For Ian, the story of Crace is personal from the very beginning. A lifelong Canberran with deep roots in the city's heritage landscape, he'd seen firsthand what poorly designed aged care looked like. Years earlier, he'd helped his mother through a nursing home system that simply wasn't good enough. That experience stayed with him.
"The offerings were not good," he recalls. "As soon as I heard the idea of retirement living for 55-plus, I started thinking about the baby boomer generation, my own generation, the millennials. There needs to be a better offering."
Heritage properties need a purpose to survive. Ian knows this well. Working across heritage in Canberra throughout his career, he's watched too many significant places fall into disrepair for want of a viable future. The homestead at Gungahlan presented something different: a rare opportunity to bring a historic place back into community life. Not as a museum, but as a living, breathing heart of a new community.
"We're not wanting to hide it. We don't want it to be your typical museum. We're wanting this to be a vibrant place around a community."
Crace is building something this city has long needed. And for Ian, it starts with a piece of land he should have known about his whole life.
