Gnarly home has a skate bowl in the living room

Imagine living is this cool house with its heated pool, big backyard, oh, and massive concrete skate bowl in the living room. Gnarly!

The six-bedroom, three-level house in the wealthy* Brisbane suburb of Hamilton used to be owned by a man behind many of the city’s skate parks.

The home’s current owners, Justyn Wood and Susan Chenoweth, are selling up — so if you’ve ever dreamt of carving* it up in the comfort of home, here’s your chance.

You’ll just need to convince your parents to make the winning bid at the June 6 auction*.

Mr Wood said the 9m x 12m skate bowl was one of the reasons he bought the house at 32 Joynt St seven years ago.

“I’ve got two boys and I could just see that they would love having it,” he said.

“It takes up a fair bit of the basement level and it’s a real fun zone for kids.

“It’s soundproof* from the rest of the house so they can make all the noise they want down there.”

VIDEO: Meet Luna the skateboarding puppy and his owner Tamika Lucock

American professional skateboarder Tom Schaar even used it when he last toured Australia.

“It was a rainy day and he couldn’t skate outside, so he came over to my place,” Mr Wood said.

“I don’t think there are any others in Australia inside — and possibly the world.”

The home was previously owned by Robert Lewers, the founder of Concrete Skate Parks, which explains the skate bowl.

Real estate agent Drew Davies, of Place Estate Agents, said he had been contacted by professional skateboarders from around the world since putting a 15 second video of him skating in the bowl on social media.

While his antics* have paid off in raising the home’s profile, his body has not been so lucky, injuring a calf muscle on one of his runs in the bowl.

GLOSSARY

• wealthy: having a lot of money
• carving: making big, fast turns
• auction: a sales process where the home is sold to the person with the highest offer
• soundproof: built to stop sound being heard outside the area
• antics: silly behaviour

EXTRA READING

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Boy’s smart helmet wins invention award

QUICK QUIZ

1. How big is the skate bowl?
2. How long ago did Mr Wood buy the house?
3. Who used to own the house?
4. Why doesn’t the skate bowl make much noise for the rest of the house?
5. What happened to the real estate agent when he tried out the skate bowl?

LISTEN TO THIS STORY

CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Real estate writing
Have you ever read the descriptions of houses in real estate advertisements? They are designed to paint a picture of what it would be like to live in the home and to highlight all of the home’s best features. An example might start like this: “Come home to this immaculate and spacious four-bedroom home, nestled among lush gardens …” These ads even find a way to make less desirable features sound like positives — like describing a tiny backyard as “low maintenance” or a noisy neighbourhood a “vibrant urban setting”.
Write a real estate ad description for the home featured in this news story, OR write one about your own home. Make it sound amazing so that people will be keen to buy it.

Time: allow 25 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English

2. Extension
Draw a bird’s eye view plan of your dream house and garden. Include all of the features you would love to have, no matter how crazy or outrageous. Use a ruler and try to make the dimensions of different features in proportion to one another.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Mathematics, Design and Technologies

VCOP ACTIVITY
Question time
Create five questions for Justyn and Susan about their time living in their amazing house. Remember you need a capital letter and question mark to open and close your questions. See if you can start all your questions, with a different question stem.

HAVE YOUR SAY: What special feature would you like to have in your home?
No one-word answers. Use full sentences to explain your thinking. No comments will be published until approved by editors.