Originally built in 2014, the first Tucker House was destroyed in the 2015 Christmas Day Bushfire. It was rebuilt with love and care in 2016.
Tucker House was named for Elvie Tucker, a Narungga woman and grandmother of co-owner Chris, who purchased land in Wye River in the 1950s, and whose husband Bernie lived here until the 1980s.
The original Tucker House was designed and built by Arkit in 2014 with a combination of prefabricated and traditional building methods. Base elements such as floor cassettes and wall frames were constructed in the Melbourne factory for assembly onsite, while all finishing elements (glazing, plumbing, joinery, plastering etc.) were completed onsite. The build was completed in October 2014.
On Christmas Day 2015, the Wye River-Jamieson Bushfire, which began 9 days earlier from a lightning strike in the Great Otways National Park, hit Wye River and Separation Creek. Over 110 homes were destroyed, including Tucker House. Fortunately, no lives were lost.
Tucker House was rebuilt by Arkit in 2016, using the same plans from the first build. All of the original footings, some of the formwork and all of the balustrade sections were able to be reused. Some burnt elements, such as the side steps leading up to the house, were retained to honour the memory of the fire and what was lost. The new façade is clad with Equitone, an architectural fibre cement material, in a chevron pattern unique to Tucker House.
Despite the further natural disaster of floods and landslides in September 2016, the build was finished on 23 December 2016 – 363 days after the fire.