13 Howell’s Crescent

13 Howell's Crescent is a Danish-influenced Modernist house built in red brick with curved tile roofs on an expressed timber roof frame stained dark. The timber frame projects beyond the building to form large eaves and pergolas. The windows are timber-framed large panel units. Three high brick walls define the L-shaped plan, screening off the inner house and extending above the high starting points of the sloping roofs to enclose a multi-levelled garden with a swimming pool. The building is single storey with variation in level between wings.

The north wall faces Howell's Crescent, with an entrance hall to the left and garage to the right. This wall is blank to the street except for a small central square window into the living room. On the south side, a monopitch roof with ribbon rooflight descends with eaves projecting over patio doors and floor-to-ceiling glazing to the living room, which overlooks the swimming pool. The roof slope defines a large triangular clerestory to the west side of the living room, intended to catch the setting sun, interrupted by a tall rectilinear brick chimney.

The east wall projects out to the north with a low entrance hall nestled in the corner, topped by a sloping monopitch roof with overhanging eaves. On this entrance block, the front door on the left projects beyond a small square window on the right. A roof slopes down from the inner side of the east wall over the dining room, hipped with the slope over the living room, with ribbon rooflight. The dining room, which has south-facing patio doors, projects out to the south beyond the living room. The wall projects out further to the south with a single person-sized archway leading onto the path between the dining room and swimming pool, sheltered by a pergola projecting from the base of the roof slope. A small deep square window at low level sits in the wall on the east side of the dining room. On the outer side of the east wall, two shorter stepped roofs cover the main and utility kitchens in the gap between the main house and 11 Howell's Crescent.

The west wall screens the property from 25 Palace Road, with a monopitch roof sloping over a bedroom wing on the east side, positioned one level lower than the rest of the house and facing onto a garden area sunken below pool level. The roof is hipped at the intersection between the bedroom wing, master bedroom suite, and north garage. The garage has a monopitch roof sloping to the east with a sloping clerestory to the west and a triangular clerestory to the north. A blind gable faces south from the bedroom wing. Four square rooflights are spaced at intervals along this range.

The interior features unplastered brick walls to the main areas and painted cement render walls to the bedrooms, with dark stained structural timbers consistent with the exterior. Some bricks have been painted black to recreate the effect of occasional burnt bricks, reportedly a finishing touch applied by the architect Brooks himself. Floors are lacquered bricks set in a basket weave pattern. The entrance hall contains a short flight of brick steps overlit by a rooflight with exposed roof timbers. The large living room has a middle area surrounded by integral brick seating backed by half-height walls enclosing the fireplace, which is set against the west wall. The fireplace consists of a massive projecting brick cubic hearth offset from the interior chimney stack. Opposite the fireplace is a single wide pocket door into the dining room. A walkway outside the seating area leads to a short flight of steps down to a long narrow corridor against the north and west walls, linking the bedrooms. The ceilings feature unvarnished fine-sawn redwood boards, and the original light oak doors are stained red.