After 50 years of creating special memories in their beautiful Kensington Park home, Bob and Lidia Wildy have decided the time is right to downsize.

The couple initially planned to build a new home when they were house hunting years ago, but when they stumbled upon this 1910s Federation-style villa at 4 Bedford Street, Kensington Park, they instantly fell in love.

“We bought the property here, fell in love with the area, the streets, the people and the house and we just stayed,” Bob tells SALIFE.

Bob, a retired architect, says the location is ideal, close to shopping centres, sought-after public and private schools, and a short distance to the CBD.

Throughout the years, Bob and Lidia have carried out numerous upgrades to the house.

This includes adding a double-brick kitchen extension in the early 1980s and a more extensive renovation around 2009.

With his experience as an architect, Bob planned the redesign, which included replacing the windows and building into the roof, adding two bedrooms, a bathroom and a play area.

On the ground floor, they raised the ceiling, put in a new kitchen with modern appliances, and created a study, formal dining room and formal lounge room.

The couple also installed abundant storage space, a reverse cycle air conditioning system, gas heaters and underfloor heating in the bathrooms, while each room in the house is double insulated.

“Each person that comes in says how light and airy the house is. Particularly for these older-style Federation homes, there’s a lot of light in the place,” says Bob.

Standout features include the spacious master suite with walk-in wardrobe and ensuite, while upstairs is a perfect teenager’s retreat with skylights, a separate bathroom and two additional bedrooms, one with a walk-in wardrobe.

Outdoors, the manicured garden is spectacular, including the perimeter garden lined by around 30 ornamental pear trees. There are also plenty of  murraya hedges, Japanese and English Box hedges, port wine magnolias, large potted cycads, two crabapple trees, a grapevine creeping over the wooden pergola and an avenue of camellias along the wrought iron fence and driveway.

Bob says he loves to “sit in the front lounge room in winter with the fire, looking out onto the northern garden and read”, while Lidia loves taking in the view of the garden.

“When I wake up in the morning – usually I’m up first – I love to walk down the hallway, and at the end of the hallway, I can see the garden,” says Lidia, a retired school teacher.

“That always puts a smile on your face, because you get the autumn leaves and then you’ve got the spring with the flowers and then the summer – we have a lot of colour.”

But after 50 years of calling 4 Bedford Street, Kensington Park home, Bob and Lidia are now looking to downsize. They say they will miss the memories and their garden the most.

“The part that we love, looking around, is that it’s a great family home,” says Lidia.

“We’ve had two weddings here. Heaps of 21^st and 80^th birthdays, you name it. And about 35 years’ worth of Christmases always held here because it’s a house that is really conducive to entertaining.”

The sale of 4 Bedford Street, Kensington Park is being handled by Sally Cameron from Toop + Toop.