Sans Souci
12 Grosvenor Street MOONEE PONDS, MOONEE VALLEY CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
'Sans Souci' at 12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, a late Victorian era timber Italianate villa built 1881-1883 is significant.
Significant fabric includes the:
single-storey asymmetric built form with a projecting bay;
original hipped roof form and slate roofing;
timber block and weatherboard cladding, bay window detailing and verandah decoration;
original cement-rendered chimneys and eaves detailing; and
original pattern of fenestration and elements of window joinery.
The skillion-roofed extension is not significant.
How is it significant?
'Sans Souci' at 12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, is of local architectural significance to the City of Moonee Valley.
Why is it significant?
'Sans Souci' at 12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, is significant as a Victorian-era Italianate house. It demonstrates the villa typology of the 1880s, being free-standing and more substantial than terrace housing, but not as large in scale as the two-storey mansion houses. The Victorian era and the Italianate style are well represented on the Moonee Valley Heritage Overlay. Nos 40-42 Vida Street, Aberfeldie (HO319), and 3 Aberfeldie Street, Essendon (HO143), are amongst many comparative examples of villas of this period. Although most villas are built of brick and timber examples are less common, a timber house at 42 Myross Avenue, Ascot Vale (HO225), is a solitary example on the Heritage Overlay.
12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, demonstrates the attributes of the Italianate style through its form, materials and detail. It demonstrates the asymmetrical form of the Italianate style including a projecting room with canted bay and semi-octagonal hipped roof. The main hipped slate roof features three cement rendered chimneys. The weatherboard construction is embellished by a timber ashlar block frontage, whilst the verandah with timber post construction and cast-iron frieze is typical of the Italianate style and follows the plan of the bay window, returning along both sides of the house.
12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, is a house of very high integrity being only slightly diminished by an extension to the rear, but with very few changes visible to original or early elements of the place. (Criterion D)
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Sans Souci - Physical Description 1
12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, a substantial late-nineteenth century weatherboard villa, is located on the east side of a narrow residential street with the busy arterial Holmes Road a short distance to the south; a rear lane provides a right of way. The property is close to Moonee Ponds railway station, as well as the busy Puckle Street commercial centre and nearby development centred on the intersection of Mount Alexander Road and Pascoe Vale Road to the east, which now looms large as a backdrop.
Set relatively close to the street frontage behind a high timber paling fence (of relatively recent date), 12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, has a central entry with principal rooms to either side under the main roof, with hipped roof forms to the rear (east) and a projecting canted bay with its own semi-octagonal hipped roof; a flat skillion roof to a more recent section at the rear links these earlier wings. The house is of weatherboard construction with a timber block front (resembling ashlar construction) giving the main street frontage and bay enhanced architectural prominence. A verandah covers the street facade and follows the plan form of the polygonal bay, then returns along both north and south sides.
The building has a hipped slate roof with metal ridge cappings and retains three original cement-rendered chimneys with conventional Italianate cornices (one at rear of the north bay-windowed room, a large central one, and one to south). The return verandah has a concave-profile roof of corrugated iron (with panels at intervals of translucent acrylic of relatively recent date), cast iron frieze and brackets, and simple timber columns. The windows are simple timber double-hung sashes.
Behind the high timber paling front and side fences is a garden with several mature trees and shrubs. A large Silky Oak (Grevillea robusta) dominates southern portion of the front garden, flanked by emergent cordylines, but it is difficult to ascribe the planting to an early date.
12 Grosvenor Street, Moonee Ponds, is of veryhighintegrity with veryfewchangesvisible to original or early elements of the place. The building retains its original building form, roof forms, return verandah, timber block and weatherboard cladding, and window joinery.
The integrity of the building is enhanced by the highlevel of intactness of these main elements, which include details such as the slate roof, original chimneys, cast iron frieze and brackets and simple timber columns of the verandah.
The integrity of the building is slightlydiminished by the flat skillion roofed extension to the rear, although this is an extremely discreet addition that is not visible from the street frontage,
The integrity of the place is slightlydiminished by the high timber-paling fence along the frontage.
Heritage Study and Grading
Moonee Valley - Moonee Valley 2017 Heritage Study
Author: Context
Year: 2019
Grading:
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