There are streets in Canberra, and then there is Dampier Crescent. Here, in the old Blandfordia precinct of Forrest - the tightly held Garden City quarter laid out on Griffin's geometry, with Collins Park as its green heart - number three presents as a rare offering: a C.J. Courtney residence, set among neighbouring Oliphant and Harrison houses, looking straight across to the park.
This is the Inner South as it was meant to be lived. Wide verges. Mature canopy. Houses that still have a name attached to the drawing board. A parcel of some 1,274 square metres, opposite Collins Park, a short stroll from Canberra Grammar and within easy reach of Telopea Park School, Manuka Village and the Kingston Foreshore.
Step through the front and a bank of double-hung windows pours light into a generous lounge, anchored by an open fireplace. Original fabric has not been stripped for fashion's sake. Genuine crystal chandeliers remain. French doors open from the dining room to gardens. The dining itself is the room one keeps for evenings that run long: picture windows frame the lush rear garden, the sort of outlook that makes a dinner party feel like an occasion rather than a roster.
A later family-room extension sits beside the largely original kitchen - practical for a household that actually lives here, without flattening the character of the house. To the rear, a converted sleep-out with its own breakout space gives children (or guests) a wing of their own. Two bedrooms, the sleep out and one bathroom form the present arrangement; split-system reverse-cycle air conditioning takes the edge off Canberra's seasons. The bones, the light and the land are the story. The rest is a matter of your vision.
The address does the rest.
Collins Park is across the road - the park that terminates Hobart Avenue, planted with cedar, elm, kurrajong and flowering plum, the neighbourhood's lawn, dog-walk and Saturday-morning green. Canberra Grammar is a walk; Canberra Girls Grammar and Forrest Primary sit in the same tight circle. Telopea Park School, with its French-English bilingual programme, is close at hand.
Manuka is the daily village: coffee, the grocer, the florist, a table at dusk, the oval on match day.
Kingston Foreshore is the evening alternative - galleries, the lake edge, dinner on the boardwalk. Red Hill Nature Reserve is the weekend climb; from the lookout, the city drops away in every direction. A short drive up Red Hill Drive brings you to Lunetta, the revived mid-century pavilion at the old Carousel - trattoria below, fire-led fine dining above, and the view that has always belonged to this side of town.
Parliament, Old Parliament House and the national institutions sit minutes away. So do Mugga Way, Arthur Circle and the rest of the Forrest-Red Hill spine that buyers in this precinct quietly treat as the only map that matters.
This is not a finished showpiece so much as a position: a Courtney house on a substantial Forrest block, opposite the park, in a street where recent sales have confirmed just how tightly the crescent is held.
Bring an architect. Bring a landscape plan. The land, the light and the address are already doing the work.
Some Features Include;
3 bedrooms 1 bathroom
rear converted sleep-out with breakout space
split-system reverse-cycle
fireplace and original crystal chandeliers & French doors
double-hung windows
family-room extension
largely original kitchen
garden outlook from the dining room
opposite Collins Park c.
1,274 m2 Parcel of land
The Numbers
Living 172.8 m2
Garage 44.8 m
2Carport 28.6 m2
Land 1274.0 m2
Walk to Canberra Grammar. Near Telopea Park School, Forrest Primary and Canberra Girls Grammar. Minutes to Manuka Village, Kingston Foreshore, Red Hill shops and reserve, and Lunetta at Red Hill Lookout.
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