Take a tour of Melbourne with us this week as we view some of its beautiful heritage properties – properties you could well own if the opportunity arises and they are placed on the market. We’ve made a fairly broad selection, including Italianate, Victorian Terraces and Villas, Queen Anne Style and Federation Style constructions and designs.
Principal Architect at Balance, Andrew Fedorowicz, is passionate about all heritage architecture. He has a wealth of experience in their restoration and revival with a very practical understanding of what is required to bring these beautiful edifices back to life yet meet today’s stringent building standards.
Let the tour begin with compliments to Flickr photographer ‘raeen99’.
“Holyrood” a Large Victorian Italianate Villa – The Grove, Coburg
“Holyrood” is a large Victorian Italianate villa constructed circa 1891, probably to the design of architects Little and Beardsley, as part of the former Moreland Park Estate in the Melbourne suburb of Coburg.
Built at the entrance to the Moreland Park Estate on Coburg’s most prestigious elm lined street, The Grove, “Holyrood” is a mirror to that of its neighbour on the opposite side of the street. These sentinals of Victorian upper middle-class respectability, wealth and aspirations to climb socially would have been very impressive when all that surrounded them was open famland. “Holyrood” and its neighbour represent the brief initial period of development prior to the bust of the 1890s and subsequent housing boom of the early 20th Century, in which much of Coburg’s residential development occurred.
This single storey, Italianate style residence has a return verandah with elegant cast iron lacework. The roof is made of slate tiles with a geometric pattern laid out as part of the design, whilst the verandah is of corrugated iron. Its four chimneys are tall and corniced and its has its original mock ashlar walls. Perhaps its most outstanding feature is a distinctive pyramidal roofed low tower over the entryway.
A Polychromatic Brick Victorian Villa – Moonee Ponds
Standing proudly behind its picket fence with capped newel posts, this large Victorian villa constructed in the 1890s is situated in the inner northern Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds.
This single storey sprawling villa has a splendid front verandah with elegant cast iron lacework. The roof is made of slate tiles with a geometric pattern laid out as part of the design, whilst the verandah is of corrugated iron. This villa also features its original capping and ornate finials along the tips of each section of roofline. Built of polychromatic bricks, they are used to great effect, making the walls real features of the villa.
Moonee Ponds, like its neighbouring boroughs of Ascot Vale and Essendon, was etablished in the late 1880s and early 1890s. However, unlike its neighbours, it was an area of affluence and therefore only had middle-class, upper middle-class and some very wealthy citizens. Houses like these would have suited a large Victorian family, and would have required a small retinue of servants to maintain. Built on a corner block, this villa has a large street frontage, and mantains its original stables, which may be accessed through a back laneway.
Sister Victorian Terrace Houses – Flemington
These two magnificent late Victorian boom period terrace houses in the inner northern Melbourne suburb of Flemington are in fact sisters and mirror one another in layout.
Built between the 1880s and the 1890s, these two grand residences both feature bay windows upstairs and down, stuccoed brick facades (with exposed red brick walls at the side elevations), large sash windows and two chimneys each. However their crowning glories must be without doubt their wonderful verandahs and balconies with their intricately frilly lace like wrought iron fretwork.
Flemington was a suburb in its own right by 1882 when it broke away from the City of Essendon, and at the time these houses were built, Flemington was had a mixture of lower middle, middle and upper middle-class citizens. Situated on Wellington Street, in front of the Catholic church of Saint Brendan’s, these residences would have been for the latter of these groups. Houses like these would have suited a large Victorian family, and would have required a small retinue of servants to maintain.
A Queen Anne Style Mansion – Moonee Ponds
This beautiful and extremely ornate Queen Anne style mansion of grand proportions is situated in the finest section of the inner northern Melbourne suburb of Moonee Ponds.
Queen Anne style was mostly a residential style inspired by the Arts and Crafts movement in England, but also encompassed some of the more stylised elements of Art Nouveau, which gave it an more decorative look. The red brick from which the mansion is built is in keeping with the Arts and Crafts movement, as is the slate tiled roof and the rough cast stuccoed brick panels that can be found under the eaves and on the half timbered gables. Yet the ornate terracotta capping along the different sections of roof, the tall chimneys with ornamental chimney pots, undulating fretwork on the half timbered gables and the fretwork on the return verandah are all very Art Nouveau in design. Ornamental towers were very popular features of Australian Queen Anne residences, and this mansion features a very tall one.
Built in the years immediately following Australian Federation (1901), the half timbered barge boards feature native Australian flora as during this period, Australiana (to show pride in all things Australian) was encompassed into much local manufacturing, design and architecture.
The whole mansion, which has a large street frontage, is surrounded by a well established garden with mature Australian native trees and well kept lawns.
Queen Anne style was most popular around the time of Federation. With complex roofline structures and undulating facades, many Queen Anne houses fell out of fashion at the beginning of the modern era, and were demolished.
“Nocklofty” Federation Style Villa – Royal Parade, Parkville
Situated near the intersection of Royal Parade and Brunswick Road, “Nocklofty”, a Federation style Edwardian villa of grand proportions, overlooks Parkville’s Royal Parade.
The name “Nocklofty” is placed above the bay window and is impressed in Art Nouveau script into a beaten brass plaque.
Built between 1906 and 1908, in the years after Australian Federation took place, this Art Nouveau style house, with a fanciful copper tower to the rear right of the property, features small amounts of Australiana as part of its design, to support the general feeling of Australian patriotism that found its way into popular culture, art and architecture. The wooden fretwork above the bay window and around the porch features gum leaves and gum nuts in its design.
“Nocklofty” was designed and built by the owner Kenneth Munro. Munro, a retired mining and construction engineer and highly accomplished amateur wood carver, executed all the original exterior and interior decoration and pattern for casting the varandah columns and friezes in terracotta.
“Nocklofty” used to have a beautiful garden featuring evergreen alders and silver birches as well as a cottage garden. Sadly, nearly ten years of drought have seen it suffer somewhat and many of the trees that used to shade the house are gone. This however, has revealed the beauty of this fanciful house for all who pass by it to see.
If you or an acquaintance need guidance, assistance and planning in rejuvenating such a property, please do not hesitate to call Balance Architecture on 0418 341 443 for a free consultation. Andrew Fedorowicz will be happy to schedule a time and date that is mutually acceptable. Or leave your details here for a prompt response.