From the rustic sandstone sea wall to the towering palms swaying in the breeze, every part of this seven-bedroom, absolute waterfront holiday home is picture-perfect. Outside it’s all about tactile white-on-whites, weathered timber and succulent greenery. The interiors are awash in space, light, and the laid-back perfection of a palette of marble, linen, oak and rattan.
Gracing a 2500-square metre patch of prime real estate at Wagstaffe on the NSW Central Coast, the Australian Home of the Year was constructed by Hunter region builder and HIA member Construct Central Coast to a design by Dennis Rabinowitz at JPR Architects. With its resort styling and views across the sparkling expanse of Brisbane Water, the home epitomises easy-breezy luxury coastal living. But it took 18 months of highly technical construction to achieve such laid-back beauty.
The waterfront block, originally part of a larger property, was empty save for a one-bedroom boat shed, which has been retained and modified. However, the extreme proximity to tidal water necessitated some fairly intense site preparation.
‘There was an existing sea wall, but it was dilapidated, so first we had to get in and build a new sandstone sea wall … we had to work with the tides which made things quite challenging,’ explains Daniel Syddall, owner of Construct Central Coast.
The second stage of preparation was dewatering the site and encasing an existing sewer main that ran beneath the footprint of the house and pool.
‘The de-watering system takes the table water out of the property so you can dig the trenches and expose the sewer, without the banks collapsing and the existing sewer line floating,’ Daniel says.
‘The sewer was deep, so we had to get in with machines then hand-labour to get the job done.’