Jeff and Tracey McCloy and the Parkway Avenue, Bar Beach, cannon house

When traffic banked up on Tuesday while a crane deposited two full-size cannons - one on each front corner of the flat roof - the gossip mill went into overdrive.

For the girl behind the guns, Tracey McCloy, the whole thing has been a hoot. Husband Jeff McCloy also appreciates the funny side of the house, and its rooftop attachments.

"They're pointed in either direction," Jeff joked this week. "In case we're facing one way, and get attacked from the rear!"

Given McCloy's past controversies - culminating in his resignation as Newcastle lord mayor during the ICAC's Operation Spicer controversy in 2014 - critics are bound to view the cannons (Chinese replicas) as some sort of political statement.

But the McCloys say nothing could be further from the truth. It's more that money means they can do things the rest of us can't.

So when Tracey decided she wanted a house straight out of the Santa Fe desert, she and Jeff found the right block of land and went to work.

"I decided on the cannons before the house was designed," Tracey said this week.

"I've always quite liked cannons. I was sitting there reading a magazine and I saw an ad for them.

"I thought they'd look good, so I rang the place up in Victoria and said the only problem is I need two, and I need you to keep them for me for 18 months, which they did."

The Parkway Avenue house carries echoes of the the Belmont house that Jeff built in 1996 when developing the Green Point estate, as well as the $8-million conversion of the old Lucky Country Hotel into The Lucky, with its double-height spaces and huge lengths of recycled hardwood timber.

"Tracey's been building this thing in her mind for years, it's 90 per cent hers," Jeff said.

Architect Barney Collins, director of prominent Newcastle firm EJE Architecture, concurs.

"Tracey had this drawing, it took a while to understand, in that it was floor-plan and elevation at the same time," Collins said.

"But once we understood that, we could interpret it, looking at books showing places Tracey had been, and the spaces she liked.

"Not everyone's going to like it. It relies on an earlier style.

"But for those who say it doesn't fit in, they need to look at Newcastle's history a bit more, because there are any number of Spanish mission style houses around here.

This was a 'garden suburb' subdivision, done by the AA Co [Australian Agricultural Company], and they built prototype houses at various points to encourage what they wanted buyers to do, and the Spanish mission followed out of the Art Deco era as a popular style."

Bar Beach has lost a lot of its original houses lately, mostly replaced by angular "coastal modernist" places dominated by massive windows - the result, Jeff says, of "prohibitive planning restrictions" that "dampen the creative flairs".

Love it or loathe it, Tracey's "cannon house" certainly stands out from its neighbours.

The gossip, and the gawking, are destined to continue for a while yet.

While you're with us, did you know the Newcastle Herald offers breaking news alerts, daily email newsletters and more? Keep up to date with all the local news - sign up here