Blue Boat House

The Crawley Edge Boatshed, commonly referred to as the Blue Boat House, is a boathouse located on the Swan River at Crawley in Perth, Western Australia. A well-known landmark, the boatshed was built in the 1930s, and since the 1940s has been owned mainly by the Nattrass family.

History

The boatshed was originally built in the 1930s. It first came into the hands of the Nattrass family when Roland and Joyce Nattrass purchased the land behind it in 1944 as the site for their family home. The real estate agent insisted the boatshed be purchased with the land for an additional £A 5, equivalent to A$405 in 2022.

In 1972, Roland Nattrass gave the boatshed to Ron Armstrong, a patron of the Perth Sea Scouts. A slightly larger boatshed was built around the original. In the 1990s, ownership of the boatshed passed to Barry Kollman, a sailor from the Royal Perth Yacht Club.

In 2001, the boatshed was put up for sale and purchased by Peter Nattrass, son of Roland Nattrass and Lord Mayor of Perth at the time. The boatshed had become very run down by that time. Faced with government threats to demolish and remove it, the family began to rebuild it. At the suggestion of a family friend, the local federal member of parliament Julie Bishop, the boatshed was repainted in a bold blue colour. On 6 February 2004, the refurbished boatshed was re-launched by Perth yachtsman Jon Sanders and Perth sailor David Dicks.

It was also given a facelift in late 2015, which included repainting the exterior and replacing the wooden jetty with a new one with steel pylons.

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