Richard Leplastrier designs across Sydney for sale

Homes designed by the acclaimed architect Richard Leplastrier are capturing buying interest across Sydney.

His early 1990s Balmain East design for the longtime home of the late Labor activist and environmentalist Tom Uren been sold.

Angophora House at Avalon Beach is up for sale.

And last week a mid-1970s Lepastrier-designed Bayview (above) offering came on the market.

The Uren home came with a price guidance of $3.45 million and $3,795,000 through Modern House agent Marcus Lloyd-Jones.

It was listed by his opera singer widow Christine Logan who has decided to downsize locally.

Richard Leplastrier designed the 287 sqm home in the early 1990s with jarrah and karri trees recycled from warehouse in Fremantle.

The former minister in the Whitlam and Hawke Labor governments then created a private rainforest oasis on the 496 sqm holding.

One of the first things Leplastrier did was to spend a week camping on the site with his partner, Karen Lambert.

“I had my drawing board there, and some of the first ideas for the house came from that week’s work onsite,” says Leplastrier. “When you do that, you see the way the place works in a way you don’t see if you just visit for a couple of hours two or three times.

"You see how it works in the weather, how it works from the point of view of the sunrise and sunset, noise, neighbours, harbour activity etc.”

Leplastrier says Tom Uren was very much at the forefront of his mind as he designed this house starting with the extra high front door. Uren was comparable in stature to the 1.94 metre tall Gough Whitlam.

“Tom told me he wanted good high ceilings, and that’s what he got,” says Leplastrier. 

Listed by David Watson at LJ Hooker Avalon, the Bayview home is modelled partly on Leplastrier's Palm Garden house at Bilgola Beach (below).

Comprising four distinct pavilions connected by internal corridors, the large family home comes with a 13 metre saltwater infinity edge pool on its 4,078 sqm parcel.

Watson has a guide of $2.8 million to $3.08 million. It last traded for $2 million in 2010.

Leplastrier, one of Australia’s most influential and internationally awarded architects, studied architecture at the University of Sydney, then working with Jorn Utzon on the Sydney Opera House.

One of his main tasks was to help prepare sketches for the Danish architect's proposed Bayview house, which later became the basis for Utzon's cliffside house on the Mediterranean island of Majorca (below).

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.