LIVING HOME

This stunning architectural house by Bruce Rickard also has his signature sense of place. By Judy Barouch. Photography by James Alty.

Inspiration comes in curious ways and, in the case of Judy and John Reid's home, Mirrabooka, it came from the 1950s Alfred Hitchcock thriller, North by Northwest, starring Cary Grant.

Although realising that the house depicted was merely a movie set, the Reids were nevertheless captivated, especially by the rugged interior stone walls of the dramatic setting for North by Northwest. They determined to build something similar on their newly-acquired block of land in Sydney's Hills District. On discovering that Hitchcock was in Sydney at the time, John rang him for more details. Ultimately, a batch of photographs was sent from the art department at MGM.

These stills provided the starting point for Bruce Rickard, a then young architect recently returned from post graduate studies in the USA. Rickard had been greatly influenced by the design philosophies of Frank Lloyd Wright, especially his seminal "Fallingwater" house which was cantilevered over a waterfall in the hills of Pennsylvania.

While remaining enthusiastic about Wright's work, Rickard was sympathetically adapting the esteemed architect's language to local climatic conditions. Designing his first homes, he was integrating interior and exterior spaces while retaining such features as floating roof planes; low, almost fortress-like lines and mellow colours.

"When commissioning Bruce I warned him that I was a perfectionist," John smiles roguishly, adding that it took six sets of plans before the final scheme was approved. After 18 months the Reid's house was completed, bunkered into the hillside of a 2.1 hectare (5 acre) site, with sweeping views over plains to the Blue Mountains. It was positioned in relation to a huge, old radiata pine which, sadly, has recently died. Bordering the perimeter are enormous pinus radiata, pinus montezuma, and sequioa sempervirens planted by Judy and John.

Completed in 1963, the single-storey house rests on pier and beam foundations and, despite initial opposition from the engineer, the Reids insisted on a 3 m cantilevered open deck of pre-stressed, post-tensioned concrete.
  "This eliminates the need for column support," Judy explains. This aspect of the construction was undertaken by the Reid's family company, CCL Australia, the firm that supplied the pre-stressing hydraulic jacks and the anchorages for the Sydney Opera House roof.

"Ours was possibly one of the first pre-stressed decks to be built in a domestic setting," John says with justifiable pride.

The organic architecture and choice of natural materials - including timber, brick and stone - ensures that the house blends harmoniously with the landscape. The flat roof is covered in river stones, external timber is Western Red cedar which has been allowed to weather and interior walls are clad in Tasmanian oak with a satin varnish finish.

There is a wonderful fluidity of space. The open plan living areas are anchored by a massive stone fireplace, an uncanny look-alike of the plaster mock-up fireplace in Northwest's Van Damm residence. It was created from sandstone quarried locally at Glenhaven. Several internal and external walls have been built from the same stone. The Reids wanted an informal look for the stonework with random coursing. "The stonemasons were appalled," John recalls. "They kept laying the stones in a formal manner and I repeatedly made them pull their work down! In the end they admitted it looked terrific."

The stone is corbelled at irregular intervals and, besides being aesthetically pleasing and a great spot for housing the odd knick-knack, Judy says that the fireplace proved a terrific place for her children, when young, to practise their climbing skills.

Beams of light dance across the interiors entering through clerestory windows, judiciously-placed skylights, glazed doors and corner windows that join seamlessly without mullions. There is a sense of poetry on arrival at Mirrabooka. The main entrance is through an enchanting Japanese-style garden: visitors leap-frog across massive stepping stones set in a large, Koi carp-filled pond complete with waterfalls and surrounded by maples, weeping cherry trees and azalea.

Unlike a movie-set house, the Reid's home has a real soul.

"Bruce is known as the Frank Lloyd Wright of Australian architecture," says Stella de Valder of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects.

Fascinating items collected from the Reid's extensive travels punctuate the interiors. Highlighted in a nook is a large ceramic Moroccan urn inlaid with camel bone, silver-coloured metal and semi-precious stones. Side-by-side are rugs from Turkey, ornaments and sculptures from China and Botswana, and a fine brush painting on camel bone from Istanbul. Alongside the font door is an oak settle and flanking the entrance to the living area is a chair, both carved by John's grandmother in 1906. The Reids are still enamoured with Mirrabooka and intend to see out their days there. It is a house that hasn't dated. Architecture students come to inspect it and, on viewing the house once again a year ago, Rickard pronounced that it was "ageing nicely".

"It is an exciting house," John says. "Even after 36 years here, we look at a shaft of sunlight coming inside and we marvel at how beautiful it is."
BEHIND THE SCENES - THE HOUSE: While Mirrabooka has been generally low-maintenance, it was a case of trial and error in some areas. Initially the terracotta red pigmented concrete floors were shined with a polishing machine and wax. However, after an elderly friend `went for a Burton' on the slippery surface, the Reids spent much effort experimenting until they disocovered a liquid non-skid polish which is simply spread on after washing. Similarly, there have been modifications to the interior lighting. To give the impression of daylight, lights were concealed in the overlapping ceiling planes. But for ease of reading, recessed downlights were recently added. After some initial roofing problems, the house now has a trouble-free flat roof due to advances in waterproofing technology.

Not all hardware required was easy to come by. To echo the rectangular theme of the architecture, John wanted D-pull brass handles that weren't rounded in the corners. He ended up making most of the cupboard handles himself, beating the brass with a ballpeen hammer to add textural interest.

THE BACK GARDEN: When the Reids took over, this magical, leafy oasis was simply dotted with wattle and several pines. Avid horticulturalists, they have planted more than 1500 trees and shrubs over the years including fragrant stephanotis and jasmine, pink and white wisteria, colourful bougainvillea and orange Bauhinia galpinii. John is a plant collector; they are both members of the International Dendrology Society and many of the trees in the garden are from around the world. There are fruit trees such as orange, lemon, tangello and mandarin as well as the more exotic macadamia, lychee and tamarillo. The trees attract an abundance of birdlife: rosellas, honey-eaters, king parrots, magpies, lorikeets and satin bower birds.