One of Ballarat's finest. article by John Ellis
While
He was born in Ballarat and grew up here. He studied art and was a really great water colourist. His paintings of flowers in vases were and are a real joy to view. William's greatest love was the theatre and he established a
Commonwealth Bank left of picture
In the 1950's if your were to walk up the three flights of stairs to his academy you would gradually become aware of the aroma of cigarettes and pipe, for these were the days when an actor in character would smoke in different ways in order to suggest personality and type.
It seemed like all his plays had the same set : - fireplace on the left- doors center and right - couch in the middle - bar and phone down stage and to one side
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William on stage Tait Theatre 1970, his creation.
His Ballarat academy, like all his various academies in
William had a unique way of teaching - how many people do you know teach while a live budgie named Horace freely flies around the room? He was a true eccentric and during his final years he fell in love with this house.
In all types of weather he would sit and watch Janis and I build:-fireplace on the left -doors centre and right -couch in the middle -bar and phone to one side.
Just before his death he painted a painting for the house. It depicted a tree growing in an impossible site with its roots swamped by water but fully alive in its leaf canopy and still embracing the day.
This painting seemed to say it all, in the end.
William still wanted more of life.
William wants more.
Willsmore.
EMBRACE THE DAY
1975 WILLSMORE: BORN AGAIN
2003
Expect the unexpected
Willsmore, when we were considering buying it, was a wreck on the outside but the view from the front door was something we were not expecting. The back area of the house was visible from the front door and it was a view of a basalt stone 1890s grotto. Janis and I looked at one another and thought we are buying a house with a cave. Oh what fun.
A few months past and we finally owned it. We bought it on our Visa card, it was cheap nobody wanted it. We saw it's potential but the consensus view of our friends was ,"OH F... what have you done?" Gradually as we improved the house there was a shift in opinion. "No no no this could be good."
It seemed to us that the house had been reinvented every ten years for the past one hundred. In the 1930's it had particially been burnt, and the chared wood up rights were not the only evidence of this event. It was then the house had had it's first really bad make over and was reinvented in the style of art deco. We suspected insurance money spent unwisely.
Victorian details were taken off for deco front door, deco ceiling roses and deco stuff in general. All were added along with a weird way of using concrete on the verandah and in the kitchen. By the time we got to owning the place, this deco front door for instance had racked up at least eight layers of paint in various shades of grey gloss. What remained of the original glass around the front door was painted over just as liberally and no longer let in light through the etched Victorian lead light windows. A new Victorian front door was created and the glass was revealed. With reblocking, plumbing and wiring, our vision was gradually becoming a reality, however the stand out memories are the discovery of the past.
The hallway had five layers of wall boarding and each one was of a time and of an era. By the 1980's the hall walls were built over the carpet! In the demolition stage we even found the original hall archway, which we restored in plaster. With a pressed metal style walled dado the house now was becoming more grand than when it was first built. In essence it was a workers cottage that mirrored the design of the larger woollen mills house, made of brick, and still visiable today from our front verandah. Even so Willsmore's position on top of the ridge with best views of the valley. makes this house grand and majestic inspite of it's humble beginnings.
Our method was not to irradicate the past but to blend all the periods into one and to see a new and original form emerge.The grotto was a fernery and all the stones formed plant baskets made from drilled basalt rocks threaded with metal piping. This technique was a copy of the methods used in the creation of the Ballarat gardens fern house, famous through out the world. There existed in this part of the town many examples of this type of cottage craft . Most recently I have noticed many have been pulled down and this wall now stands below the earth by half, with a new more environmental story to be told. Long may it last.
Cottage craft and building is easily dismissed but there are logical improvements to a property an average Joe ends up doing. One such example is the curved wall at the back of the house. Janis realised that it had been created to stop the south winds from entering the house and its creation makes for a warmer space near the back door and back verandah.
We restored the so called sleep-out and added to it a wallpapered wall made from 'Woman's Weekly' pictures. We wanted to evoke the many eras of the house when it was rented to hippies and to families who may not have had wealth in terms of dollars. The house felt always like it had been home to dozens and dozens of people though out the decades.
On a wall in the grotto I made a mural symbolising the house. The mural's design has as a focal point, the original and rediscovered baby shoe and horse shoe that the original celtic builders would have placed in the chimney to ward off bad spirits. These artifacts, now in the mural are still in the house doing their job.
Now when you stand on the threshold you look down the restored hallway and you see not the grotto but one of the many recovered leadlights. The beauty of the ruby glass can now even be seen by people passing by on a hot night when the front door is left opened. Large 1890's school room doors were placed as the entrance to the grotto and the whole arrangement of the lounge mirrored the sets of my uncles plays.
Willsmore now has a new beginning with all the memories of the past in place and with all the luxuries of modern life creating a home of incredible beauty and originality. Janis and I still feel the sense of unexpected joy when we enter it.
May be a garden can grow where there never was one.
This story is typical for most historic wooden cottages in Ballarat. No wonder William loved them.