Grandview and Devon
45 & 47 Darling Street SOUTH YARRA, STONNINGTON CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
'Grandview' and 'Devon', at 45 & 47 Darling Street, South Yarra, are significant. These identical freestanding Italianate terrace houses were built in 1892-93 by owner William H Carter, a plasterer by trade, to replace a single timber house on the site.
The houses are two-storeys in height, with brick walls (overpainted) and cement render dressings, including balustraded parapets, wing walls and canted bay windows. They are both high set, reached by a short flight of original steps.
How is it significant?
'Grandview' and 'Devon' are of local architectural and aesthetic significance to the City of Stonnington.
Why is it significant?
Architecturally, they are intact representative examples of the substantial houses built for the middle-class residents of South Yarra during the boom years of the 1880s and early 1890s. The terrace house form, with blind boundary walls, designed to fit on a narrow building block, was most commonly built in rows in the densely packed inner suburbs. In the better part of Stonnington, particularly South Yarra, there were many free-standing houses that followed the terrace typology on more spacious sites. 'Grandview' and 'Devon' exhibit typical features of this type, including the blind boundary walls and verandah wing walls creating a focus on the front facade, and the balustrade front parapet which became ubiquitous after 1885. (Criterion D)
Aesthetically, they are distinguished by the level of cast-cement detail, which likely reflects the trade of their first owner, in particular the contrast of rendered surrounds to windows and the front door and to the canted bay window with the face brick (obscured by overpainting), and the profusion of ornament to the parapet, cornice and frieze, as well as the cast-cement balusters to the front steps and verandah. The uncommon cast-iron patterns to the verandahs, particularly the Eastlake style balustrade panels featuring stylised leaves, flowers and geometric 'stick' patterns, are also of note. (Criterion E)
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Grandview and Devon - Physical Description 1
The houses at 45 and 47 Darling Street, South Yarra, are a pair of freestanding Italianate terrace houses of identical design. As displayed on their parapets, no. 45 is called 'Grandview' while no. 47 is 'Devon'. Both are two-storey and double-fronted, with brick walls (overpainted) finished with details in cement render. The chimneys are of red brick with a moulded cement-render cornice, indicating the original colour palette.
Each house has a classic terrace houses form, with blank party walls, wing walls enclosing the sides of the two-storey verandah, and a parapet concealing the hipped roof, but there is a small setback between them. The faces of the wing walls are finished in rusticated render with consoles at the top of each level. Resting atop each wing wall is a cast-cement orb. The same orbs are seen at either end of the parapet (missing from no. 47).
The houses are elevated above a raised basement finished in rusticated cement render, and the front entrance is reached via a flight of bluestone steps with a balustrade railing, which continues across the front verandah. Number 47 also retains a short front path of tessellated tiles, in beige, brown and terracotta, leading to the front steps. Their setback from the street is minimal.
Each house has the front entrance to the north side of the front elevation, beside which is a canted bay windows finished in cement render, with capitals between the sash windows and a moulded label mould. The front door has sidelights and a highlight, a six-panel door with bolection mouldings, and sits within a rendered surround. Upstairs, the first floor has two full-length double-hung sash windows in a symmetrical arrangement.
The verandah of each house has a single cast-iron post and a combined cast-iron frieze and brackets in a pattern suggesting a Greek anthemion motif. The first floor verandah has a circular motif for its frieze and brackets. The balcony railing is supported on slender cast-iron balusters, mimicking turned timber, with cast-iron panels between them. These panels have stylised leaves, a flower and geometric 'stick' pattern that shows the influence of English architect and furniture designer Charles Eastlake's 'Modern Gothic' decorative style.
Up top, there is a dentilated cornice above a continuous row of cast-cement swags. The parapet has short panelled piers at either end (with an orb on top) and a pair of piers at the centre, framing the house name. Above the name is a cast-cement half-shell motif on the backdrop of a semicircular pediment. The remainder of the parapet is filled with cast-cement balusters.
The houses are externally intact, apart from the overpainting of the face brick, the loss of the parapet orbs from no. 47, and the replacement with similar at no. 45 of the ground-floor balusters and verandah column.
Grandview and Devon - Local Historical Themes
This place illustrates the following themes, as identified in the Stonnington Thematic Environmental History (Context Pty Ltd, rev. 2009):
3.3.3 Speculators and land boomers
8.2 Middle-class suburbs and the suburban ideal
Heritage Study and Grading
Stonnington - City of Stonnington Victorian Houses Study
Author: City of Stonnington
Year: 2016
Grading: A2
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FORMER BRYANT & MAY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEXVictorian Heritage Register H0626
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PRIMARY SCHOOL NO. 2084Victorian Heritage Register H1634
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FORMER RICHMOND POWER STATIONVictorian Heritage Register H1055
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"1890"Yarra City
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'BRAESIDE'Boroondara City
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'ELAINE'Boroondara City
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