Bridgford House by Robin Boyd

One of the special charms of living by Port Phillip Bay is inhabiting the calm, wind-protected spaces behind the tea-trees. Living near the water is not always about possession of the panorama. Joy can be found in the walk down the cliff to the beach, where on some, like Half Moon Bay at Black Rock, there is no evidence of cars or the road, no intrusive views of over-glazed, view-obsessed modernist palazzi. On the beach, one might be in the world of plein-air painters like Arthur Streeton, Frederick McCubbin or Penleigh Boyd, whose early-twentieth-century paintings of nearby Beaumaris and Mentone captured effortlessly the coastline’s unassuming beauty. Coming home is to scramble back up the cliff, walk through scrub and find retreat and some sun, away from Melbourne’s chilly afternoon southwesterlies. In 1953,