| Historical notes: | Aboriginal Land
It has been speculated that the Sydney region has been populated by indigenous Australians for at least 40,000 years. There were three different language groups in the Sydney region; these were further refined into dialects spoken by smaller clans. The principal language of Northern Sydney, where Avalon is located, was Guringai. Much evidence of millenia of Aboriginal habitation remains, especially their rock etchings in Kuring-gai Chase National Park which borders Pittwater's western side (Wikipedia entry of metropolitan Sydney, 2007).
Colonisation and settlement
The Pittwater shire was named after an estuary of Broken Bay which the shire surrounds. Broken Bay forms the mouth of the Hawkesbury River, the main river which formed the Cumberland Plain and Sydney basin. Pittwater was discovered in 1788, the year the first British colony was established in Australia. Pittwater was named in about 1800 by the colony's first Governor, Governor Phillip,[1] honouring the then British Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. Phillip called it 'the finest piece of water I ever saw'. . . Up until the early part of the 20th century, the area was primarily used for either agriculture or leisure activities. Its pristine beaches were popular for holidays and a number of camping areas, and later caravan parks, were established on or near Pittwater. After World War I, early urban settlement patterns were beginning to develop although most of the area's urbanisation occurred after the second world war with major home building activity occurring the full length of the Pittwater peninsula. The Pittwater shire is now the northern most shire of Sydney's coastal metropolitan areas (Wikipedia entry on Pittwater Council, 2007).
Loggan Rock land history
The land on which Loggan Rock now stands was part of the original 113.31 hectare grant of land to John Joseph Therry in 1837. In 1924 a 14.56 hectare parcel of land with road, including part of the Loggan Rock land, was subdivided and sold to Ernest Ebenezer Way who further subdivided the land and in 1928 sold Lot 179 and 180 DP to Harold Kent.
By 1932 the land on which Loggan Rock is sited was part of 6 residential lot, Lots 175 to 180 in 1932. Kent sold Lot 175 to Charles Berry Grieve in 1932 and Alexander Stewart Jolly commenced the design and construction of Careel House on that parcel of land. Careel House was completed in 1934 but during its construction, Jolly set about building the Loggan Rock holiday cabin on Lot 179 - 180 for his friend the film censor, Lionel Hurley. This land was subsequently sold to Alfred Dangar Burne and Hurley did not have legal possession of the land until 1937 when he finally had purchased and consolidated Lots 176 to 180 which then became Lot 4 DP 420717.
Design of Loggan Rock
The log cabin , Loggan Rock was completed in 1931 and in 1934 the stone tower was constructed. The tower contains a laundry bathroom on the lower level and two bedrooms on the first and second levels. The house remained in Hurley's ownership until 1950 when Loggan Rock was purchased by the well known and highly regarded artist and sculptor, John Bonar Dunlop and his wife Hilary, a talented dancer with the Bodenweiser Dance Company. In 1950s the Dunlops added a kitchen, dining and lounge room to the tower building. The tower was refurbished at the time.In December 1959 the land was transferred to Dr.Herbert Sheridan, an Avalon dentist. He in turn sold to Jan Smith and Greg Saunders who restored the property, then sold to the present owners Gerry and Regina Sutton in 2003.
The Architect - Alexander Stewart Jolly
Alexander Stewart Jolly was born in in 1887 at Mearsham Vale near Lismore. He joined the family business where he learned the skills of timber milling, building and furniture making. In 1904 his brother travelled to America where he brought back news of the latest materials and developments in the building and timber industry. This was to prove a seminal influence in the development of Jolly's architectural style. In 1908 he found a job with the Sydney architecture firm Wardell & Denning and during this time completed Clunes Coronation Hall. Between 1912 and 1917 Jolly returned to Lismore and designed a number of well regarded buildings in the north coast region including St Mary's Roman Catholic Church, Casino, St Mary's Roman Catholic Convent and St Bartholomew's Anglican church in Alstonville.
