39 Gertrude Street Highgate Hill, QLD 4101

The morning starts with the city in view, on both levels of the house. Downstairs, the skyline is part of the kitchen, living spaces, terrace and lawn. Upstairs, it widens into a sweeping outlook across the city, the hillsides and the lights of The Gabba. Because the house faces north, the sun and the city arrive from the same direction. That's a rare alignment in Brisbane, where city views so often mean facing south and are usually reserved for the upper floor. There's a choice to make: coffee on the terrace, a quiet moment on the upper deck, or a little longer in bed watching Brisbane wake up. This is what the position gives you.

The design begins with what was already here. Overhead, the original pressed-metal ceilings rise 3.2 metres, retained from the early 20th-century Queenslander the house began as and sympathetically renovated so its character still leads. Then come Shaun Lockyer's contemporary additions, shaped around the elevation and the elements, pulling light through skylights and opening rooms to the outdoors. Timber binds them together: boards underfoot, joinery, windows, doors, screens and a staircase that carries you from one era to the next, with travertine and marble grounding it all. Pressed metal and skylights, old and new in quiet conversation. Walk through and you sense the decades between the two parts of the house, and how comfortably they now share it. It's a house you feel as much as see.

By afternoon, life gathers at the marble island, where timber detailing softens the stone and the kitchen looks straight through the living and dining spaces to the terrace, pool and lawn. Doors open, and it all becomes one room. Someone's cooking, friends have claimed the terrace, and the kids are between the pool and the grass, always within view. A level, generous lawn that inner-city blocks rarely allow, made for games that run until the city lights come on. Held high on its corner, it feels private and open at once, with the skyline in view from the lawn itself.

Later, the house lets everyone drift. The open spaces keep the family within sight of one another; step a little further and a door closes behind you. Music in the sunken room. A book in the library study. A drink from the lounge's wet bar, or a moment upstairs with the breeze and the view. Places to come together, and places to close the door.

As the household grows and changes, the house keeps pace. There are five bedrooms, three with ensuites. The primary suite wakes to city views, with skylights lighting the walk-in robe and marble ensuite. Up on the mezzanine, a self-contained world of its own sits apart from the main bedrooms, with its own bedroom, bathroom, kitchenette and living space. A guest can come and go, an au pair has real privacy, an older child can test their independence, or grandparents can stay as long as they like.

Step out the gate, and the position comes into its own. South Bank is a kilometre's stroll for coffee by the water or a night at QPAC, and West End's dinner tables are 1.8km away. Cross the Goodwill Bridge past the Botanic Gardens and you're in the CBD, 2km from home. UQ is the same distance over the pedestrian bridges, with QUT just as easy. Shifts at the Mater and PA are a short trip, and Somerville House and St Laurence's College are virtually next door. With the home in the Brisbane State High School catchment, the school run can easily be a walk.

On its hillside corner, an early Queenslander and a Shaun Lockyer vision have found common ground: a house with room for everyone, a backyard that opens to the skyline, and the city an easy walk away.