MIDDLE CRESCENT

The original house is an Italianate-style Victorian-era villa built in the 1880s when economic confidence translated to architectural grandeur and Melbourne’s nouveau riche had a taste for increasingly complex ornamentation including elaborate mouldings, iron lacework and tall parapets.

A previous renovation had squandered precious land on a long driveway and swimming pool that languished in the house’s shadow, and the new owners wished to reclaim the space.

So together with the extraordinary design Team of Thomas Hamel, Christopher Doyle & Paul Bungay, their clients list of ideas and dreams grew, and so too did the project. Not only would they expand outwards, but they would dig downwards and build a subterranean domain with a cinema, wine cellar, spa, games room, car wash-equipped garage and wellness space.