Pettit & Sevitt’s modernist charm lives on in Sydney’s New Line House

“‘Are you sure you want to put these beams back in?’” The builders asked that question again and again, recalls the owner of New Line House, in Sydney’s East Ryde. “And every time we said, ‘Yep.’” The stained Oregon beams date back to the house’s beginnings as a Lowline, the flat-roofed, single-level, linear model from the company behind some of Australia’s best-loved modernist homes: Pettit & Sevitt. Removed and later reinstated, the beams may no longer be structural but remain as a memory of...