William Ellis Green (WEG) House
1 Aringa Court,, HEATHMONT VIC 3135 - Property No B7487
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Statement of Significance
What is significant? The William Ellis Green ('WEG') House was built in 1963 for 'Bill' Green, one of Victoria's best known cartoonists. He produced a cartoon six days a week for the Melbourne Herald from 1946 until his retirement in 1986. He was known for his 'WEG's Day' on page 1, and then 'WEG's Weekend' in the Saturday paper. From 1954 until his death he produced a Grand Final poster every year, which were produced in numbers and sold by the Herald for charity, raising more than $2 million for the Royal Children's Hospital. WEG's cartoons were outstandingly popular and he became a defining part of Victorian life and culture.
The house was designed by the prolific and well known firm of Chancellor & Patrick, and features many of their characteristic design elements. It is constructed of brick walls combined with timber post and beam framing, with numerous posts beyond the wall line. The plan is a complex H shape, with each section defined by a separate low pitched gabled tray-deck roof. The dominant roofs have exceptionally wide eaves and projecting gable ends. The roofs are expressed as solid forms, with hidden gutters, and exposed rafter ends below, with a varnished timber underside/eaves lining. There is a post cochere formed by the extension of the long narrow gable-roofed walkway that extends from the front door in brick paving. The visitors' driveway curves around the front of the house to the porte cochere.
There are timber framed windows, including highlight windows, windows above the solid brick plinth, and window walls with many double doors opening to paved terraces or the garden. Some corners employ butt-joined glass. The lounge and rumpus room face onto north and east facing terraces. There are planter boxes of the same brick as the walls, some forming a continuation of the walls, and others free standing. The front planter under the porte cochere continues as a low wall enclosing the north terrace of the Living Room. The full height front door is flanked by coloured glass blocks.
The southwest wing is left open from east to west forming a carport, providing access to the back/service courtyard and rear entrance, opposite the front door.
Various shrubs are planted close to the house, now mostly overgrown, while there is a fringe of larger trees and bushes on all sides of the block. The swimming pool to the east of the paved terrace and the flat-roofed extension to the carport are later additions.
How is it significant? The William Ellis Green ('WEG') House is architecturally, historically and socially significant at the Regional level.
Why is it significant? The house is historically and socially significant as the home and study of Herald cartoonist William Ellis Green, the place where he lived for half his career and where he produced his iconic annual AFL Grand Final posters from 1987 until his death in 2008. Its generous scale and architectural quality represents his career success and his aesthetic appreciation of modern design.
The house is architecturally significant as a particularly complex example of the work of Chancellor & Patrick, one of the most noted architectural firms of the 1950's and 60's in Victoria. It incorporates many characteristic features that made their work quite distinct from those of other architects in the period. Distinctive elements include an H plan in the form of intersecting multiple wings, each defined by a low-pitched gable roof, the 'displaced corner' structure allowing butt-jointed glass corners, detailing intended to reveal the structure, especially the roof, and integration with the landscape through an overall horizontality and window walls opening to paved terraces and the garden. The use of dark clinker brick as walls that are integrated with low planter boxes, low courtyard walls and paving is unusual. The narrow gabled entrance walkway that becomes a port cochere projecting well into the garden is also unusual.
The house has historical significance as one of a very small number of architect-designed modernist houses in the City of Maroondah. Architect-designed houses in the post WW2 period represent a small but highly significant part of the massive suburban growth of Melbourne at the time, during which the scattered villages that now form the City of Maroondah became suburbs.
Classified: 05/03/2012
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Osmanthus fragrans F.AurantiacusNational Trust
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AringaMaroondah City
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William Ellis Green (WEG) HouseNational Trust
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