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My name's David Neil and I'm one of the directors at Neil Architecture and this is Marathon
House which was originally build in the late 1800's
Marathon House is located in Hawthorn East, it's a leafy suburb with lots of Victorian
Homes.
Rob and Eliza came across Neil Architecture through friends of theirs who'd used us to
design their home and we could tell that they were putting their trust in us from the start.
Designing a family home for them and their three children and the way they wanted to
lay it out that incorporated house and garden.
One of the strong design features in this home when we walked in to it was the Victorian
archway in the front of the house.
We felt that it was important to somehow incorporate this into the new works so we've got a new
double-glazed door archway at the end of the hall, and that as you work your way through
the house you visually connect to the oversized brick archways at the back of the house.
The ideas is that one day is they'll be covered with Boston Ivy so they just become these
green arches in the garden which will be beautiful.
On this project we collaborated with Ben Scott Garden Designs, the idea really driving this
job was really to respect the large leafy neighbourhood . We retained a large Date Palm
that we relocated into the centre of the garden so that when you're standing at the front
of the house the Date Palm is beautifully located to the side of the house.
Eventually, with plants growing through wires in the screen the outlook from all areas will
be into the garden and it become a private oasis.
When it came to laying out the spaces one thing that was important to our clients was
to have a series of spaces that connect rather than one big sprawling open plan.
We kept these principal rooms at the front of the house which were the large beautiful
intact rooms with fireplaces and beautiful features and then moving through to the back
we opened up the house bringing in light from all angles as well as feeling like you're
sitting in different garden rooms.
And then upstairs working over the undercroft entrainment space is the three bedrooms for
the children as well as their own living space.
One of the lovely classic old features in this house was the doorbell, which we decided
to retain and reinstate into the back of the house.
Quite a classic piece of design.
When considering materials for the new parts that we were building on this house, we were
quite taken by the beautiful tones in the existing brickwork, so we decided to keep
the bricks and reuse them as well as other recycled bricks which were painted white.
The idea behind using the recycled materials was really to give everything a slighly sort
of aged look rather than it all being too slick.
The idea was really a sense of lightness throughout, so not to be too heavy on the colour.
We've really fallen in love with a INAX tile which is beautiful bricky colour which we
felt referenced the external brick colour beautifully.
We've got an INAX tile up to eight-o height in the power room which is beautiful backdrop
to one of the beautiful dark marble pedestal basins from Artedomus.
And then the stone in the kitchen also has a bit of this rusty vein coming through which
references really well to the tile on the hearths, so the whole combination works really
well together.
The stone floor which is called Andora comes from a small province between Spain and France.
The INAX tiles come from Japan, and the marble in the kitchen also comes from Italy.
I think the thing I'm most proud of is the fact that we have delivered a project to a
client that's fulfilled their brief in every way, and it's something that they get a lot
of pleasure out of.
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