From coastal favourite to family home

The chance to own his favourite house was too tempting for Josh Crosbie to pass up.

The founder and director of Josh Crosbie Architects made the most of the first listing of Trade Winds, an oceanside propery in north Lorne, and designed the extensive works at the 1965 building that is now his family’s home.

Noted as an entertaining spot for the movers and shakers of Melbourne society from the 1970s to the 1990s, the house has had a full restoration over the space of 18 months, with the tasteful improvements leaving in place many of the house’s period elements and much of its original furniture, including pieces by Gerald Easdon, Ladderax, and T.H Brown.

Crosbie, who has lived in Trade Winds with his family for three years, said he was “just in the right place at the right time” to buy the property from its original owners.

“It’d been my favourite house on the coast for the whole 10 years I’ve lived down there.

Every time I’ve driven along the Great Ocean Road, I’ve looked up at it and absolutely ogled it and thought ‘Oh wow, it’s divine’ – it’s long and skinny and black and elegant and it just sort of sits on the edge of the clifftop.

“I kind of moved heaven and earth at the time, and was able to become custodian of this beautiful home.

“I realised straight away that there were so many areas of the house that were really quite sacred, if you like, and I really felt like I didn’t have the right to touch: the main facade, the kitchen, the hardwood joinery, the beautiful rafters that line up perfectly with the window frames.

“At the same time, the original owners didn’t have children, and you could really tell – the house was made for entertaining, so there was no garage or carport, there was no storage, no outdoor recreation area other than the swimming pool, so that was part of my brief, because I’ve got three gorgeous boys.”

He said the restoration went to painstaking efforts to keep the original look and feel of Trade Winds intact while adding features to suit the needs of his family.

“When I first went into the house, I was just blown away by how original and non-bastardised the house was.

We did a six-week restoration on all of the window frames, and all-new painting… we changed some walk-in robes around in bedrooms to change the orientation of beds so they looked out directly over the water, as well as building a whole new studio underneath that’s got a gorgeous bathroom with beautiful terrazzo tiles from floor to ceiling.”

The extensive landscaping outside took six months alone, and created terraced areas, space for a firepit and an in-ground trampoline.

Crosbie said one of his favourite parts of the house was the freestanding black bath that sits at the edge of the deck at the guest house.

“It’s a pretty magical spot to sit in the bath, looking directly over the bath and watch the sun rise.”

The project had an overall estimated cost in the six figures.

Crosbie previously lived at Dorman, at 31 Dorman Street, Lorne, a four-bedroom 1960s house that he bought and extensively renovated, including building three huge treehouses and a rock climbing wall in the backyard.

That property was put on the market and sold for $1.65 million in early 2020.

“I thought that would be my forever home, actually, until three and a half years ago when Trade Winds came on the market for the very first time and I couldn’t believe it; I nearly fell off my chair,” Crosbie said.

“So it had to be a very whirlwind process of selling that one, which is a real shame, but I’ve become friends with the family that bought it, and keep in touch with them.”

Josh Crosbie Architects has a team of six, based in offices in both Lorne and Newtown.

Crosbie was a commercial project manager before he started the firm, and he said the ethos of building relationships with the client was still crucial in his work.

“We’re very much about delivering what our clients need – we’ve always got ideas and our tastes and whatnot, but at the end of the day we’re delivering for our clients, so step one for us is to get a really good understanding of what our clients want and what they need. Respect for the budget is also really important.”

Trade Winds was also nominated in the Regional Prize (Victoria) and Residential Architecture – Houses (Alterations and Additions) categories in this year’s National Architecture Awards, run by the Australian Institute of Architects and to be presented later this month.

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