Lust for Lifestyle

BADGER HOUSE, 1957–58

Design: Langdon Badger
Drawings: Lawson, Cheesman, and Doley
Location: Unley Park

 In 1952, Langdon Badger returned to Adelaide from East Sydney Technical College with a Diploma in Art, Design and Crafts. After holding an exhibition at his family home, where he transformed sections of the house using different colours and objects, he was inspired to launch Langdon Badger Furnishings.

At the time, it was the only location in Adelaide that offered imported Danish and Italian furniture and homewares alongside locally manufactured modern furniture, fabrics and accessories.

A natural showman, Badger was aware of the public recognition that building a glass house would bring him, so he designed ‘without any assistance from an architect’, a home which has one solid wall with all the others made of turquoise-tinted glass imported from Germany.

After he married Genevieve ‘Genny’ Lord – who grew up living on stations in rural South Australia - the couple moved into the ‘ultra-modern’, rectangular steel-framed Badger House, built on a site dotted with ancient gums and established willow trees, overlooking Brownhill Creek in Adelaide’s southern suburbs.

Design critic Reyner Banham’s seminal article ‘Design by Choice’ (Architectural Review, July 1961) explained that the logic of mass consumption had brought about a shift where designers would select and organise, rather than design. Although the Badger house predates this article, it was a perfect example of this new way of looking at design, being described as a ‘luxury single storey house in which the whole house tends to become a showcase with its interior on display’ (Houses around Adelaide, 1964).

The house contained furniture by Harry Bertoia, Grant Featherstone and Antonio Bonet, as well as Juan Kurchan and Jorge Ferrari Hardoy’s butterfly chairs. It had parquetry and carpeted floors, blue Italian mosaic glass tiles in the kitchen, a marble dining table and a teak drinks cabinet. Fabric, colours, materials, furniture, and art were all carefully chosen and placed to reflect the taste, and economic means, of the owner.

Internal spaces were defined through corner columns, wainscoting (wall panelling) and a travertine (stone) tile-lined block wall within which curtains and changes in level broke up the space. The dining ‘room’ merged with the living area and a white marble dining tabletop was able to be raised and lowered when entertaining, with guests sitting on a step surrounding the table.

In their leisure time, Langdon and Genny held gatherings on the lawn, socialising with, amongst others, the Michells and Bonythons. Langdon also raced a Triumph TR and had a special interest in light aircraft, which led him to the full restoration of a WWII Supermarine Spitfire salvaged from a New Guinea airfield. The plane is now held at the South Australian Aviation Museum at Port Adelaide.

The glasshouse survives to this day but in a much-altered form.

CLARK HOUSE, 1961

Architect: John Chappel
Location: Montacute

Well-known lawyer Robert Clark was active in Adelaide’s intellectual life as a poet and prize-winning author, having won the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s short-story prize and the Sydney Morning Herald’s poetry competition. His poems appeared in literary journals such as Meanjin, Overland and Australian letters and he was considered a friend of prominent literary figures such as Max Harris, Mary Martin and Geoffrey Dutton.

John Chappel was The Advertiser’s official architectural  correspondent, where he discussed architecture in terms of the needs, culture and climate of Adelaide in particular. This appealed to Clark, who engaged Chappel to design a home for himself, wife Dorothy and their son in 200 acres of remote and secluded wild scrub in the Adelaide Hills.

Like Chappel’s Hood (1955), Cottle (1959) and Soden (1961) homes, the house was designed to enjoy the view. While the former homes overlooked a private garden, the Clark House adjoined a national park which meant endless stunning views, and no encroaching neighbours.

The house had an unassuming entrance along a small track positioned deep within the site and on a high peak. A north facing balcony provided dramatic panoramic views of the vast and open natural landscape and the living and bedroom spaces all had direct access to the balcony to help the family enjoy this wonderful feature.

The internal spaces of the home were designed to support casual modern living, while still making the most of the views. Traditional furnishings from Clark’s previous home in Medindie sat alongside modern curtains, furniture and other accessories from Langdon Badger Furnishings, displaying his evolving taste.

CLELAND HOUSE AND GARDEN, 1952–65

Architect: Don Thompson, John Chappel
Location: Waterfall Gully

In 1953, jazz drummer Bryan Kelly and his wife commissioned Don Thompson of Contemporary Designers Collaborative to design them a home on a large property crossed by Waterfall Gully Creek in the Adelaide Hills.

Describing the home’s central feature as the ‘excellent relationship between it and the surroundings’, John Chappel (Advertiser, 17 October 1956) suggested the house had an ‘organic’ approach that previously had been advocated by American architect Frank Lloyd Wright.

Pam Cleland, pioneer in divorce and criminal law, and the first South Australian woman to join the Independent Bar, and physicist Fred Thonemann, who worked at the Long-Range Weapons Research Establishment and was involved in early computer data programs for rocket guidance systems, took over construction of this home when Kelly failed to complete its construction.

Between 1961 and 1965, they improved both house and garden, building a weir to flood the ‘bush setting’ and introducing azaleas, camellias, rhododendrons, oleanders and ferns.

John Chappel was commissioned to design and oversee alterations to the main house and the construction of a Japanese tea house (1962), professional chambers (1962–3) and garden pavilion (1964).

By 1965, both home and garden had been transformed into a place worthy of receiving an exclusive list of guests. With access to the garden strictly by word of mouth, guests included The Rolling Stones, Liberace, Sir Robert Helpmann, Rudolf Nureyev, Don Dunstan, Bob Hawke, Maggie Tabberer, Max Harris, and Michael Kirby. 

