Heritage home extensions in Orange and across NSW

Restoring a heritage home is about repair. Extending one is about adding something new that the old house can live with. The new work has to give a family the light, space and connection to the garden they want, while leaving the original house clearly readable, especially from the street.

Our approach is simple to describe and hard to do well. We keep the historic rooms intact where we can, place the new work where it causes least harm, usually at the rear, and let it be honestly contemporary rather than a copy of the old. A clear line between old and new is what heritage advice generally favours, and it usually makes the better house too. The result is a heritage home with a modern extension that feels like it belongs.

March House is a 1910s Federation style house on one of Orange's best streets. The owners wanted a light filled, contemporary home for a young, growing family. We added a simple new form at the rear holding a new kitchen, dining and living space that looks over the back yard, with an internal courtyard that visually links the existing house to the new form.

The original house was completely restored, with new services and facilities carefully added. The project received AIA NSW Country awards for Interiors and for Alterations and Additions, a Commendation for Heritage, and an Orange City Council Heritage Award. A second stage, a garden pavilion with a garage, gym, indoor pool and sauna, followed later.

Littlebourne shows what this looks like when the work is done. One of the earliest residences in the Bathurst area, it was built by Thomas Evenden in the 1820s, with further wings added in 1885 by architect James Hines. After preparing a masterplan for the property, we restored and renewed the house and added a new living wing on its northern side, with contemporary living spaces that open directly to the extensive landscaped gardens. The project is now complete. You can see the photographs on the Littlebourne project page.

Sampson House is an extension to a 1920s bungalow on a compact site, where a new wing adds north facing living spaces around a fine scale landscaped courtyard. It received an Orange City Council Heritage Award, a NSW AIA (Country) Heritage Award and a Commendation for Alterations and Additions. At Garden House, a historic bluestone house in rural NSW, a highly refined steel and glass pavilion was added as a new wing, with warm, sun filled living spaces and extensive views to the established historic garden.

Several of our projects follow the same principles. At River House, a historic property on the banks of the Macquarie River, the owners have taken on the task of restoring a house that had not received much care. Our design, currently in design development, carefully inserts contemporary services and additional bathrooms into the existing structure and adds a new living and main bedroom wing that opens to the landscaped gardens.

Sadlier House, a substantial Victorian Italianate style country home from the 1870s, shows where a Victorian home extension can begin. We removed unsympathetic verandah infills and created new north facing living spaces that open to expansive new landscaped gardens.

Many older homes in Orange and other Central West towns sit inside heritage conservation areas, where council looks closely at anything new that can be seen from the street. Ellore is a good example: a property dating from 1910 on a heavily treed site within the Central Orange Conservation Area. Our design, currently pending approval, restores the existing house and adds new contemporary living and sleeping spaces for a growing family, with a direct connection to the landscaped yard.

We prepare the drawings and documents council needs, and we work with heritage specialists when an application calls for them, so the proposal is clear and well supported.

Our studio is in Orange, and most of our heritage work is in and around the Central West, but as a heritage extension architect in NSW we take on projects across the state where the fit is right. Whatever the town, the process is the same: we visit the house, understand what makes it special, and design an extension it can live with for another hundred years.

Owners in Bathurst can also see our page for a heritage architect in Bathurst, and you can see more of our heritage architecture across the region. For renovations of newer houses, see our page for a renovation architect in NSW.