Organic 1970s Hollander House, the Gaudi-style home at Newport, listed

Organic 1970s Hollander House, the Gaudi-style home at Newport, listed
Jonathan ChancellorDecember 7, 2020

The unusual Hollander House, the Antonio Gaudi-style home at Newport on Sydney’s northern beaches, has been listed for sale.

The hand-formed ferro-cement house is without question one of the finest examples of true organic architecture in Australia. 

"Hollander House is free form and highly contemporary and will appeal to those who think different," the marketing from Modern House, a specialist estate agency for architect-designed residences, suggests. No formal price guidance has been issued, but an ambitious $1.5 million has been mooted in both the local papers.

The current owner is Californian-born interior designer Nancy Renzi of Renzi Design.

The property at 81 Grandview Drive was designed by David Hollander and built between 1969 to 1971 following the contours of the land like a giant rock formation.

"It evokes memories of Antonio Gaudi’s Barcelona architecture with the optimism of the future, think Zaha Hadid but with texture," the marketing suggested.

It first featured in Australian House and Garden, September, 1971, then voted one of the top five houses of the year, Australian House and Garden, 1973. Vogue Australia featured it in 1975.

Hollander developed a floor plan enveloping three levels beginning at the entrance hall and office, continuing through the living area to the kitchen/dining area, and ultimately ascending to the casual recreation room at the highest elevation.

His elliptical walls have curves which he thought were correct aesthetically, having found a heavily treed allotment just below the crest with a restrained excavation of the site for his new home. 

Recent additions to the design include an outdoor bath in the private deck from the main bedroom and a large entertaining deck off the kitchen with an outdoor fireplace as a centrepiece. There is 180 square metre internal space for the house engineered by E Perry and built by B A Moore on the 904 square metre block.

Hollander designed it for his own use and lived there for 14 years. Stephen and Meredith D'alton sold the house in 1990 for $230,000. It last traded at $860,000 in 2011.

FLOOR PLAN_Portrait_HOLLANDER HOUSE

David Hollander trained at the University of Sydney in the mid-1960s, later joining the Canberra office of Towel Rippon and Associates before accepting a position with the Sydney practice Devine Erby Mazlin (today DEM) in 1974. 

Some of Australia’s most celebrated circular-plan buildings include Roy Grounds’ Australian Academy of Science building at the Australian National University, Canberra (1956) and on a domestic scale, Peter Muller’s dome-roofed Kumale, in nearby Barrenjoey Road, Palm Beach (1955).

Newport, which sits between the Pacific Ocean to the east and Pittwater to the west, is a 20 minute drive to Palm Beach or Manly.

Newport is situated 31 kilometres north of Sydney’s CBD. 

Photography: © Jennifer Soo (Photos: 1, 2, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14) © Sharyn Cairns Photography (Photos: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13)

Jonathan Chancellor

Jonathan Chancellor is one of Australia's most respected property journalists, having been at the top of the game since the early 1980s. Jonathan co-founded the property industry website Property Observer and has written for national and international publications.

Editor's Picks