Tom Uren's Balmain East home listed
The longtime Balmain East home of the late Labor activist and environmentalist Tom Uren is for sale following his opera singer widow Christine Logan’s decision to downsize locally.
It was designed by architect Richard Leplastrier in the early 1990s using jarrah and karri recycled from warehouses in Fremantle, walls of blackbutt from northern New South Wales and ceilings of two-inch thick boards of celery top pine sold off by the Hydroelectric Commission in Tasmania.
The former minister in the Whitlam and Hawke Labor governments then created a private green oasis on the 496 sq m holding.
He paid $90,000 for a vacant block on Gilchrist Place in 1983, then the adjoining property for $100,000 two years later.
Between $3.45 million and $3.795 million is the price guidance for the 287 sqm space by Marcus Lloyd-Jones, of the Modern House agency.
"Taking its cue from the nearby industrial waterfront buildings, as well as from the character of Uren himself, there’s a solidity and robustness to the form of the three-bedroomed timber house, and yet it still manages to create an element of openness and intimacy," he said.
Uren, who was born in Pashley Street, Balmain, died in early 2015.
This article was first published in the Saturday Daily Telegraph.
Photograph's courtesy of Michael Nicholson Photography