Inside the home of Kerry Packer's wild cricket parties
Wild parties? They don’t come much more riotous than the times when the country’s top cricketers got together at 77 Pymble Avenue with Kerry Packer to celebrate his World Series Cricket (WSC) revolution of 1977-8.
“They were all here … Kerry, Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh, Greg, Ian and Trevor Chappell, Jeff Thompson …” says Malcolm Carver, the current owner of the house, well-known in Pymble as being a fabulous place to party.
“It was earlier owned by Geoff Forsaith, who was a friend of Kerry’s, a member of the WSC governing committee and was appointed the manager of the Australian team. The house featured in the TV mini-series Howzat! Kerry Packer’s War, and a new book to be released Cricket Outlaws, I understand will mention those parties here too.”
But the house’s own rebel past pre-dates even those tumultuous times. It was built in 1972 by multi award-winning architect Russell Jack in a style founded by a group of architects who revolted against the international modernist movement by coming up with an Australian style all of their own.
This open-plan, five-bedroom, three-bathroom home, L-shaped with its rooms all opening to the outside decking and a 12.5-metre pool, is a perfect example of that Sydney School, and is referred to, by those in the know, simply as “The Pymble House”.
CEO of Jack’s firm, Allen Jack + Cottier, Michael Heenan, says the house is still legendary within the practice. “It still inspires us because of its directness and its structural integrity and how it understands its materials,” he says. “It came about after a trip to Japan and revelations of modernism.
“It’s beautiful with its black timber beams, spotted gum ceilings and white-washed walls. And it’s also, with all the rooms sharing the sunlight and space, the perfect response to the climatic conditions of Sydney.”
The house’s style will also feature in a new book about modernism being written by architecture experts Professor Hannah Lewi and Professor Philip Goad of the University of Melbourne, Modern: Modern Australian Landscape and Design.
“There was lots going on in that period – the 1960s and ’70s – about trying to create something tied to a different region, rather than international modernism,” says Professor Lewi. “They were about integrating the house with the landscape and making it a lot more organic.
“Sydney has certainly identified historically with the school often called ‘nuts and berries’ and there’s a lot of appreciation for the homes that have been left unchanged.”
Current owner Malcolm Carver, also an architect and the former principal of practice Scott Carver, which often competed for awards against Allen Jack + Cottier – where, ironically, his daughter Emma Carver once worked – says he is now planning to downsize from the house that has been his family home for the last 25 years.
“Its design was, in many ways, way before its time,” he says. “It has those big floor-to-ceiling, open glass doors and it’s like a big outdoor room of a Balinese resort. That outdoor space is the most important space in the whole house.”
There’s only one reason The Pymble House never won awards, too. Mr Forsaith and his wife Robin who commissioned the house liked to keep a low profile because of his involvement in the WSC, and his friendship with the Packers, so would never allow it to be entered.
Now the home has sit the Pymble market with a $3.9 million price guide, through Stone Real Estate’s Andy Howden.
Howden says it’s easy to understand why this house became such a popular venue for parties. “That’s exactly what it was designed for: entertaining.” “Every single living space opens on to that entertaining area and the pool. It’s a very, very rare house that would be a delight to live in and, at the same time, it’s also such a modernist architectural icon.”
Written by Sue Williams. Republished with permission of Domain.com.au.
Hero image credit: Facebook / Neil Burns