Heritage restorations rewarded

A LOCAL tuck pointer has been awarded the inaugural Jennifer Bantow Local Heritage Award in recognition of his work restoring historic buildings around Geelong.

After decades of work, Nat De-Palma received the award for his longstanding services to heritage conservation in the region.

Mr De-Palma said it was special to receive recognition for his work and he enjoyed passing on his skills to others.

“I feel quite honoured to have been recognised and I’m happy about the award, especially being the first one,” he said.

“I’m very thankful for the buildings we have restored because they’ll be here for another 100 years.”

Mr De-Palma started his career as a bricklayer, working alongside his father before becoming frustrated the historic buildings were falling apart with nobody to fix them.

To save the buildings he taught himself how to tuckpoint, a method using two colours of mortar to join the brick work, one in a colour matching the brick, creating the appearance of really fine joins.

“I got upset that many important buildings were being pulled down during the 1970’s, and I wanted to do something about it,” he said.

“I’m traditional with my methods; I still make my mixes with my feet on a hessian bag, exactly as I was taught, and my recipes are nearly 200 years old-strictly no cement.”

His first job was tuckpointing a house on Eastern Beach Road, before he was approached by the National Trust to re-point the platform at the Geelong Railway Station.

Mr De-Palma has worked on a number of buildings across the region including several historic residential buildings.

“I pretty well travel anywhere the work is and it’s worth it because the buildings get protected,” he said.

“As long as they’ve been fixed up, no one’s going to pull them down.

“Nearly 40 years later I’m coming towards the end of my career, although hopefully I’ve got another 10 years in me, and it’s been a joy and a pleasure to have this job.”

The awards are presented annually, with nine local building restorations also being recognised with heritage awards.