Restoring a Historical Home on the Edge of the World (House Tour)

Captain Kelly’s Cottage is the story of restoring a historical home on the edge of the world. The house was finished in 2016 by John Wardle Architects for John and his wife Susan. Having bought Waterview without knowing its history, John and Susan quickly researched the landscape and its colonial settlement. After asking neighbours and previous owners, John found out that Captain Kelly was a first-generation European Australian with convict parents. Before John and Susan intervened, the cottage had weathered multiple additions and alterations and, along the way, lost a sense of its own history. As one of two large structures perched along the edge of the vast maritime landscape, looking out over the ocean of Storm Bay, Captain Kelly’s Cottage is steeped in architectural history. Throughout the story of restoring a historical home on the edge of the world, John Wardle Architects achieved a contemporary reading of the existing structure whilst featuring important elements of its past. For a small