Patonga House
Architect
Cracknell and Lonergan Architects
Architectural Alts + Adds
2010
Design & Project Architect
Peter Lonergan
Joinery
Peter Lucas
Engineers
Partridge
Location
Patonga, NSW 2256
Specification
4 bed, 3 bath, 2 car (off-street) & pool
Program
Addition to rear of original cottage, creating central courtyard, alts to original build at rear of block
Photography
© Tom Ferguson
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Introduction
There’s an understated charm to Patonga – it’s the sort of place you have to be in the know to know about; there’s no need for the whole world to be aware of its existence. The one-time fishing village sits on a little sliver of land between Brisk Bay and Patonga Creek, near the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, its streets dotted with holiday shacks that epitomise the low-key atmosphere of the area.
“There’s an understated charm to Patonga – it’s the sort of place you have to be in the know to know about.”
The Design
One of the original fibro shacks sits one house back from the creek, a few minutes’ walk from the beach, on a block of land with two street frontages. From the street, it looks well-kept but decidedly modest, a deliberate ploy to conceal its true identity.
In 2010, the cottage was completely reworked by the award-winning architects Cracknell & Lonergan, who cleverly transformed it into a 218-square-metre house that responds sensitively to today’s needs and is ultimately flexible in its uses.
Entry to the house is now via a side walkway which leads directly to the new wing – a minimal L-shaped addition designed around a courtyard. The contrast between the old and new is instantly apparent, and yet the utilitarian nature of the steel and concrete block are in complete harmony with the original fibro cottage.
The addition comprises living/dining/kitchen, with a nine-metre-long kitchen benchtop in reclaimed timber running the length of one wall. Part of the original brief called for a dining table to seat twelve, which it does comfortably.
The combination of 3.8 metre ceilings throughout the addition, the ribbon of windows at ceiling level directed towards the ever-changing sky, and full-length doors opening to the expansive landscaped courtyard with saltwater pool, all serve to effectively enlarge the space, both in a visual and actual sense.
A new corridor runs across the back of the cottage, providing a transitional area between old and new. Containing storage, it also conceals the laundry from the living area. There are two bedrooms and an additional living area (or bedroom) in the original part of the house, and what was once the original bathroom has been refined by the architect, the duckboard flooring a nod to its marine location.
A walkway from the new section leads past a concealed outdoor bathroom to what was once the garage but, with additions by the architects, is now a self-contained suite of bedroom, living area and bathroom. Looking back onto the courtyard and house, this flexible space, which has its own entrance from a back laneway, could either be guest accommodation, studio space or main bedroom.
In its entirety, this is a house of many unexpected moods – open and expansive, quiet and contained. It’s a house that feels both intimate and calm yet is effortlessly able to accommodate a crowd. It is a house that makes complete sense.
Floor Plan
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Specifications
Specifications
4 bed, 3 bath, 2 car (off-street) & pool
Approx. gross internal living area:
218 sqm
Approx. gross land area:
518.5 sqm
For Sale by Private Treaty
Price Guide: $3.5M to $3.75M
View by Appointment
Please call Marcus Lloyd-Jones
0424 00 55 31
We look forward to welcoming you
to the house
Modern House Estate Agents
International: +61 2 8014 5363
National: 1300 814 768
Email: viewings@modernhouse.co
Location
Patonga has an understated charm – a one-time fishing village set on a slim spit between Brisk Bay and Patonga Creek, with water on both sides and the bushline of Brisbane Water National Park close behind. It has that familiar coastal mix of holiday shacks, sandy tracks and a shoreline that seems to set the tempo for everything else.
The creek is Patonga’s constant: calm enough for kayaks and small boats, edged by mangroves and birdlife, and gently widening as it opens towards Broken Bay. Above town, Warrah Lookout delivers the bigger geography in one sweep – Broken Bay and the Hawkesbury laid out beyond the ridgeline – while the waterfront pub keeps things grounded with good food, a drink, and the basics if you’ve arrived light on provisions.
For all its tucked-away atmosphere, Patonga is an easy escape – about 90km from Sydney CBD (roughly 1 hour 20 minutes by car), and around 1 hour 40 minutes from Newcastle. And when the day is done, there’s the simplest ritual of all – walking along the beach.
Architect
Peter Lonergan is an architect whose work sits at the meeting point of design clarity and cultural responsibility – a practice shaped as much by making as by careful looking.
As co-director of Cracknell & Lonergan (established 1984) alongside Julie Cracknell, Peter has helped steer a multi-disciplinary studio recognised for architecture, interiors and heritage work, with a long-standing focus on conserving cultural heritage and sustaining the environment. The practice also holds an explicit commitment to Aboriginal Reconciliation. Peter is the firm’s Nominated Architect (NSW Registration No. 5983), a member of the Australian Institute of Architects, and has served on the AIA NSW Heritage Conservation Committee.
Early in his career he worked in Neville Gruzman’s office, absorbing the Sydney School’s respect for site, restraint and liveability – influences that continue to read through his own approach.
A defining thread through the practice’s work is Julie Cracknell and Peter Lonergan’s relationship with the late Bill Lucas – not simply as an influence, but as a close friend and long-time collaborator. Lucas worked with Cracknell & Lonergan across his later years and was a familiar presence in the studio, effectively operating from the office over an extended period as projects, ideas, and his extensive archive itself took shape.
That connection is perhaps most visible in Cracknell & Lonergan’s conservation of Bill and Ruth Lucas’ Glass House at Castlecrag – an exercise in preserving radical lightness without turning it into a museum piece. The restoration works were completed in 2023, and the project went on to win the 2024 Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage Architecture at the National Architecture Awards.
In 2022, Julie Cracknell and Peter Lonergan received a commendation in the Adrian Ashton Prize for Bill Lucas: Architect Utopian – a project that brought to completion and exhibition the evolving archive Lucas had been constructing and reconstructing since 1975. It’s been recognised as an invaluable resource for the profession: a way to see Lucas’s development over time, his moral compass, and his belief in smaller-scale work that can genuinely change communities.
Photograph: The Robin Boyd Foundation
2024 Lachlan Macquarie Award for Heritage Architecture
Architect's drawing
For Sale by Private Treaty
Price Guide: $3.5M to $3.75M
View by Appointment
Please call Marcus Lloyd-Jones
0424 00 55 31
We look forward to welcoming you
to the house
Modern House Estate Agents
International: +61 2 8014 5363
National: 1300 814 768
Email: viewings@modernhouse.co
“And when the day is done, there’s the simplest ritual of all – walking along the beach. We look forward to welcoming you to the house.”