[1] Turrawan was constructed in 1906 to a design by Robin Dods as a combined residence and surgery for Dr Arthur Charles Frederick Halford.
Completing his articles, Dods moved to London in 1890, where he worked for a number of architects, including the prestigious firm of Aston Webb and Ingress Bell.
Dods' training in London placed him amongst the third generation of Arts and Crafts-based architects, contemporary with Edwin Lutyens, Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Frank Lloyd Wright.
Central to his philosophy was a belief in developing a new architecture based on regional tradition, clearly expressed in his subsequent domestic work in Brisbane.
In 1926 the Post Office Directory lists a Dr Neville Sutton as the occupant, using London Road as his preferred address.
In 1961, BP Australia purchased Lot 1, the block on the corner of Clayfield and London Roads and constructed a service station on it.
Although the chimneys are no longer present, presumably having been lost when the house was rotated, a tiered corner fireplace remains in the former dining room.
[1] Turrawan is located on a sloping block, supported by high concrete stumps at the eastern end and a brick retaining wall to London Road.
It is a single storey building constructed of timber with a typical Dods steeply pitched hipped roof clad with corrugated iron sheeting.
This is accessed by a shallow set of stairs approaching a porch constructed of substantial timber beams in the Arts and Crafts style.
[1] The remainder of the front elevation comprises a central verandah, which is now enclosed with the balustrades intact and sheeted over, and a protruding bay on the western end.
The eastern elevation also comprises an enclosed verandah with intact balustrades and the location of the separate surgery access is evident, although the stairs to this have been removed.
The original plan, separating residential and medical areas, can still be read and most rooms remain substantially intact.
It has aesthetic significance as a substantial and well-designed dwelling and is important for its association with the life and work of RS (Robin) Dods, an innovative and influential architect who made a major contribution to the development of housing design in Queensland.
[1] The place has a special association with the life or work of a particular person, group or organisation of importance in Queensland's history.
Robert Smith (Robin) Dods is noted for the introduction of ideas on architectural design then current in the United Kingdom and integrating them with traditional Queensland forms and materials.