A life in Sydney in TV production led Andrew Ross to buy his first home in Hobart’s suburb of New Town
A career change led to a renaissance of sorts for Andrew Ross when he bought his first house – a Federation-era fixer upper in New Town – and turned it into a home
W hen arts and tourism marketer Andrew Ross was looking for his first home in 1994, New Town was the frontier of Hobart gentrification. Hobart was much more affordable than Sydney even then.
Having grown up in Tasmania and then getting a start in television production with a traineeship at the ABC in Hobart, Andrew decamped to Sydney to further his studies at film and television school. “I’d always been really passionate about live TV, but by the mid 1990s that was coming to an end. So I knew it was time for a career change,” he says.
Back in Hobart, Andrew spent months going to open homes to see what was available, but as a first-home buyer, everything seemed out of his price range. “West, North and South Hobart had been pretty well renovated out by that stage so I began looking further afield,” he says.
“One day walking my friend’s dog I saw this place for sale, so I came to the open day. It had been tenanted for years and was a wreck, so I just walked away. I realised later it had what I wanted – three bedrooms, a garage, a compact garden and lots of potential. So I came back and had another look.”
Though it was passed in at auction, Andrew assumed the estate agent would have stitched up a deal with one of the other bidders. But on a subsequent dog walk, he noticed the For Sale sign was still up. “I called the agent and put in an offer, which they accepted. Then I had to get to work making it habitable.”
Andrew explains that New Town has always had a real mix of housing stock. “In the old days there were orchards and small farms here as well as the old homesteads from when it was literally the ‘new town’. Then there are the cottages and terraces of the 19th century, the post-war bungalows and the flats of the 1960s and ‘70s.”
Then as now, he says, New Town is great for its proximity to the city and the mountain. “I can leave my house on foot and be in the city or walking on the mountain within 30 minutes. If I’ve got meetings in town I tend to walk. If I’m feeling rushed – or lazy – I can always catch the bus. It’s handy being on the main route through the northern suburbs.”
His budget after buying the 1905 house extended only to cleaning and painting. “I had some plans drawn up in the early 2000s, but the building quotes that came back were five times what I could afford, so the project went on hold for almost 10 years. Then in 2010 I finally found a builder I trusted, bit the bullet, and put the renovation in his hands. I mean, I can’t hammer a nail straight,” Andrew says.
The vision was to retain the Federation-era heritage look at the street front while opening up the back of the house with more light, more space and indoor-outdoor living. That meant a new concrete slab floor with bi-fold doors opening to a courtyard and backed by a terraced garden, shaded by a mature walnut tree planted by one of the early owners.
The house’s original footprint is still visible in the extant timber floors, and includes multiple additions made over the years such as a skillion kitchen and bathroom, and an enclosed back veranda.
A new kitchen built in to a sunlit back corner provides clear sight lines to the dining room, which means Andrew can still interact with guests while cooking – “and I can leave a mess when I’m done and I don’t have to look at it”.
In the old laundry out back, Andrew still has the remains of a Huon pine wash trough – “it was split and cracked when I bought the house so it has since become a bread board,” he says – as well as an old copper, which has found new life as a planter over the years.
Throughout the house are vintage posters advertising theatre shows, exhibitions and festivals that Andrew has worked on, including many featuring the distinctive fluorescent work of artist Ray Arnold. “There was a real poster culture in the ‘80s and ‘90s,” he says.
Framed up and preserved behind glass, the posters are reminders of his involvement in the promotion of some of Tasmania’s best known arts, cultural and tourism institutions, including Salamanca Arts Centre, the Theatre Royal, TSO, Screen Tasmania and more recently the Port Arthur historic sites and the West Coast Wilderness Railway.
“The arts has been strong for a long time in Tasmania,” Andrew says. Even in the 1980s we were advocating for the role of the arts in Tasmanian tourism, so it’s gratifying to see it flourishing today. [But] we need to invest in emerging talent. It’s particularly important the artists have access to cheap rent – for living and working. The catch-22, of course, is artists are commonly the first wave of gentrification.”
He says it’d be great to see Tasmania take the lead in what he calls values-based management of its arts and tourism success. “We have a thriving arts economy and a strong tourism industry, but it needs to serve the entire community to ensure everyone benefits.”