How This Architect Redefined the Australian Beach House
How This Architect Redefined the Australian Beach House
Honey House by Wolveridge
How do you redefine a Mount Martha beach house? Wolveridge Architects takes a more inward approach, shaping a courtyard home that replaces ocean views with calm and connection.
In Mount Martha, on Melbourne’s Mornington Peninsula, Wolveridge Architects has reimagined the idea of a beach house as an inward coastal retreat. Without ocean views, the design turns its attention to materials, warmth, light and connection to place. A central spine links the bedrooms to an open living space at the rear, where concrete block blades, timber and stone form a calm, tactile interior. The native landscape by Bethany Williamson Landscape Architecture softens the home’s edges, grounding it in its setting. Formed as part of a series of speculative homes by Ongarello, Honey House elevates the typical development model through enduring materials and refined detailing. More than a coastal dwelling, it captures the grounded spirit of Mount Martha: relaxed, resolved, and quietly enduring.
‘First impressions arriving at the site were just turning off the main road onto a dirt road, and the immediate sense of wanting to kick the shoes off and put the thongs on and the boardies on, and it's amazing how that just immediately settles you into the idea of you're at the beach. How do we bring that same dirt road relaxation and weave that into the design?’
— Will Smart, Director, Wolveridge Architects
Honey House by Wolveridge Architects, developed and built by Ongarello, landscape by Bethany Williamson Landscape Architecture, engineering by JMD Structural Engineering and styling by Arch Melbourne.
Produced by Simple Dwelling, filmed, edited and photographed by Anthony Richardson, words by Anthony Richardson.
Related Features
