Lasting–1950s Modernist Double-Brick House

“If things are well made, they should be able to be maintained, restored and even given a more desirable quality,” says architect Michelle Orszaczky, co-founder of Clayton Orszaczky. While Michelle is describing the mid-century furniture that she and her husband David collect, the ethos also applies to their home – a modernist double-brick house designed by Kevin Curtin in 1957 that they have refreshed and renovated.

Michelle and David bought the house in 2006 and made small modifications over the years. With their children now young adults, the couple decided to do a more significant alteration in 2022 to enlarge the bedrooms and outdoor spaces. “Living in a home gives you insight about how you want to change things,” Michelle says. “Because we lived here for 16 years, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.” She designed a contemporary addition that draws on the language of mid-century architecture to blend seamlessly into the original house.

Located on a sloping block in the Sydney suburb of Oatley, the house sits below street level with a beautiful garden landscaped by Matthew Napoli and Tanya Wood. The front façade has a mid-century character, with a flat roof, large overhang and postand- beam construction, but this portion of the house is all brand new. The original house sits behind it, accessed via a stone path to the 1950s tiled porch.

The front door opens to the living and dining room that has an elevated position, looking east over Gungah Bay and the surrounding bush. North-facing clerestory windows bring sunlight in throughout the day, and the solid double-brick construction keeps the house warm through the winter.

“A lot of people would have knocked it down, built a new home and wasted the materials.”

The original house needed only a light refresh, which included a new ceiling, pelmets and some lighting. Profile boards on the eastern wall have an undulating surface that mimics the existing 1950s bamboo curtains, and new joinery provides shelving and drawers that continue the style of the built-in desk. Michelle and David are long-time collectors of midcentury Danish furniture and have reupholstered and refreshed their pieces over the years to continue their longevity and use.

In the kitchen, new olive-green tiles and paint are inspired by the hues of the front door and porch. A butler’s pantry has been added to provide extra space and new appliances installed. However, much of the 1950s joinery remains, including the hostess drawers that slide between the kitchen and dining room, and the glass display cabinet beneath.

The major new addition here is the balcony that replaces a slim sundeck. It widens towards the far corner to provide greater space for outdoor dining, and then wraps around the side of the house. “I designed the curved balcony so that it doesn’t block the aspect from the dining table, and still gives us a variable use of space,” says Michelle. It’s supported on a two-storey V-shaped steel column that rises from the ground outside Michelle’s studio downstairs.

The bedrooms and bathrooms are to the front of the house. With Michelle and David’s two children being older, they wanted to create more space for everyone to continue living comfortably at home, and to add an acoustically separated room for the musicians in the family.

Their son’s bedroom and the original family bathroom, with its grey and pink tiles and joinery, has been retained, and the former garage transformed into the music room and recording studio. Their daughter’s bedroom has almost doubled in size, marking where the extension is carefully stitched into the original architecture.

At the front is the new main bedroom with a study and ensuite – its grey mosaic tiles are a modern take on the 1950s bathroom. Michelle designed the addition with a post-and-beam structure, characteristic of the era they love so much. The ensuite is long and narrow, matching the width of two structural beams, and glazing between the beams and roof brings natural light into the room at each end.

Sliding glass doors and timber-batten screens open the bedroom to a sun-filled front courtyard, which was an underutilised part of the block. It sits beneath a soaring two-metre-deep overhang that accentuates the flat roof, articulates the post-and-beam construction and is supported on a substantial sandstone column on the other side of the driveway. Veldar Stonemasons sourced the recycled sandstone for the column and the foundation of the new building, carefully laying it to match the original house. The new roof also emulates the 1950s roof, but with a waterproof membrane beneath the gravel ballast and the installation of a solar array.

Renovated, restored and refreshed, this house has been given a longer life and even more desirable quality, melding together contemporary and mid-century design. “A lot of people would have knocked it down, built a new home and wasted the materials,” Michelle says. “But it was well made and well designed for the site. It had a lot of beautiful things that we’ve celebrated and enhanced, and we’ve made it contemporary and increased the amenity for our family.”

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