Restoration Australia on ABC – Spectacular Manly beach in Sydney’s north has become one of the cities hottest real estate precincts and after trudging in vain through hundreds of home-opens, bank executive Barrie and partner Ikuyo, a financial services manager, had just about given up all hope of snaring their patch of it.
Then they saw it. A long low Californian bungalow in one of Manly’s most exclusive pockets doing its weary best to simply stay upright and not just tumble down the hill in front of it and kerplunk into the sapphire blue water of Fairy Bower.
Neighbours too were worried that if the seaside elements didn’t eventually fell the old house, then developers, seizing on its unprotected status, surely would, and a house with a fascinating and important connection to Australian theatre royalty would be lost forever.
They didn’t count on Barrie and Ikuyo, two volunteer surf lifesavers, diving in, wresting the bungalow from the development sharks and vowing to turn this crumbling wreck into their family forever home, even if that meant tearing it apart, brick by wobbly brick, and putting it all back together again.
But the couple have plans to add, bigtime, to the original layout, heading higher to capture sweeping views of the sea and the beach and adding a suite of mod cons.
Production credit: A Fremantle production for the ABC. Supervising Executive Producer: Brooke Bayvel. Executive Producer: Michael Collett. ABC Executive Producers: Madeleine Hawcroft and Jo Chichester.
Restoration Australia on ABC and ABC iview – Thursday 13 June at 8.00pm
TV Central ABC content HERE
