Peters Building, Palm Beach SLSC

Originally built for engineer thomas Peters in 1919, the Peters Building for Palm Beach Surf Life Saving Club serves a tight-knit community, and has local heritage significance as one of the first concrete homes built on Sydney’s Northern Beaches peninsula.

Key goals of the comprehensive interior redesign were to honour the building’s heritage and strengthen its connection to the beach front, while upgrading services and accessibility, expanding training and accommodation space, and creating new outdoor areas for community use.

With only minor structural modifications, interiors of the once grand home were opened up to light, and its two levels connected internally for the first time. Decorated with club memorabilia, the new wainscotted timber staircase transforms circulation through the club house, allowing separation of male/female amenities.

The communal lounge area, games and dining rooms have been revived in a fresh beach palette. Heritage features including the stone fireplace and stunning glass atrium are restored, while battened roof gables, the first-floor veranda and ground-level loggia are all painstakingly renewed. 

Upstairs, a new catering kitchen, bar and covered outdoor area has brought new energy and improved capacity for holding functions. Downstairs, the vast storage area is remodelled as a training room, opening onto the beachfront lawn. The new and reconfigured dormitory wings increase the number of beds to 65, in spaces detailed with custom-designed sustainable timber furniture elements.