A page about two properties in Melbourne, Australia which my parents owned.

 

I was born in Melbourne, Australia. My parents originally lived in Brighton but moved to 75 Cooloongatta Road, Camberwell in c.1968. Number 75, as I recently learnt, was one of the show homes on the estate that was established in the 1930s. I think it may now be listed in some way - and if it isn't, it should be. It's just a shame that it has had a whole lot of extensions added to it which are not in keeping with the original house, including a horrid carport that blocks the view from the oriel window - originally my bedroom window. But I expect the owners (of which there have been several) love it, and who am I to judge from my far future vantage point. I have not been inside since 1977, when it was sold at auction (for $73,000), and not seen the outside in person since 1980.

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My dad had a radio and TV repair business ("Radio Clinic"), first at a shop at Park Street which was demolished in 1966/7 (for the construction of Park Towers) and then at 359 Clarendon Street, South Melbourne (one of three shops in the Skeats Building). My dad did a lot of work to both properties. At 75 he stripped, undercoated and painted the entire weatherboarded top - something that took years. He also made a fence in c.1975 running along the front which, as I can see from Google Street View, lasted until 2009. In the garden is a light on the top of a Corinthian column - he took the column from the demolished veranda outside the front of 359 Clarendon Street and placed a lamp housing on top - amazingly this still exists! I see that the South Melbourne council has recreated the street verandas.

 

At 359 he took an idea from another shop and rebuilt the front with a sloping glass window and door set in aluminium frames, which makes the frontage more attractive as reflections are not straight on to the street. The shop, which is part of a group of three built in 1881, had, as I said, a veranda. This must have dated from 1881 but it must have been the council that demolished it in the late 1960s as it disappeared from those three shops and others along Clarendon Street. My dad erected a large rectangular canopy over the front which lasted until 2014/15. The interior of 359 was odd (it's a shame I have no pictures of the interior from that time). My dad and his father painted the ceiling (which I think was a typical Victorian ceiling with fancy plasterwork) black and mounted a floating white egg-crate ceiling underneath (very futuristic for the late 60s!). Below the shop is a basement (which always had a distinctive damp smell) accessed via a trap door at the rear of the shop. Then, out the back door, was a separate entrance with a HUGE flight of stairs that split into two more flights. As I recall, one went to bedrooms on the front and the other to a kitchen and another room at the back. My parents did a lot of work to these to get them in order for someone to rent. In an audio file I have my dad talks about moving a huge number of old TVs he'd stored in the front room in order to start redecorating.

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At the rear of 359 was a small laundry. I remember my dad put up new internal plasterboard walls in this and managed to wall up a spirit level and packet of washing powder by mistake - I hope that it never got wet or they'd have had soap suds coming out of the walls. LOL. By the looks of it all of this has now gone. The cobbled road at the rear still exists - this paving must date from the 1880s.

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359 and 75 were both sold in 1977. The shop first became a hairdressers, and has had several other uses since then. 75 has changed ownership only three times. I sometimes wonder what the interior looks like now as there are no recent pictures of it. The lounge room had exposed beams. There were two stained glass windows - a large window lighting the stairwell with heraldic glass and a small octagonal window at the top on the front of the house. All up it was a very attractive house. I am glad to see that the huge tree near the road still exists (although it was pruned some years ago as it was massively overhanging the road). I note, with some amusement, that a subsequent owner has mounted a TV antenna on the chimney of 75. Up until 1973 the house did have the antenna there but in that year my dad took the old one down and put a new antenna inside the roof where it could not be seen.

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Note: I see here https://www.portphillip.vic.gov.au/media/f4rjmw2n/pphr-v30-volume-3-c-e-part-1.pdf that the heritage report states on page 201: At ground floor level, Nos. 355 and 359 have been most unsympathetically altered, however No. 357 retains substantially intact its original window. As someone who is interested in the preservation of old buildings, I would agree. However, my dad had a business to run and he wanted a large window so people could see into the shop and all of the merchandise it contained. His alteration was far better than the horrid yellow brick stoppage of No. 355 shown in the images below. May I also suggest that 359 represents a 1960s alteration - and just as late 19th century buildings were not appreciated in the 1960s, 1960s buildings are only just beginning to be appreciated now. My advice to owners of 359: don't change it.

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I present some pictures below. If you are a resident or owner of either 359 or 75 I'd be interested to hear from you. I hope that you find this information of interest. contact at cbnewham com

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