Winster
17 Tintern Avenue TOORAK, STONNINGTON CITY
-
Add to tour
You must log in to do that.
-
Share
-
Shortlist place
You must log in to do that.
- Download report
Statement of Significance
Note that the relevant HERCON criteria and themes from the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (TEH) are shown in brackets.
What is Significant?
Winster at 17 Tintern Avenue, Toorak is a 1927 double-storey interwar Mediterranean style house with white-painted brick walls. It was built for and designed by important Melbourne architect Rodney Alsop.
Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include (but are not limited to):
- The original external form, materials and detailing of the building.
- The relatively high level of integrity, despite modern alterations.
- The domestic garden setting, including aspects of the original garden design by Alsop, such as the brick wall along the side path and the curved concrete pond (if it survives).
- The front fence and wrought iron gate.
- The absence of modern vehicle accommodation in the house's front and side setbacks.
Modern elements, including the loggia infill glazing, do not contribute to the significance of the place.
How is it significant?
Winster is of local architectural significance to the City of Stonnington.
Why is it significant?
Winster is architecturally significant as a fine and largely intact interwar Mediterranean style house (Criterion D). It demonstrates architect Rodney Alsop's concern for developing a national, climatically appropriate style of architecture through a fusion of the Spanish vernacular idiom and British Georgian revival formality. The house's plain, largely unadorned wall surfaces, the low unobtrusive roof form and the simple massing point to the emergence of a modern design aesthetic in the 1930s.
Winster derives some additional significance from its association with architect Rodney Alsop, an early and influential advocate of Mediterranean style architecture (8.4.3 - Architects and their houses, Criterion H).
-
-
Winster - Physical Description 1
Winster at 17 Tintern Avenue, Toorak is a double-storey whitewashed brick residence, sited towards the rear of a long rectangular block with the main garden to the front. The property is entered through an elaborate wrought iron gate opening onto a narrow path screened from the main garden by a high brick fence. An arched gate attached to the north east corner of the house provides access to the main garden. The house brings elements of Mediterranean architecture into an austere symmetrical Georgian revival format. The refined, sparely detailed facade has an arcaded ground floor loggia with Tuscan order columns. The first floor has three multi-paned steel-framed windows opening onto to shallow balconies with elegant wrought iron railings. The window openings are surmounted by small circular louvred vents.
The front loggia has been partly enclosed in a broadly sympathetic fashion with multi-pane windows. Early photographs of the house show a continuous first floor window hood casting a shadow over the first floor windows, but this feature is no longer evident. There is also a non-original fascia board partly obscuring the louvred vents. Despite these changes, the facade remains clearly legible to its 1920s form. At the rear of the house, a garage opening onto Woodside Crescent was enlarged c1989.[1]
[1] City of Stonnington Property File B36600-879.
Winster - Local Historical Themes
Winster at 17 Tintern Avenue, Toorak illustrates the following themes, as identified in the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (Context Pty Ltd, 2006):
8.1.3 - The end of an era - mansion estate subdivisions in the twentieth century
8.4.3 - Architects and their housesWinster is of some historical interest as evidence of a major phase of development that took place in the 1920s and 1930s when many of Toorak's grand nineteenth century mansion estates were subdivided to create prestigious residential enclaves (TEH 8.1.3 The end of an era - mansion estate subdivisions in the twentieth century).
Heritage Study and Grading
Stonnington - City of Stonnington Interwar Houses Study
Author: Bryce Raworth Pty Ltd
Year: 2014
Grading: A2
-
-
-
-
-
PRIMARY SCHOOL NO. 1467Victorian Heritage Register H1032
-
COMO HOUSEVictorian Heritage Register H0205
-
BARWONVictorian Heritage Register H0825
-
-