After a decade of city living, photographer Sean Fennessy and stylist Jessica Lillico found themselves craving something their white-box apartment in Melbourne's Brunswick neighborhood couldn't provide: trees and fresh air. Their solution led them to Fisher House, a remarkable example of Australia's unique Bush Modern architectural style, located just 40 minutes from Melbourne in the suburb of Warrandyte. "We ended up here because after 10 years in the city we wanted trees and fresh air," says Fennessy. "The beauty of this place is that it's only 40 minutes from Melbourne. But when you're out here, it feels totally isolated."
Both originally from Tasmania, one of Australia's most remote regions, the couple grew up accustomed to space and nature. "The next stop is South America," Lillico jokes about Tasmania's isolation. However, by 2018, they found themselves living with a newborn baby in cramped urban quarters, facing sky-high property prices when they began searching for a larger home. "We were vaguely aware of some historical homes out this way," Lillico explains. "We looked and realized we could afford something that was interesting, that we loved, and that would give us the nature we'd been missing."
Fisher House, purchased by the couple in 2019, represents a quintessential example of the architectural movement known as Bush Modern. Built in 1969 for a single woman, the home was designed by Alistair Knox, a visionary designer and builder credited with importing central tenets of European and American Modernism while infusing them with an unmistakably Australian character. Between the 1940s and 1980s, Knox designed approximately 1,200 homes, with the majority concentrated in this area around Warrandyte and neighboring Eltham.
The house bears all the hallmarks of Knox's distinctive design philosophy, featuring generous floor-to-ceiling windows that flood the interior with natural light. "You need it," Fennessy notes, "because the materials inside are so dark." The structure makes extensive use of salvaged timber, reflecting the movement's sustainable ethos. "Many of these homes in Warrandyte and the neighboring suburb of Eltham were built by hand by their owners, mainly hippies and artists, often using mud bricks, which are bricks made from dirt from the land on which you're building the house," Fennessy explains.
This DIY approach emerged as a countercultural statement in mid-20th century Australia. "In the 40s, 50s and 60s, Melbourne was quite a conservative place," says Lillico. "Coming out here and building a home among the trees out of these earthy, recycled materials, it just wasn't the done thing." The movement represented a combination of Modernist simplicity with the tactility and resourcefulness of owner-builders, creating homes that were both architecturally significant and deeply personal.
However, this unique architectural heritage faces an uncertain future. "Though we might consider them beautiful today, for a long time the style was never taken seriously as capital A Architecture," Lillico observes. The homes are very much products of their era, with Fennessy noting, "You literally can't build a house like this anymore." Current building codes would reject such structures due to energy efficiency and bushfire safety concerns. "It really is a time capsule," Lillico adds, while Fennessy warns of "a real danger they'll be wiped out" as some owners have "whitewashed and ruined" original designs in attempts to modernize.
When Fennessy and Lillico acquired Fisher House, its structural integrity was excellent, requiring no dramatic layout changes. "It's just a pavilion," Fennessy describes the floor plan. "It's a rectangle with bedrooms on either side of the living space." However, the interior, while functional, appeared tired and needed updating. Over 18 months during the pandemic, the couple oversaw a careful renovation led by architect Adriana Hanna, celebrating Australian artists and designers throughout the process.
The renovation's centerpiece is the central living space, featuring a high vaulted ceiling supported by dark-stained Oregon pine timber beams, likely salvaged from an old warehouse according to Lillico. A chunky brick-built fireplace anchors the space, while a custom built-in sofa maximizes the area and pays subtle homage to 1970s-era conversation pits. "The kids are always doing performances on it," Fennessy says of the nearby coffee table by local designer Zachary Frankel, adding, "It can take anything."
The kitchen, positioned on the opposite side of the central fireplace, is dominated by a tile-topped island with six substantial legs. "It's got character," says Fennessy. "It feels like it could start crawling away." The dining area features a bespoke table by local design brand Fomu, chosen for its durability. "It's the only table in the house, so it's used for everything from dinner parties to the kids painting," Fennessy explains. "We wanted it to be robust, because we knew it would take a few bumps." Six Razor Back dining chairs by Danish designer Henning Kjærnulf surround the table, while an abstract painting by Tasmanian artist Zoe Grey, selected as the couple's wedding gift, adorns the wall.
The original polished brickwork flooring throughout the central living space provides warmth visually while remaining pleasantly cool underfoot during hot summers. The bricks extend seamlessly through garden doors onto the terrace, creating visual continuity between indoor and outdoor spaces. "It's a relatively small house," says Fennessy, "but it feels slightly bigger because you're claiming a bit of the outside, too."
The renovation project sparked an unexpected five-year journey for the couple. As freelancers struggling with pandemic-related work shortages, Fennessy began photographing neighboring houses during brief periods when Australia's strict restrictions eased. This initial documentation evolved into a comprehensive project, with Fennessy photographing 23 Bush Modern homes while Lillico interviewed their owners.
This labor of love will be published this month by Thames & Hudson Australia as "Bush Modern: Hand-Crafted Homes on the Edge of the City," a coffee-table book entirely executed by the couple from photography to design. The project captures a precious moment in architectural history, documenting homes still inhabited by original owners now in their 90s who built them in the early 1970s, alongside properties restored by new creative owners seeking the same trees and fresh air that drew Fennessy and Lillico from central Melbourne.
The book serves as both celebration and preservation effort for this uniquely Australian architectural style. "We came to realize just how special these homes are," says Fennessy, "but also how they're in danger of disappearing and not being fully appreciated." The project showcases three additional notable examples: Redfern House, designed by Knox in 1967, exemplifying his affection for Australian farm building vernacular; Fraser Jackson House, hand-built by its owner in 1947 with unusual features like a hidden writer's nook and high clerestory windows; and Stonygrad, built in 1940 by Russian artist Danila Vassilieff using materials found on surrounding land, representing one of the earliest examples of Bush Modernism and its DIY roots.
