Historic substation home where walls disappear

A quirky 1948 Brisbane substation has been transformed from industrial relic to a luxury dual income home with dramatic disappearing walls.

A quirky 1948 substation has undergone a dramatic transformation into a luxury dual income home where walls disappear completely for the ultimate indoor-outdoor flow.

Once known as the Newmarket Tramway Substation, just 7km from Brisbane CBD, the home has embraced many of the original features that the once industrial box housed, including symmetrically placed air vents, protruding concrete lintels, large rectangular windows and entire roller door walls that disappear into 10m high ceilings.

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The home is inside the former Newmarket Tram Substation.

Located at 360 Enoggera Road, Alderley, the site is just 7km from Brisbane CBD.

The property has been lovingly crafted to maintain its history but also make it homely.

Real estate agent Jessie Hall of Ray White Wilston said many families were so taken by the property that they had been for their fourth and fifth visits to the home.

Multiple bidders have already registered days before its Thursday June 27 auction, with the owner making clear he will take whatever the market thinks the property is worth under the hammer.

Brisbane City Council marked it as a place of local heritage significance given it was “a reminder of the tramway system that once operated in Brisbane and its post-war expansion before ceasing operation in 1969” and the fact that it was “an example of the work of outstanding city architect, Frank Costello”.

Its industrial nature has been fully embraced.

Large expanses of roller doors open up walls completely to the outside.

The ceilings are 10m high.

The council had bought two 16 perch blocks for the substation in 1947, with Mr Costello designing the 1948 substation to provide electricity to the Lutwyche Road tramline. “After the trams had gone, SEQEB (South East Qld Electricity Board) used the installation as a substation. This was one of seventeen new electrical and tramway substations constructed during the 1940s and early 1950s, and is typical of his ‘single mass’ (that is, one principal volume) substations of the era,” a council statement said.

Today the luxury substation home is on an 807sq m block at 360 Enoggera Rd, Alderley, with five bedrooms and four bathrooms spread across three levels.

Those massive roller doors open up fully.

Room to entertain family and friends.

The history is not hidden.

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One of those levels, Ms Hall said, was the 100sq m basement where self-contained unit was – opening up dual living options for teenagers, young adults remaining at home, grandparents moving in or even renting it out to help pay the mortgage off.

Apart from the quirky historic elements to the home, plus its giant proportions, the location is a major drawcard – within the Newmarket State School and Kelvin Grove State College catchment areas, with Newmarket pool a stone’s throw away, plus the Newmarket train station, and walking distance to the 30 hectare-plus Banks Street Reserve for walking trail, cycling and nature immersion.

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Originally published as Historic substation home where walls disappear