The Palm Beach House
To overcome the problems of building on a cliff face with numerous rock shelves, architect Ken Woolley designed a timber 'tower' with multiple outdoor decks and balconies that connect the house to the cliff face.
Ken Woolley is a renowned and multi-award winning architect active between the 1950s and the 1990s. In the 1960s he worked for the project home company Pettit & Sevitt, and thousands of homes have been built from his designs. Between 1984 and 1985 he designed and built a family weekender at Palm Beach which received the Wilkinson Award in 1987.
I liked the notion of having a small footprint, and the idea of a tower-like house, which would in itself be a staircase up the cliff terminating in a bridge at the back, evolved.
Ken Woolley quoted in 70/80/90 Iconic Australian Houses: three decades of domestic architecture, by Karen McCartney
Published on
Related
Bookings open soon
Tour
International Women’s Day Walking Tour of Castlecrag
Celebrate International Women’s Day 2025 with a walking tour that honours three pioneers of 20th-century Australian architecture: Marion Mahony Griffin, Ruth Lucas and Eva Buhrich.
Saturday 8 March 10am–12.30pm
Wallpaper
Wallpaper printing rollers: from machine printing to 3D capture
In December 2022, Phyllis Murphy AM generously donated to the Caroline Simpson Library more than 3,000 wallpaper samples. While the bulk of the donation consists of wallpaper rolls, lengths and sample books, it also includes two printing rollers
House photo albums
These specially produced photograph albums (some in published form and others consisting of photographs pasted into an album) comprise images of one or more domestic dwellings and depict exteriors, interiors and gardens in NSW mostly from the late 19th to the early 20th centuries
Richard Stringer’s architectural photographs, 1968–2003
This portfolio contains 55 photo prints taken by architectural photographer Richard Stringer, dating from 1968 to 2003, documenting significant Australian domestic buildings