Affordable Sydney house design pioneer Brian Pettit dies

Housing design company Pettit & Sevitt co-founder Brian Pettit has died at the age of 85.

With Ron Sevitt, he founded the affordable housing design company in the early 1960s.

Some 3500 Pettit & Sevitt project homes for mostly middle-class aspirational buyers were designed and built by the company until it closed in the late 1970s.

The duo had met at ­Sun-Line Homes.

In collaboration with architect Ken Woolley they helped pioneer the open-plan living trend.

Last month a Pettit & Sevitt-designed home at Bilgola Plateau (pictured below) sold for $1.55 million through agent Simon Gourlay.

It had last sold for $400,000 in 1997, having had only two owners since being built by a flight traffic officer.

Val Sevitt, the widow of Ron, is putting together three updated designs set for marketing next year.

“Pettit & Sevitt was a quirky name which people still fondly remember,” she said yesterday.

This article first appeared in The Daily Telegraph.