Dividing the suburbs of Burnside and Beaumont, located about 15 minutes’ drive east of the centre of Adelaide, a narrow ribbon of tarmac winds through a steep, heavily wooded valley toward the First Falls waterfalls. In the late 1880s, this sinuous track was used by colonial picnickers to walk, cycle or ride to the falls, and today, Waterfall Gully Road remains hallowed ground for bushwalkers, cyclists and petrolheads.
In the 1950s and ’60s, this natural, sloping setting – close to the city but feeling a world away – appealed to Adelaide’s progressive set, which was also discovering a dynamic wave of architectural experimentation. A new breed of South Australian architects including Brian Vogt, 97), was built nearby on Beaumont’s southern edge.
