is South America,\u201d as Lillico puts it.) As children, the pair were \u201cused to space and nature\u201d. And yet, in 2018, they were living with a newborn baby in a \u201cwhite-box apartment\u201d in the Melbourne neighbourhood of Brunswick. When they went looking for a bigger home, they found property prices in the city to be sky-high. \u201cWe were vaguely aware of some historical homes out this way,\u201d Lillico says. \u201cWe looked and realised we could afford something that was interesting, that we loved, and that would give us the nature we\u2019d been missing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Into <\/p>\n

Into the woods: the kitchen, with tile-topped island<\/p>\n

Fennessy and Lillico \u2013 a photographer and a stylist, respectively \u2013 bought Fisher House in 2019. It\u2019s a\u00a0quintessential example of an architectural style that has come to be known as Bush Modern. Built in 1969, it was designed for a single woman by Alistair Knox, a designer and builder who is credited with importing many central tenets of Modernism from Europe and America, and imbuing them with an unmistakably Australian soul. Between the 1940s and 1980s, he designed around 1,200 homes, the majority in this area.<\/p>\n

Fisher House bears many of the hallmarks of a Knox design, including generous floor-to-ceiling windows that let natural light in (\u201cwhich you need,\u201d says Fennessy, \u201cbecause the materials inside are so dark\u201d). It also makes extensive use of salvaged timber. Many of these homes in Warrandyte and the neighbouring suburb of Eltham (home to an artist colony called Montsalvat) were built by hand by their owners, mainly hippies and artists, often using \u201cmud bricks,\u201d which are bricks made from \u201cdirt from the land on which you\u2019re building the house,\u201d Fennessy explains. \u201cIn the 40s, 50s and 60s, Melbourne was quite a conservative place,\u201d says Lillico. \u201cComing out here and building a home among the trees out of these earthy, recycled materials, it just wasn\u2019t the done thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Clean <\/p>\n

Clean sweep: tiling in the bathroom<\/p>\n

This DIY spirit gives these homes a unique look. \u201cIt\u2019s a combination of the simplicity of Modernism, but with the tactility and resourcefulness of people building their own homes,\u201d Lillico says. Though we might consider them beautiful today, for a long time the style was \u201cnever taken seriously as \u2018capital A\u2019 Architecture,\u201d she notes. It\u2019s now very much of its time. \u201cYou literally can\u2019t build a\u00a0house like this any more,\u201d says Fennessy, who explains that it simply wouldn\u2019t get planning approval now, given it\u2019s neither energy-efficient nor bushfire-safe. Lillico nods. \u201cIt really is a time capsule.\u201d And in more recent times, some have been \u201cwhitewashed and ruined,\u201d says Fennessy, by owners trying to modernise them. There is, he feels, a \u201creal danger they\u2019ll be wiped out.\u201d<\/p>\n

When the couple bought Fisher House, it was in such good condition structurally that they didn\u2019t need to change the layout dramatically. \u201cIt\u2019s just a pavilion,\u201d says Fennessy, referring to the floorplan. \u201cIt\u2019s a rectangle with bedrooms on either side of the living space.\u201d All that said, the interior was \u201cfunctional, but really tired\u201d and needed updating. Over the course of the next 18 months, during the pandemic, Fennessy and Lillico oversaw a\u00a0renovation, led by the architect Adriana Hanna, that celebrates a host of Australian artists and designers.<\/p>\n

\"Only <\/p>\n

Only connect: the bedroom and bathroom<\/p>\n

Today, the central living space is the most striking part of the house, with its high vaulted ceiling held up by dark-stained Oregon- pine timber beams (likely salvaged from an old warehouse, according to Lillico), and its chunky brick-built fireplace. To maximise the space, they had a custom built-in sofa made, which is also a\u00a0subtle historical nod to a \u201c70s-era conversation pit,\u201d says Fennessy. Next to it is a coffee table by local designer Zachary Frankel. \u201cIt can cop anything,\u201d Fennessy adds. \u201cThe kids are always doing performances on it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kitchen on the other side of the central fireplace is dominated by a tile-topped island with six bulky legs. \u201cIt\u2019s got character,\u201d says Fennessy. \u201cIt feels like it could start crawling away.\u201d The nearby dining table is a bespoke piece by local design brand Fomu. \u201cIt\u2019s the only table in the house, so it\u2019s used for everything from dinner parties to the kids\u2019 painting,\u201d he says. \u201cWe wanted it to be robust, because we knew it would take a few bumps.\u201d Surrounding the table are six Razor Back dining chairs by Danish designer Henning Kj\u00e6rnulf, while on the wall behind is an abstract painting by Tasmanian artist Zoe Grey, which the couple chose as their wedding gift.<\/p>\n

The flooring throughout this central living space is original polished brickwork, which is warm in hue yet pleasingly cool underfoot in the hot summers. The bricks extend outside through the garden doors on to the terrace. \u201cIt\u2019s a relatively small house,\u201d says Fennessy, \u201cbut it feels slightly bigger because you\u2019re claiming a bit of the outside, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

The renovation wasn\u2019t the only project that kept the couple busy during the pandemic, however. As freelancers, work was hard to come by, so in one of the periods when Australia\u2019s stringent restrictions were eased slightly, Fennessy decided to photograph one of the neighbouring houses. He didn\u2019t know it then, but this would snowball into a personal project for him and Lillico that would last the next five years.<\/p>\n

\"Sinking <\/p>\n

Sinking feeling: a built-in sofa inspired by\u00a0the sunken living rooms of the 1970s<\/p>\n

Fennessy has since photographed 23 such homes, many designed by Knox, with Lillico interviewing the owners. This month, the project will be published by Thames & Hudson in Australia as a coffee-table book, Bush Modern: Hand-Crafted Homes on the Edge of the City. It was a labour of love for the pair, who executed everything from the photography to the design, but the resulting book captures a precious moment in time. Two of the homes are still inhabited, for instance, by their original owners, who built them in the early 1970s, and are now in their 90s. Meanwhile, others have been bought and restored by new owners, mainly creatives like Fennessy and Lillico, leaving central Melbourne in search of trees and fresh air.<\/p>\n

The project is also a loving portrait of a truly unique \u2013 and uniquely Australian \u2013 architectural style. \u201cWe came to realise just how special these homes are,\u201d says Fennessy, \u201cbut also how they\u2019re in danger of disappearing and not being fully appreciated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Three more Bush Modern homes\"one <\/p>\n

Redfern House Designed by Alistair Knox in 1967, this is one of Lillico and Fennessy\u2019s favourite Bush Modern homes. Knox\u2019s affection for the vernacular architecture of Australian farm buildings shines through in the lofty, timber interior and open fireplace.<\/p>\n

\"one <\/p>\n

Fraser Jackson House Lillico describes this as \u2018one of the most important homes in their book\u2019. Hand-built by its owner in 1947, it has unusual features, like a hidden writer\u2019s nook and high \u2018clerestory\u2019 windows that let natural light stream in.<\/p>\n

\"one <\/p>\n

Stonygrad Built in 1940, this is one of the earliest examples of Bush Modernism. Built by the Russian artist Danila Vassilieff with materials found on the surrounding land, it shows the movement\u2019s DIY roots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photographs\u00a0Sean Fennessy We ended up here because after 10\u00a0years in the city we wanted trees and fresh air,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":258094,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":{"0":"post-258093","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-au","12":"tag-australia","13":"tag-design","14":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=258093"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258093\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/258094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=258093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=258093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=258093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}