Beautifully restored, Iwanoff’s Featherby House has hit the market
It’s a good time to be an Iwan Iwanoff enthusiast!
Our city’s reinvigorated appreciation of the Bulgarian Brutalist has led to a heightened level of insight into the iconic architect. Over the past few years we’ve seen thoughtful restorations of homes to their former glory, some unprecedented looks inside private homes and drooled over some truly stunning, iconic homes that have hit the market.
Well, 2024 is off to a stellar start, with Featherby House hitting the market this week.
Originally built in 1971 for the Featherby family, the Karrinyup home sits on a quiet street opposite the exclusive Lake Karrinyup Country Club and is a stunning example of Iwanoff’s distinctive work with Besser blocks – perhaps most distinctively utilised in the home’s brutally ornate façade and grand staircase.
The continued architectural integrity of the home is not by accident: after decades of ill-thought additions and modifications, the current owners spent five years meticulously restoring the home – sparked by the discovery of the ribbed blockwork above the sunken lounge’s fireplace, hidden for years under plasterboard.
Throughout the home, painstaking efforts were made to uncover original features – like the staircases’ mosaic tiles, which had been tiled over for 20 years, or the dining room’s custom cabinetry built by Bob Featherby, its gorgeous timber veneer shrouded in layers of paint. The original front door, which was saved from the tip by an Iwanoff enthusiast and turned into a coffee table, has been diligently recreated.
Elsewhere, a more full-throttle approach to restoration was taken to the home – like in the reconstruction of the veneer-clad kitchen: as aesthetically pleasing as it is practical and a superb ode to the liveability of modernist design.
Iwanoff’s overall approach echoes a contemporary sensibility – not just in the open-plan flow between spaces that would later become ubiquitous, but in the dedication to concepts like passive ventilation and passive solar design, quite often achieved with his façade’s aesthetically distinctive block designs.
Fallen in love? Check out 41 Summerhayes Drive’s listing with ZSA ZSA Property here.
Image credits: courtesy of ZSA ZSA Property