Title Deeds: Esteemed architect Roger Wood set to sell impeccable Parkville pad

Acclaimed Melbourne architect Roger Wood and his wife, dancer and choreographer Shelley Lasica, are trading in their painstakingly renovated 1884 residence in Parkville.

Wood, who co-founded the firm Wood Marsh in 1983, has worked on projects that include the multi-award-winning Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA) in Southbank, Mansion Hotel at Werribee and Daniel and Danielle Besen‘s four-bedroom mansion in Towers Road in Toorak, which sold for $26.25 million in December last year.

Wood and Lasica bought their “comfortably rundown” 19th-century home in 2002 for $965,000 from former National Gallery of Australia director Betty Churcher, who died in 2015 after a battle with cancer.

“What started out as removing a few walls went back to a complete renovation with Daryl McCormack, the most exquisite builder I have ever seen,” Wood says.

“We kept all the floorboards, some of them 45 millimetres thick. There is solid plaster on the walls, mosaic tiles – iron recast in the foundry.”

Today the house has two living spaces, and a 12-metre-long wine cellar.

“There was a lot of unseen work and I am proud of what we have done as we have taken it back and rebuilt from the ground up, so the next owners will enjoy this rich past, of this house and also this great neighbourhood, without having to do a thing for 50, 60 years.”

Nelson Alexander agent Peter Stephens is taking the exquisite 104-108 Park Drive to auction on October 21, quoting $3.6 million to $3.85 million. 

Home handball

Photo: Pat Scala

AFL star Heath Shaw is selling his four-bedroom home ground at 27 Elm Grove, Kew East.

The Greater Western Sydney defender will be hoping Marshall White‘s Chris Barrett has safe hands at its auction on October 14. Barrett is quoting $1.4 million to $1.54 million.

Having a ball(room)

Photo: Abercromby’s

It is hard to find a ballroom in today’s prize homes but agents Jock Langley and Simon Curtain of Abercromby’s have.

Fashion designer Virginia Wellington has listed her 1896 Italianate Victorian – her home of 38 years – at 42 Hawthorn Grove, Hawthorn.

Agents expect $6.9 million to $7.59 million, with a private auction on November 2 if not sold before.