The family has been clients of this office for twenty years.

Initially, we designed a new house for the parents on the Vintage golf estate at Pokolbin as a weekend retreat in the Hunter wine region of NSW.

Later we did major alterations & additions to an old brick cottage for their son at Monterey, close to Botany Bay & near Mascot airport.

The Monterey cottage quickly proved to be too small for the growing family; so our client being a very keen surfer kept pushing his horizons further South in the quest for a place to raise his kids on the beach.

Then the Shearwater Landing subdivision came on the market at Cronulla. I was asked to check out the plan of subdivision and suggest a suitable block. I did so & recommended the purchase of an irregular but long block with a good north alignment and distant views over Botany Bay. The white sands of Cronulla Beach are 200M away.

Because of my long-standing surfing heritage, I tend to design beach houses with major emphasis on natural light and ventilation; to bring the unique ambience of beachside living into all aspects of the house design by using louvres for maximum ventilation; by using verandahs as casual outside living areas; by using overhanging gable & skillion roofs to shade & protect from storms and summer sun.

Within the constraints of client budget, lot size & orientation, it is almost always possible to bring everything together and create a great house for beach living.

We appear to have designed and built for a beach house for this family at Cronulla. It stands totally out of character among the pretentious & monolithic concrete boxes which surround it; but maybe, just maybe, the promise of a relaxed beach lifestyle will be realised for parents and the kids; and the house will be appreciated & treasured for generations & decades to come.