Former boot factory in Goulburn receives a new lease on life

As you step inside 5 Denison Street in Goulburn, the brand-new home quickly cocoons you in its luxury embrace. It’s hard to imagine that, not long ago, the same space was a dilapidated warehouse.

The building, which sits on the town’s main street, is around 100 years old and steeped in history. For four decades, it was known as the Lee and Thomas building, named after the auto electrician business that resided there. Before that, it was a boot factory.

Capturing the building’s history and character was front of mind when owner Mark Howard bought the building five years ago.

“It was a pretty ugly looking building, but when I walked into the back of the building, which was the shed where they used to do all the major electrical works on trucks, the great redeeming features were all the old trusses and beams,” Howard says. “And I could see that was what needed to be kept.”

After working with Tim Lee from Tim Lee Architects on the design for almost two years, Howard transformed the building into a two-storey commercial space, with two luxury units behind, facing Denison Street.

For Howard, it was a labour of love to retain the character, so much so that he was often down there on the tools during construction.

“It was about peeling the structure back enough to allow it to then sit and articulate against the new structure, but not peeling it back so far that it looks new.,” he says.

“I remember having the discussion with the builder at different points, that you need to get your artistic hat on.

“I’d say, ‘All the paint doesn’t need to come off, it just needs to come off enough to show that beautiful brickwork through it.’ And, of course, the builder would roll his eyes at me. So that’s when I’d go down there and work on it myself,” he laughs.

The resulting two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit at number five boasts all the luxury features of a modern home, from the state-of-the-art kitchen to the custom joinery, the feature fireplaces, and the under-floor heating and heated towel rails in the bathrooms.

A secondary living space can also work as a third bedroom. 

Bringing light into a warehouse conversion can be a challenge, but here an internal courtyard and cleverly placed skylights effortlessly flood the whole home with light. 

History is always easy to spot throughout the property, from the exposed original beams, bricks and copper pipes to the extra-high, raked ceilings. 

“When we did the excavations at the back to get the new slab in, we found some of the old boots and different bits of the old fabric that they made the boots out of in the ground,” Howard says.

“I wanted to create and give back something that does have some historical context in the town, not to demolish it and just build a set of units that would have been generic and not really read back to the notion of what was there.” 

Goulburn

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Price guide: $1 million +

Auction: 11am, July 1, 2022

Agent: Ray White Goulburn, Justin Gay 0429 795 507