By Cara Waters
Veeral Patel is still pinching himself that he lives in a home designed by renowned architect Robin Boyd.
“It’s just such a privilege,” he says. “Sometimes even [when] I go to put the bins out, and I come back and I stand by the gate and I think ‘I can’t believe I am living in this house’.”
Onisha and Veeral Patel and their dogs, Cipo and Hachi, in their home, designed by mid-century architect Robin Boyd, which will be open to the public for the first time. Credit: Joe Armao
Hidden away in the leafy hills of Vermont in Melbourne’s eastern suburbs, Wildwood was designed by Boyd in 1964.
It will be open to the public for the first time as part of this weekend’s Open House Melbourne program.
Patel, an architectural photographer and his wife, Onisha, bought the home last year after stumbling across a listing for the house on a Facebook group.
“It wasn’t advertised very heavily,” Patel says. “Sometimes when Boyd houses come on sale, The Design Files and everyone jumps on it. One day, I was just surfing through Facebook, a group called Retro Houses For Sale (and Renovation) Australia, and this listing popped up. I thought, ‘Wow, a Boyd house in Vermont – I didn’t know about that’.”
The Patels snapped up Wildwood before auction – Domain records a sale price of $2.1 million for the property – and the couple are determined to bring the house, which they say remains largely unknown, to public attention.
Boyd is one of the most prominent Australian architects of the last century.
He wrote about design for The Age after World War II, and his Small Homes Service sold affordable architectural drawings to builders and prospective homeowners.
Entry to Wildwood is through an unassuming gate in a suburban court; a crazy-paving path through the luscious garden leads to the long, slim house with cream brick walls and huge floor to ceiling windows.
The path that leads to the Wildwood home.Credit: Joe Armao
“My favourite part is the colonnades,” Patel says. “These are repeating colonnades that punctuate the elevation. There is a beautiful rhythm to it.”
The front door of the home is through a central courtyard, past the swimming pool, with the house divided into two wings – one for the adults and one for the original owner’s children.
Boyd was commissioned to design the home by Ian and Pauline Noble, who had two children when the design began and five by the time they moved in.
The lounge room with sweeping views over the garden retains its original timber window frames and distinctive metal fireplace.
The exterior of Wildwood.Credit: Joe Armao
“In winter, the amount of light that comes in here warms the space up,” Patel says. “So much thought has been placed into this house.”
Wildwood includes many features of Boyd’s distinctive mid-century modern style, including open-plan living, large windows, a connection to the outdoors and site-responsive orientation.
The Patels see themselves as custodians of this architecturally significant private home and are now working to restore the interior and upgrade the home’s sustainable credentials by electrifying the home, and installing solar panels, a battery and double glazing.
“Our role as the owner is to upkeep the house, not to let go of the house because a lot of Boyd homes, they just become derelict and people don’t look after them,” Patel says.
The pool and central courtyard at Wildwood taken from what Boyd designed as the children’s wing of the home. Credit: Joe Armao
Patel says as soon as they bought Wildwood they wanted to share the house with the wider public.
“We bought it because I knew that if someone else got it, they might bastardise the house, and I didn’t want this house to have the same fate as some of the other Boyd houses,” he says.
“As a custodian, you want other people to come in and see this house because you want to upkeep the legacy, not only of this house, but of Robin Boyd as well. There is a lot of responsibility.”
Wildwood is one of 10 private homes that will be open to the public as part of the Open House Melbourne weekend.
Robin Boyd in 1970. Credit: Mark Strizic
Open House Melbourne’s executive director and chief curator, Tania Davidge, says Boyd was one of Australia’s most significant modernist architects but his later works, which include Wildwood, are lesser known.
“It is an amazing opportunity to experience it in person,” she says.
Other private homes included in the program are the WOWOWA Magic home in Fairfield, Armadale House in Armadale and the Hello House in Richmond.
“Residential houses are incredibly hard to get into, so it is really wonderful that someone will open up their house as part of the program,” Davidge says. “It builds a real understanding of Melbourne’s design culture.”
Wildwood is open on Saturday as part of Open House Melbourne weekend on July 27-28.
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