Late artist Margaret Olley’s home recreated in $4m Murwillumbah art centre project

A GOLD Coast-based construction company has recreated a late artist’s studio at Murwillumbah with incredible detail and care.

The late great Australian artist Margaret Olley ‘Hat Factory’ at the reconstruction of he

GOLD Coast-based Alder Constructions has proved itself a master of technically and ­logistically difficult projects with the completion of the $4 million Margaret Olley Art Centre at Murwillumbah.

The centre faithfully recreates three of the rooms in Olley’s gorgeously cluttered Paddington, Sydney home, including the Hat Factory and the Yellow Room where she spent many hours painting.

The late great Australian artist Margaret Olley ‘Hat Factory’ at the reconstruction of her famous house at the Margaret Olley Art Centre in Murwillumbah.

It came to fruition after the Margaret Olley Art Trust in 2011 announced the late Australian artist had bequeathed $1 million to establish a re-creation of her studio and elements of her home and wanted it built in the Tweed, where she spent time as a child.

When the much-loved Australian artist died in July 2011, aged 88, she left a treasure trove of paintings, objets d’art and household clutter in the Paddington terrace where she had lived for nearly 50 years.

The centre, an extension of the Tweed Regional Gallery, was opened by Governor-­General Quentin Bryce on March 15.

Alder Constructions managing director Greg Alder said it was one of the most significant undertaken by the company due to its importance to the legacy of Olley.

The new Margaret Olley Centre at Murwillumbah where they have recreated Margaret Olley's Paddington house and studio.

“The Governor-General described the rooms as the most famous in Australian art and we were thrilled when given the task of recreating them,” Mr Alder said.

Contracted in April last year to design and build the centre, Alder Constructions was faced with a difficult technical task.

“We were responsible for the total rebuilding of ­Margaret’s lounge room, Hat Factory, kitchen and Yellow Room as they were at her Duxford St, Paddington, Sydney home,” Mr Alder said.

“To achieve this, Alder’s own internal carpentry team carefully removed select household items such as existing timber-framed windows and doors, the entire kitchen unit and the bar,” he said.

“These were placed into ­secured storage prior to meticulously reconstructing them within the centre.”

The new Margaret Olley Centre at Murwillumbah where they have recreated Margaret Olley's Paddington house and studio.

Second-hand bricks that matched those used in the original house were also used.

Other feature elements included a false timber staircase within the Hat Factory, specialist lighting, exposed bowed hardwood timber beams, an old fireplace and digitally recreated tile designs.

Heritage-style cornices were constructed in the Yellow Room. Even the light had to remain true to the original rooms.

Mr Alder said the Tweed Shire Council had painstakingly placed in the centre some 75,000 artefacts salvaged from Olley’s house, including ashtrays complete with butts, in the exact same positions in which they were found after her death.

Other key works undertaken by Alder as part of the project were the design and construction of an artist-in-residence facility and a major extension to the cafeteria ­dining area, known as The Pavilion.