The circa 1880s building at 2-4 Carroll Avenue, North Melbourne has been horse stables, sausage manufacturing facility, storage facility in the course of Earth War II, and a plumbing workshop in advance of its latest daily life as a home.
SeaChange actress Sigrid Thornton and producer Tom Burstall procured the property in 1977, changing it into their two-storey home less than the supervision of outstanding area architect, Suzanne Dance.
Sigrid clarifies the backstory, ‘We ended up each actually motivated by the possibilities the double block offered, furnishing the best possible use of the garden with the making located on the jap boundary. The strange stables building had big areas and openings on all sides generating gentle and volume. The bonus for us was an elevated situation hunting about the park to a lovely square.’
A master carpenter who worked on Rippon Lea Estate was engaged to change the former stables going through Carrolls Lane into the home you see today. The layout pays homage to the original timber characteristics of the previous 1880s stable with a liberal use of kauri pine joinery, western crimson cedar, tallowwood, and kauri flooring.
Sigrid and Tom ordered the neighbouring single-fronted Victorian terrace in the early ‘90s, and, mixed with the stables, established an L-shaped home facing a paved and tiered yard.
The garden encompasses experienced trees, a fountain, and decking and is instantly linked to many rooms — which includes a library and office environment regions — to variety an integral portion of the home. It is been a hub in the inventive life of Melbourne over the many years and the web site of several legendary get togethers attended by artists, actors, writers, and musicians.
Sigrid notes, ‘The inside residing and functioning spaces stream by into the totally private back garden and this operates as an atmospheric exterior living and entertaining space.’
Across the combined 421 sq. metre site (with two titles) today are four bedrooms, two bogs, an business, and several residing regions. ‘As our life changed and family members arrived and went, the configuration has advanced appropriately,’ claims Sigrid. ‘More just lately, we have employed the cottage wing’s inventive spaces to acquire movie and tv productions.’
After 40+ decades in this home, Sigrid and Tom are marketing their home with ideas to downsize and travel. Mementos of their lifestyle here are embedded into the partitions as tiles and artefacts, marking a further bygone chapter in this historic assets.
2-4 Carroll Avenue, North Melbourne VIC is shown with Nicholas West and Stephanie Hawke at Nelson Alexander and will go to auction on Saturday October 22 at 11:30am.