When Frank Penn asked Lesley if she would wait for him before leaving to serve as a WWII pilot, neither could have imagined the life they would later build, quite literally, on a quiet street in Mitcham.

Shot down over Europe and captured as a prisoner of war, Frank's return home was nothing short of miraculous.

True to her word, Lesley waited, and after the war the young couple bought a 748 sqm block near Mitcham Station, determined to create their forever home.

And build it they did, by hand.

Frank, a chemist with a meticulous mind for detail, became the builder, and Lesley, an accomplished artist, art teacher at Box Hill High School and later librarian at Swinburne Art Library, took on the creative design.

Think of them as an original couple from The Block, but actually doing the b

See Full Page