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This former 1915 arts and crafts style home maintains its character-filled facade upon entry. Yet, once you step through its doors, the home opens out in a dramatic showing of natural light and garden vistas.
Homeowners Sally and Damien Marasco lived in the Alphington, VIC, home for two years before engaging Clare Cousins Architects to design an extensive renovation in 2016.
The brief was simple; create a strong connection to the garden.
‘The original period home’s living spaces felt detached from the rear lower garden, due to the site’s topography,’ explains Clare. ‘Now the house steps with the site and feels immersed in the lush landscape, designed by Eckersley Garden Architecture.’
Clare Cousins Architects worked with Sally and Damien to design a new layout for the rear of the home that cascades down to the garden, with soaring six-metre high windows, sky lights, soft curves and a winding internal staircase leading from the original part of the house down to the new lower extension.
Not wanting to waste the beautiful garden vistas captured by these floor-to-ceiling windows, the first floor (accessed through the entry) now has a mezzanine-style layout with the main bedroom and the living room looking out over the newly constructed second floor below and through to the garden beyond.
‘The design process was a great collaboration,’ says Sally. ‘We will cherish our memories of that knockout view from each room’
The garden, complete with magnesium pool and original ‘snakes and ladders’ path leads directly to the La Trobe Golf Course green — something the new owners of this open family home will likely enjoy as much as Sally and Damien have.
34 Lucerne Crescent, Alphington, VIC, is listed for sale with Luke Sacco and Liz Walker from Nelson Alexander.
