When Eric Burton decided to downsize he took it to the extreme.
He bought the smallest house in Woodend – a single-room cabin measuring 23sqm on a substantial 1175sqm block in Forest Street.
The bonus of the cabin, however, was that it came with a building permit.
So instead of tearing it down and building again, Eric is ‘extending’ the cabin, thereby avoiding a lengthy planning permit process.
“Initially I was going to get the caravan and live in that until I worked something out, but then I saw the Beachcomber in a magazine and I thought, that’s it!” he said.
The Beachcomber is a retro house designed in the 1960s. The name ‘Beachcomber’ was a reference to the raised beach houses that populated the coastline around Malibu in Los Angeles.
Eric realised he could build around and above the original cabin on his property to recreate the design in a modest but much more comfortably sized home.
“Today, everybody’s building these mansions, five bedrooms and everything, and you often find they’re just an old couple but they wanted their dream home,” he said.
“Now with interest rates going up, it’s very hard to sell them, because they’re so expensive to buy.
“Whereas this is a simple construction, and will give me all the room I need.”
The ‘extention’ also means Eric can paint it in any colours he wants.
“I can paint it the way I want so it will have blue and there’ll probably be some yellow underneath the rafters under the skillion,” he said.
“Because this is an ‘extension’ of a 2011 home, back then these colours were allowable, but now they’re not, if you build new you have to paint in muted colours.”
The unusual build in Woodend is certainly piquing the interest of locals.
“Everyone now sees it because everybody drives up here and it really stands out,” Eric told the Express.
“If I build something, it’s got to look right to fit the site.
“If I build a low house, like the neighbour, it’s just going to be like everyone else’s and it just won’t pop.”
The Woodend Beachcomber is being built by Gray Construction.
