Warwick Werner

From the past:

"I have sworn off employing staff ever again but occasional do work jointly with some old colleagues. Mates Rates apply..."

2004

Well here’s my potted story. Like Jerry I was so enamoured with life at ABHS I also went back for another year in 1965 after which I attended the The University of New South Wales completing a degree in Architecture in 1972 - at this time in my life I seemed to have had a reluctance to leave places of learning spending 6 years there instead of the prescribed 5.

I met my wife Miranda ( Mandy ) in 1965 ( she was 15 ) and we were married at the beginning of 1971 and struggled through the first year of marriage still at Uni with no income - yeah I know we all did it tough.

Soon after finishing Uni I joined an Australian architectural practice, John Andrews International, which started in Toronto and mainly practiced in North America, was based in Palm Beach Sydney, but was beginning to practice around Australia. I became a partner in this practice in 1981 and where I remained until we pulled the pin on the business at the end of 2000 when the financial doomsayers were beginning to forecast a repeat of the 1990 disaster which had really clobbered the business when we had 10 partners, 80 staff and offices in three states and Washington DC from which to bail out.

During my time in this practice we moved to Canberra in 1977 where we stayed until moving to Perth in 1981 returning to Sydney at the end of 1984. We moved to Avalon in 1986 where we built a house in which we have since lived.

Mandy and I have three beautiful children, Karl (27), Elke (26) and Heidi (24) all who have thankfully left home to make lives of their own but who have not yet provided us with any grandchildren - I warn them that I am turning into a cranky old shit and soon wont care.

Since 2000 I have been running my own one man architectural practice from my home - yes Jerry I am also still practicing and haven’t got it right yet either, but I do make house calls to all my clients. The work is predominantly residential and thankfully there is more of it than I can handle but I have sworn off employing staff ever again but occasional do work jointly with some old colleagues. Mates Rates apply.

These days I arrange my time so that I can go sailing 3 days a week (no, I don’t own my own yacht, yet), do some very amateurish painting and try to finish off my house which seems to be falling apart faster than I can keep up.

Pretty ordinary really.