On his return to Sydney in 1918 he worked in his own practise in the city. Between 1918 and 1923 when he retired due to ill health he designed Belvedere, 7 Cranebrook Ave, Cremorne which is regarded as an exemplar of the Australian idiom of the Californian Bungalow style of American architects, Charles and Henry Green. This is one of only two Jolly residence listed on the SHR, the other being Hy Brasil at Avalon. Two other residences, Nebraska built in 1919 and Noonee built in 1923 demonstrate the further development of Jolly's interest in the Arts and Crafts architecture. Although influenced by the American idiom his designs in this period were 'never a parroting of current popular trends. while his ideas may have been launched from ideas assimilated from abroard, they were quickly changed , added to and interpreted to make them distinctively his own and wholly the work of a highly creative mind' (JM Freeland cited in Rous, 1992).
His unusual use of timber and stone rubble external features and his idiosyncratic inglenook design in these early houses mark the beginnings of the more dramatic expression of his organic architecture of the later 1920s and early 1930s in structures such as Loggan Rock. The catalyst for Jolly's commitment to an imaginative and organic style of architecture which grows out of and in harmony with nature may have been his illness and retirement from office based architecture in 1923. After his retirement he eschewed the 'rushing hell' of the city in favour of the calm of the bush. In fact, a passage from Jolly's children's book, 'The Spirit of the Bush', could describe Jolly's state of mind and intentions at the time of his retirement.
'A man was once very tired and weary of the city. His business had failed and he was reduced to his last few pounds. This worried him, so he decided to give all the money he had to his wife and asked her to make it last as long as possible.
"I will go into the bush and seek for gold as there is no work to be had in the city"... He thought as he as he walked along of the many disappointments in his life and felt that at last he was doing the right thing in going away' (Jolly quoted in Roberts, 1999).
Jolly went to Avalon in the late 1920s and teamed up with AE Dalwood real estate developer offering his services to design homes for those who bought the newly subdivided land on the peninsular. During commissions he camped at Avalon and developed highly detailed drawings of the houses before they were built.The detailed placement of stone and timber in these structures and especially in the detailed inglenooks the houses incorporated was so important to Jolly that he often resorted to constructing these details himself, selecting particular stones and branches and placing them into the construction exactly where they should be. The initial studies and their final built expression are a testiment to Jolly's ingenuity and creativity (Rous, 1992).
During this period Jolly designed and built:
- Loggan Rock ( 1931, 1934), an imaginative expression of organic architecture in a log and rock cabin
- the more sedate Careel house reminiscent of a Scottish castle (1934)
- Stonehaven a unique stone rubble cabin (1933),and
- Hy Brasil, another bush cabin in a harmonious construction of stone and timber (1933)
It has been noted that these houses marked a renewal of and radical departure in Jolly's architecture which included number of 'stone and timber houses incorporating natural rocks, tree trunks, logs with bark still clinging and forked branches. These were built into strangely organic and often whimsical forms, resembling boulders or animals... rather than the angles and planes of conventional architecture" (Irving, 1982).
Significant persons associated with Loggan Rock
Lionel Hurley, the first owner of Loggan Rock was one of the early film censors who established the regulation of the then infant Australian Film Industry. During the period of Lionel Hurley's ownership of the Loggan Rock cabin there were a number of high profile figures who retreated there including film maker Frank Hurley . Hurley importance as a film maker and photographer is derived from his photographic documentation of the Mawson and Shackleton and Antarctic Expedition and as official photographer in the Middle East during both World Wars as well as a maker of many well known documentary and feature films during the 1930s.
Like Loggan Rock's owner Lionel Hurley, Frank gained a reputation as the generous host of many uproarious parties attended by well known figures in the theatre, film making and artistic circles. Guests of these two men included 'Mr RKO', Ralph Doyle the film distributor and his wife, Patricia Minchin whose fame as a photographic model was sealed with the launch of the ubiquitous advertising campaign featuring Patricia as the face of the Atlantic Ethyl oil company. Ken Hall, writer and director of the ubiquitous Dad and Dave series of movies and important pioneer in the Australian film industry was also a regular guest at Loggan Rock.
Prior to World War II other well known Sydney siders took advantage of the cabin and its facilities. It was a regular weekend retreat for Margaret Jay, a successful interior designer and Elizabeth McIntyre the prolific children's writer and artist. The stream of well known visitors of an artistic bent continued in the 1950s when Loggan Rock was owned by artist Bonar Dunlop and his wife who entertained renowned contemporaries such as the Archibald prize winning and noted World War II artist Arthur Murch. These owners built the 1950s extension based on a design by Max Collard, although the extension was changed in its execution. |