What would you do with a former PM's residence?

The report on vexnews is interesting…

http://www.vexnews.com/news/10989/living-next-door-to-kevin-the-rudds-buy-their-way-back-into-yarralumla/

Very Brisvegas!

I think they get, except for the locals, $320 per day when they’re here …

Street address with number a little too much – might depress the prices of local real estate

I would of thought that Krudd and Gillard could of just swapped places. Now she’s in the lodge he could of sub let her flat in Kingston off her !

Noice…. very effluent.

Actually, I think it’s an ostentatious piece of crap – but I think that any house you can’t clean in half an hour is too big.

So having done the virtual tour would you keep the italianate style? Or switch to a different decor?

What can I say? It’s a McMansion. Obviously, given the means, I would bulldoze it, scrape the earth beneath it clean and replace it with something that had design integrity.

The thing ignores aspect and climate, dominates the modest block of land it sits on, and its cream-and-custard-coloured interior is devoid of personality, achieving the McMansion signature of grandiosity and blandness combined. It is the banality of its creators – and I expect also its new occupants – writ large. The Italianate – or, possibly, looking at the fireplace and formal garden, Georgian – references are purest kitsch in 21st-century Australia.

Externally the most telling sign that this house is a bogus piece of kitsch is the fence: between each grandly cement-rendered post is a little painted section of chicken wire. Cheap, ludicrous and perfectly symbolic of the architectural and aesthetic value of what lies within.

One hopes that a life lived in such a house is its own punishment, and that the children of such a household grow up with an urge to live differently themselves.

creative_canberran said :

Ordinarily I would agree, however, even Mr Rich MP (Malcolm Turnbull) resides in a serviced apartment when in Canberra (which has been shown in the media a few times). Rudd has truly gone beyond precedent in buying such a lavish home.
Also, has he said what will happen with his parliamentary accommodation allowance. Keeping it, donating it?

I thought that Turnbull lived in an apartment which his wife owned, meaning that she gets the parliamentary accommodation allowance? There was some noise about it a couple of years ago.

In any case, his apartment is in Georgetown, on the corner of Giles St and Ovens St in Griffith – they showed it on the Chaser, once.

p1 said :

Jeez, they coulda found a place closer to Radford. Poor kid is gonna spend half his day on the bus…

Bus, try comcar, or at the least the subsidised private car all MPs are entitled to.

aussielyn said :

RiotACT
I think you are almost overstepping the mark on the privacy of people in the public domain.
There are a few undesirables that will use such information to harass & threaten celebrities /politicians and their families.
Their private lives & residences should not be made public. What next, sorting through the garbage container at the lodge & GGs residence!
The press gallery once had conventions that if the information was not policy related don’t report it.

Ordinarily I would agree, however, even Mr Rich MP (Malcolm Turnbull) resides in a serviced apartment when in Canberra (which has been shown in the media a few times). Rudd has truly gone beyond precedent in buying such a lavish home.
Also, has he said what will happen with his parliamentary accommodation allowance. Keeping it, donating it?

A bit too prissy for me. Where`s the pool room?

RiotACT
I think you are almost overstepping the mark on the privacy of people in the public domain.
There are a few undesirables that will use such information to harass & threaten celebrities /politicians and their families.
Their private lives & residences should not be made public. What next, sorting through the garbage container at the lodge & GGs residence!
The press gallery once had conventions that if the information was not policy related don’t report it.

Jeez, they coulda found a place closer to Radford. Poor kid is gonna spend half his day on the bus…