GARDNER HOUSE, 1960

Architect: Brian Vogt
Location: Fulham Gardens

Margaret Gardner was a primary school teacher who had come to Adelaide from nearby Strathalbyn. She enjoyed open space and gardening, so the site at Fulham Park in Adelaide’s west was selected for its quiet location overlooking the River Torrens.

Designed by Brian Vogt of Cheesman, Doley, Brabham and Neighbour, the house itself was furnished by Langdon Badger.

Gardner was keen to preserve the feeling of openness and informality, so she commissioned Richard Massey to design the garden for her new home. Massey, along with Robin Hill (landscape designer for the Michell and Doley houses), Allan Correy (Bonython house) and Ray Holliday were prominent midcentury landscape designers in South Australia. Both Massey and Hill started their careers at Kemp’s Nursery in Kingswood, working on English style gardens. By the 1950s however, each were looking at ideas coming out of America, with Massey interested in the writings of Garrett Eckbo, a prominent landscape architect from California.

In a talk given to the Blackwood and District Tree Preservation and Gardening Society, Massey said that the ‘ideal garden provides a beautiful setting for the house and lovely pictures to view out the windows’ (Sunday Advertiser 9 April 1955).

At the Gardner house, Massey and Vogt wanted to maintain this sense of engagement with the broader landscape so whilst foliage was used as a screen to ensure privacy for the home, the property’s boundary was blurred by large areas of sweeping lawn continuing onto the footpath, with trees strategically placed as boundary markers.

Massey wanted the gardens to be easy to maintain and to take full advantage of natural features such as existing trees. However, soon after the house’s completion, this preservation of natural features came into conflict with the local Progress Association’s approach who wanted trees cleared in the name of ‘progress’.

An avid gardener, the garden was beautifully maintained by Margaret until she passed away in 1990. The house, and garden, no longer exist.

BROWN HOUSE, 1962-63

Architect: John Chappel
Location: Springfield

Recognised at the time as ‘Adelaide’s Largest Modern House,’ the Brown House sits on a north-facing double allotment in Springfield, an affluent suburb of Adelaide located in the foothills of the Mount Lofty Ranges.

Alfred Brown had arrived from Melbourne in the 1930s and, along with his brother, was directed by their father Walter to establish a scrap metal business in Adelaide, known as Paramount Browns’. Following the lifting of restrictions after the War, the business established a huge export market to Japan and by 1964 the company had more than 120 trucks.

The wealth generated by this booming business allowed Alfred to commission architect John Chappel to design a house for his wife Delma, and three of their four children. At the time the house was reported to be ‘the most modern and luxurious in Adelaide’ (David Capel, News, 20 December 1963).

Formal entrance to the home is through double doors under a porte-cocèhre or ‘carriage porch’. The ‘carriage porch’ was originally used to provide a covered entrance large enough for a coach and horses. After the war, it became a feature that celebrated car culture as guests could drive their cars right up to the front door and it was therefore considered a sign of luxury.

As you walk through the double-height entrance lobby with suspended chandelier, you can see other luxury features including polished parquet floors, French polished woodwork, a suspended ‘harp string’ stair of solid brass rods and a marble fireplace. 

The Browns had seven bedrooms, each with its own dedicated bathroom, a bar room, billiard room, dining room, living room and kitchen, in addition to two stair halls and two galleries.

Dual balconies allow panoramic views of the city, and the house has been fully air-conditioned since it was built, a rare luxury at the time.

Outside the home, the three wings of the home each have a gabled roof and deep eaves that form a protected courtyard around a quarter Olympic sized swimming pool. With two competition swimmers in the family, the pool was a focus for the house’s indoor/outdoor living, so a barbeque and changerooms were also built out here to make the space easy for the family to spend time in.

There are also six garages, where Alfred Brown’s Mercedes-Benz 300 SE, Delma’s Mercedes-Benz 220SL and two Chryslers were parked.

A second entry served as the service entrance where the maid and gardener could come and go as needed without interrupting the family.

ZSOLT HOUSE, 1959

Architect: Robert Dickson
Location: Eden Hills

Istvan (Steve) Zsolt emigrated to South Australia from Hungary in 1950. He spent two years driving trucks on a government contract and this experience inspired him to plan a ‘most up to date,’ ‘modern garage-restaurant sleeping house’ (Advertiser, 13 May 1954) for interstate truck drivers in Frewville.

However, it wasn’t until 1957 that he managed to secure financing from ‘a petroleum company’ to build a series of projects including the landmark Arkaba restaurant and hotel complex. This complex still stands in Fullarton, at the end of the South Eastern Freeway which is the key freight route into Adelaide.

Zsolt joined with local architect Robert Dickson on this project and its success led him to ask Dickson to design a home for him in the southern Adelaide suburb of Eden Hills.

On 16 October 1959, John Chappel wrote in The Advertiser

‘Although the house is not large, it is obviously designed with thought for comfortable and luxurious living.’ He described the house as having a ‘main entrance on the eastern side of the house [which] opens onto a glazed hall, [and] gives a view over the swimming pool and recreation area.’ In 1959, owning a swimming pool had real status as they ‘were costly with few in existence in South Australia’, a ‘symbol of prestige and luxury’ and a ‘novelty to be enjoyed by a privileged few’ (Building and Architecture, February 1963).

The property included a separate flat that was linked to the house by a terrace with a glass roof and which could be used by the family for outdoor dining, an important part of the new casual living trend.

As well as the flat, the house included a variety of entertainment and leisure spaces, including a tennis court, barbeque area, rumpus and games rooms, terrace, patio, balcony and pergola. In fact, there were so many luxury features that it needed to be rotated to fit on a double block!

If all this space wasn’t enough, from the living room you could look through the three huge 3 metre by 1.8 metre windows across the tennis court to the ocean in the west.