After a couple of people mentioned weird houses in the comments of my last video (clay mud house) I thought I'd chuck this one up. It's pretty weird to say the least (I'm sure someone will say they've seen the exact same thing somewhere :)
Usual warning: no gore or politics in this clip so save yourself the frustration and don't watch.
It's a bit dark and grainy in places sorry. Shotty old camera.
More info...
In the late 1960s / early 1970s Trefor Prest used to frequent the Cape Schanck area to enjoy the diving and the desolate feel of the place. On the way to the Cape one day he spied a "For Sale" sign along the Cape Schanck Road. He called the agent and ended up buying the undeveloped building block for $500 in the very early 1970s. Originally he used to camp there and then decided it would be good to have a more permanent building.
He was studying at the National Gallery Art School and initially built a model of the house he wanted. A friend at the school had just finished a project using a pile of bricks that he no longer had any use for so Trefor bought the bricks from him and these became the first building materials for the house. All the building materials were brought down from Melbourne, many of them, including the bricks, on the back of a motor-bike. The building site had to be dug out all by hand and the first structure was a small brick room (that now appears as an alcove in the main building). The small lockable brick shed was designed to keep tools etc until the whole building was completed. All building materials and supplies had to be carted in by hand. There used to be a drivable track up to the property originally. A chain used to hang across two steel pipe uprights (still visible today) at the start of the track to act as a barrier to visitors. It took about five years to build the complete house.
After the bricks, the big central pipe that incorporates the spiral staircase was brought down from Melbourne. This was the first element of the main structure. Some materials such as the stone blocks were scavenged locally. The big central pipe "turret" was designed so it could be climbed on top of. There are still rungs up the side of this pipe. At the time of building, one could see across the top of the tea trees. An early thought was to build a second storey on this building but this never eventuated. He made all the doors and windows to fit the design of the house except for one window which was ready-made and the building adapted to its shape. The vertical light wells once all had heavy steel hatches and glass windows. One of the light well is in fact a ventilation flue. The decoration on the doors is an artistic touch (and perhaps to practise the welding he was learning at the time). He started with an oxy-acetylene welder and then progressed to a motor-driven arc welder. All the doors and windows are now rusted in a fixed position, except for the door at the top of the spiral staircase. This door has stainless steel pins. The realisation of the need for stainless steel hinging arrangements came too late to help with the other doors and hatches.
There was a small water tank surrounded by stone work (no longer visible) attached to the building, which had to be filled by hand because of insufficient rainfall and lack of a catchment area. The house had a stove running on gas from gas cylinders. Aladdin Lamps provided the light and the house even boasted a shower. The water from the shower drained to a bath / sump below floor level, which then had to be pumped out. There should be a trap door visible where the bath used to be.
The house was well insulated being warm in winter and cool in summer. Flooding from rain was not a problem as the sand quickly absorbed any residual water.At one stage the local council discovered the building and he was initially informed by the building inspector that a permit could be granted for the structure. The inspector later seems to have changed his mind and informed Trefor that a permit could not possibly be granted. After some discussion on site, the inspector was convinced that the building's existence could simply be ignored.
He has old photos of the building during its construction and early glory and used to use some of them in a slide talk he used to give. He saw it again a few years ago and was quite disappointed and saddened by the state of disrepair: "Not a patch on what it used to be." The rubbish (old carpet, broken pusher etc) lying about the site now (Jan 2010) was not part of the original structure.
The house was broken into by vandals at one stage. Also the area was getting too built up and populated and so the property was sold in the 1980s to the National Parks Service, which was wanting to consolidate all the privately owned blocks into park land.
Mr Prest is a well-known sculptor living and working in Strangways, Victoria. From his website we learn that:
"Trefor Prest was born in South Wales in 1945. He attended Croydon College of Art in1960, was expelled in 1961 and migrated to Australia. He had an undistinguished two year military career as a tank driver in the Australian Army from 1966-68. He studied sculpture at the National Gallery Art School, Melbourne from 1971-1973. During that time he also gained a welding qualification from RMIT and a single arts subject, Modern European History, at LaTrobe University, Melbourne. From 1974-75 he did graduate studies in sculpture at the Victorian College of the Arts. In 1982 he moved to Strangways in Central Victoria where he built a large studio overlooking the Jim Crow Creek where he lives with his wife Belinda. He is not a prolific artist, and has accepted few commissions, preferring instead to follow his own enquiries, producing mainly small, personal pieces. He has exhibited widely since 1972, participating in numerous group exhibitions in Australia and overseas."
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