Creating Connections

Virginia Kerridge cleverly intuits a building’s character then deftly aligns it with its surrounds.

- Karen Mccartney

I THOUGHT I KNEW the work of Virginia Kerridge until I discovered how many more strings she has to her bow than her finely crafted bespoke residences. I had visited House in Country NSW in the Upper Hunter, and saw up close how she managed a limited palette of ironbark, rammed earth walls and concrete; how she engaged with the site of parallel mountains, and retained the heritage bushman’s stone cottage making it a pivotal point in the plan. The detailing is seamless, the views serene and the house is positioned for the optimum management of light and air.

All this I knew of the practice but there is more. Two very different projects have come her way recently. One was the refurbishment of Halcyon House, in northern NSW, a classic 1970s motel that has been redesigned as a luxury boutique hotel. Virginia admits she thought it was a joke when she was called for the job but the client had previously bought one of her houses and loved how their life unfolded in that space.