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Woodend House strikes just the right balance between old and new.
Originally serving as a hospital, the house is now the home of Pipkorn Kilpatrick interior designer Anna Skermer’s sister, Kate who lives there with her two kids, Harry and Maggie.
To say the building has a storied past would be an understatement: ‘Many people tell Kate they were born in her house in its previous life as Sunnyside Hospital — a small country hospital that mostly looked after maternity patients,’ Anna says.
The hospital is also reported to have looked after returned soldiers during the second world war, before it was purchased by a nun in 1951.
‘We’re not exactly sure when it was converted to a private residence but many unresolved renovations left it fairly confused when Kate took it on,’ Anna adds.
After coming up with the initial concept for the extension with architect and friend Jane Williams over a cup of tea, Kate engaged Pipkorn Kilpatrick to bring the renovation to life.
It was a non-negotiable to retain the existing facade and the original bedrooms at the front of the house — which were once hospital wards — but the maze of rooms with limited connections the outdoors all had to go.
To take advantage of the large 795-square-metre block and honour the building’s heritage, a glazed linkway now leads to the new addition, where the open-plan living spaces await beneath a cathedral-style ceiling.
‘The new pavilion roof emulates the traditional pitch but with modern doors, windows and detailing — complementing but not competing,’ Anna says.
‘As you walk through the glazed linkway to the extension, there is a clear shift in materials and palette.’
The front of the home is kept relatively simple, revealing timber accents and creamy walls in line with its period character. Meanwhile, the rear offers a similarly understated, but more modern aesthetic.
Concrete floors are paired with a sculptural concrete island bench in the kitchen, alongside black aluminium windows and doors framing the views out to the hills and cherry blossoms in the backyard. The new windows also help improve the property’s thermal performance and energy efficiency, which was a priority for Kate after living in the draughty country home for years prior.
The renovation has transformed the former hospital into a functional and sentimental family home. There are plenty of reminders of the building’s past in the old fireplaces or wooden doors, still labeled with ward numbers, and locals who know its history have commented on how great it looks from the streetscape.
‘They are happy that we stuck with the original look and feel of the building from the front,’ Anna says.
