Visitors to the Pine Rivers Heritage Museum will discover the first prefabricated ‘kit’ home ever constructed in the Pine Shire. However, Yebri House is more than just a humble worker’s cottage. It represents Queensland’s first steps in a revolutionary 20th-century design trend – a movement that tackled the state’s housing shortage and helped shape its architectural heritage.
During the 1890s, Brisbane-based timber merchant, James Campbell and Sons, began selling pre-cut joinery for the construction of kit homes. Pioneer grazier, Tom Petrie, purchased Yebri as a Campbell’s kit home in 1897. Serving as accommodation for the farm workforce at the Murrumba property, Yebri was situated on the present-day site of Our Lady of the Way School. In 1926, the house was raised on stumps and built-in underneath to provide extra living space for Tom Petrie’s eldest son, Walter Rollo, and his family, who lived there for many years.
Strong economic growth in the early 20th century fostered increased demand for housing in Queensland’s newly established townships. Kit homes were an affordable choice as they streamlined the building process, offered shorter construction times, and lowered labour costs.
Much like joining together the pieces of a gigantic jigsaw puzzle, erecting a kit house frame took just two days and required only minimal carpentry skills. But there were other benefits.
How Kit Homes Shaped Queensland Housing
The standardised design components were pre-cut to measure at the sawmill, meaning less material was wasted. In addition, the numbered components were cut, assembled, then dismantled and delivered directly from the sawmill to the construction site, reducing transport inefficiencies.
It is surprising that so many of the well-known Queenslander houses, prominent in older districts, were, in fact, prefabricated kit homes from Campbell’s “Redicut” range. First appearing around 1904, pre-cut, ready-to-assemble kit homes were sold across the state, with one kit transported to Darwin. Ranging from modest cottages to larger residences like the “Gympie” model, Campbell’s kit homes addressed the 1915-1945 housing shortage, and today, they remain highly sought after by house hunters.
As an example of an early kit home and the only surviving building from the Murrumba estate, Yebri House was relocated to the Museum in 2006 and restored in 1920s style with period furniture from pioneering families. The cottage is open to visitors from Wednesday to Sunday, 10am to 3pm.
Featured image: Yebri House in Petrie 1976 Image courtesy of City of Moreton Bay, ref PRLPC-P1183_6
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