Originally built as a Merchants Home in 1875, this Heritage-listed house has undergone several different incarnations over the years. It began life as a grand family residence, was later adapted into a boarding house, and more recently served as a halfway home for psychiatric patients, complete with a timber yurt in the backyard used as an additional treatment room. In the early 1990s it was converted back into a single dwelling, but the quality of the finishes and fittings did not match the character and dignity of such a beautiful old home.

Underlying the many challenges of the renovation were the varied and often conflicting construction types — both traditional and contemporary — required to restore and update the property, compounded by site-specific issues and latent conditions resulting from its age and history.