Photography: Marnie Hawson | Styling: Belle Hemming Bright
Life is pretty peaceful for the Glascott family – except, of course, on weekends, when tourists pound the riverbank path at the back of their property in Warrandyte, a former goldmining town on Wurundjeri land in Victoria. “I think, ‘Gosh, this is busy’, but we often forget how lucky we are that people want to visit where we live,” says Monica Glascott, who with husband Jesse has crafted a harmonious and eco-friendly home in the region where she grew up.
As the founder and director of G-LUX Builders, Jesse had been looking for a project that would both showcase the firm’s signature passive-house construction and provide their children, Willow, 10, and Fletcher, eight, with an idyllic childhood in a bushland setting.
“Monica grew up in the Warrandyte area, and her old man still lives here,” Jesse says. “Whenever we’ve built a house or renovated, we’ve gone back to his place for a spell. So, we’ve always been in and out of Warrandyte and wanted to raise a family here.”
Warrandyte sits just 30 kilometres from the Melbourne CBD, on the Yarra River. While technically a suburb, the village is shrouded in nature reserves and peppered with artists’ studios, cafes and wineries. So, when a vacant 950-square-metre block near town, abutting Andersons Creek, hit the market, Jesse and Monica didn’t hesitate.
“It was an old engineering yard that sold wooden sleepers and bricks, and just stored rubbish and trucks for 50 years,” Jesse recalls. Sure, it was in a flood and bushfire zone, which presented some challenges, but the price was right. Naturally, Jesse and Monica, who handled the interiors, were up to the task, but the project would require patience.
“The design [by 5c Sustainable Building Design] took a year and a half, and then we were in council for a couple of years,” Jesse says. However, the resolute couple never considered cutting their losses and after a 12-month build, moved into their dream home, dubbed ‘Panel House’. Jesse is quietly proud of the soaring nine-metre-high timber panels, imported from the Netherlands – their arrival was delayed three months by the global pandemic – while Monica relishes the quartzite kitchen benchtops.
She had to negotiate for dark kitchen joinery, hallway walls and bathroom tiles. “Our last house was white and beige, so I wanted to do something quite opposite and daring, and use a lot of black,” Monica explains. “Jesse wasn’t keen, but I said, ‘Trust me, it will work’.” Natural materials such as stone, tumbled brass and hand-poured concrete add even more depth and patina to the interiors.
With a north-facing aspect, airtight envelope, triple-glazed windows and 20-kilowatt solar system, Panel House is always comfortable and energy efficient, even during bitter winters. “We have a heat recovery ventilation system, which provides fresh air throughout the house. It recycles heat from the kitchen and bathrooms, redirecting it to the living areas when we need it,” Jesse explains. Monica adds: “We put underfloor heating in the bathrooms, but it actually gets too hot.”
Panel House also runs entirely off stored water, thanks to a 41,000-litre underground water tank. If it weren’t for the pool, Jesse reckons, “the house would run at net zero”. But it’s worth it, he says. Almost every weekend in summer, friends gather in and around the pool. “Even after school, instead of the kids flopping on the couch in the air-con, they’re out there playing and burning energy. It’s nice.” And when the mercury drops, the spa is like a magnet.
Monica likes to retreat to the shipping-container poolside cabana “for a Zen moment” while Jesse’s wrangling the kids inside. She’s often joined by the family’s 60-kilogram South African mastiff, Memphis. “He’s our big laze about dog,” Monica says, laughing. “He sleeps for about 23 hours a day!”
Adding to the menagerie is a cat, Mr Frothy. “I was working at an animal shelter 16 years ago when I came across him, and he was so sweet and cute,” Monica recalls. “I twisted Jesse’s arm and brought him home. He’s literally slept at my bedside every night since then.”
Life has come full circle for Monica. When they first moved to Warrandyte, Willow and Fletcher attended her old daycare and kindergarten. “They even had the same teachers!” she says. The Glascotts walk to school and sport, and don’t mind joining the daytrippers on the riverside pathways. “We take the kids for bike rides along the creek,” Monica says. “Along the way there’s a nice bakery and a big playground, where the kids will often run into friends. Even though we’re not in the middle of nowhere, Warrandyte still has that small-town community feel.”
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