Turquoise

"Turquoise" is a suburban house built in 1913 in the Queen Anne Revival style by the architectural practice of Arnold Dunbar Smith and Cecil Brewer. It is constructed of brown brick with red brick dressings, white-painted woodwork, and a tiled roof. The house is rectangular, with five bays on the main façade and lower wings extending to either side, connecting to a garage via a north-facing courtyard.

The entrance front features a projecting canted bay. Rusticated brick quoins define the sides. Double doors are sheltered by a segmental hood supported by carved consoles, flanked by oval windows. Above the door is a tall, 28-pane mullion and transom window illuminating the stairwell. Ground-floor windows have mullion and transom lights with 4 panes to the upper register and 6 panes to the lower, set within cut brick surrounds with keystones. First-floor windows are eight-pane casements. An eaves cornice and a stone plat band highlight the central bay. Hopper-heads display the date 1913 within decorative scrollwork. Tall chimneystacks are positioned on either side and in the centre of the house, with dormer windows on either side of a raised central section featuring a Venetian window backed by tile hanging, protected by railings at parapet level. A garden-facing bay provides access through French windows under a shallow segmental hood with a keystone. Ground-floor windows have 9/9 panes with shutters, while first-floor windows are 6/6-pane. The attic has four dormer windows. Kitchen and former billiard room wings extend to the north and south respectively, each with gabled ends featuring arched windows facing the entrance front and oval windows facing the garden front. The garage, to the north, has a weatherboarded gable and is approached through a tiled gate.

The interior has been altered, but retains some original features. An oak-panelled entrance lobby leads to an oak staircase that winds around the canted central bay; it features square newel posts, turned column and vase balusters, and a heavy handrail. Octagonal piers support the upper floor. A groin-vaulted passage runs through the ground floor from the entrance to the garden door. The dining room retains Jacobean-revival fielded panelling, including a similarly styled fireplace with an overmantel. Other principal rooms have been modified. Doors are primarily three-panel wooden doors. A pair of painted Doric columns supports the attic above the top of the staircase. Service quarters to the north retain original features, notably an Arts and Crafts-inspired back staircase with an octagonal overlight.

The house was designed by the well-known Edwardian architectural practice Smith and Brewer, representing prevailing trends in traditional house design at the luxury end of the market shortly before the First World War.