Sanders House (former)

The former Sanders House at 25 Burroughs Road, Balwyn, designed in an idiosyncratic Tudor Revival mode and built by local contractor Frank Sanders as his own family residence in 1946-47, is significant.

Significant fabric includes:

·         the entire exterior of the house which is of variegated cream brick construction with a prominent terracotta shingled roof that incorporates bell-cast eaves, gable vents, half-timbering, dormer windows and a tall chimney
·         the front door, which is set into an arched porch with metal gate and coach lamp
·         the ground floor windows, which contain conventional steel-framed sashes
·         the attached gable-roofed garage
·         the original brick fence and gates to both street boundaries, which includes matching brick planter boxes
·         the crazy-paved pathway in the front garden.  

The second vehicle entrance, with different cream brickwork and a roller shutter, is not significant.

The house is of aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.

 

 The house is significant for its highly unusual architectural expression.  Although dating from the early post-war period, the style of the house harks backs to the Tudor Revival or Old English mode that was so popular in Melbourne in the later 1930s.  However, unlike ubiquitous examples (including many in Balwyn) that reduce the stylistic vocabulary to tokenistic detailing of corbelled eaves and arched porches, Sanders went much further and confidently incorporated elements of above-average complexity.  The unusually prominent roof, with its picturesque mix of gambrel, hip and gable forms, its terracotta shingle cladding, dormer windows and half-timbering, is especially striking.  The idiosyncratic approach that characterises much of Sanders’ work is further evidenced by the recessed front porch, coach lamps, narrow gable vents, porthole window and matching brick planter boxes, front fence, gates and crazy paving.  Occupying a corner site, the house remains an eye-catching element in an area otherwise defined by far more utilitarian houses of the same era. (Criterion E)