Little House [1966]

Famed for his cotton-webbed timber furniture line, Douglas Snelling also designed some of the most exceptional Sydney School residences that borrowed more from Californian modernism than that of his Australian contemporaries. His 1966 Little House is a stylistic exemplar that sits to a long, west-facing plot and falls from the road through a sprawling garden down into a composition of sandstock brick, cedar and glass mosaics (designed by Gerard Havekes) to arrive at a boathouse trio buried into the landscape by the water’s edge. The structure itself affirmed Snelling’s respect for the work of Frank Lloyd Wright, consisting of massive timber posts and angled beams that are anchored off rocky surrounds, with generous eaves helping lend the sizeable residence its subtle, low-slung form. Currently being reworked and restored by Smart Design Studio.