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Bella Stagoll and her family were living next door to this house, a timber Edwardian home on a large north-facing corner block, when they noticed some real estate agents ‘loitering around’. They soon realised the house was on the market. Having long admired the property, Bella and her partner Jon decided to make an offer – and in a surprisingly short amount of time, it was theirs! With a toddler and a newborn at the time, they weren’t in a hurry to start a big building project, so initially the home was rented out, while Bella and Jon planned their next move.
A year later, in 2011, Bella and Jon met with the team at Melbourne architecture firm Kennedy Nolan to commence the design process. They had never worked with an architect prior to commencing this project, but they had always admired Kennedy Nolan’s work. After meeting with Rachel Nolan and Patrick Kennedy who run the practice, the decision was made.
The team at Kennedy Nolan went away and came up with their initial designs. This included the idea of creating a new entry to the ‘public’ part of the house, and building the striking exterior wall with distinctive circle cut-out to provide an entry court, and to screen the neighbouring flats. The design also embraced Bella’s desire for direct access to the garden through an amazing wall of sliding glass doors that disappear completely into a wall cavity.
After taking time to refine the designs and obtain all necessary permits, in 2013, the build commenced. Bella had a great builder and says she was surprised how streamlined this process was. In 2014 the build was complete. In that same year, the house won a Victorian Architecture Award, and has since been featured in a number of Australian architectural publications.
For the full story and many more photos of this Westgarth home, do pop back and revisit the original post!
