Banool Estate Precinct
Banool Avenue and Stawell Street KEW, BOROONDARA CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is Significant?
The Banool Estate Precinct, Kew, which comprises 1-21 & 2-20 Banool Avenue and 25-27 Stawell Street, Kew, is significant. The Banool Estate was subdivided in c.1920 from the grounds of a larger estate named Banool that was sold in 1919. The subdivision comprises modestly sized allotments intersected by a straight-aligned street. The houses were almost all developed over a relatively brief time span of five years, between 1920 and 1925; the remaining two properties were built by 1930. The houses are mostly modest brick Bungalows of designs and detailing typical of the interwar California Bungalow architectural style. The houses on slightly wider allotments tend to be less modest in scale and detailing.
The following properties are non-contributory to the Precinct: 27 Stawell Street and 14 and 16 Banool Avenue. The remainder are Contributory.
The lightly treed character of the streetscape, the mown lawn nature strips with concrete footpaths, and the bluestone kerbs and channels are also Contributory.
Non-original alterations and additions to the houses are not significant, including second storey additions, non-original garages and carports, and high front fences. Some of the front fences are sympathetic to the architectural style of the houses, but are not significant.
How is it significant?
The Banool Estate Precinct, Kew, is of local historical and architectural significance to the City of Boroondara.
Why is it significant?
Historically, the Banool Estate Precinct is significant for the tangible evidence it provides of the pattern of settlement in this part of Kew, along Studley Park Road, during the interwar period, which comprised subdivisions on the grounds of larger estates. The quick succession in which the houses were built after the subdivision of the Estate in c.1920, evidenced by the consistency in architectural style and some repetition of detailing, provides important evidence of the strength of Kew's development during this early interwar period. (Criterion A)
Architecturally, the Banool Estate Precinct, Kew, is significant for the high concentration of single-storey interwar brick Bungalows with a relatively high level of integrity. The houses all feature forms and details typical of the interwar Bungalow, but in a range of designs. The houses tend to be relatively modest in scale, except for those houses built on slightly wider allotments. Visual cohesion within the Precinct is created by the consistency of the interwar Bungalow architectural style, and the repetition of some of the designs and decorative features throughout the Precinct. The Precinct's consistent interwar character is further strengthened by the lightly treed character of the streetscape, mown nature strips and concrete footpaths, and bluestone kerbs and channelling. (Criterion D)
Grading and Recommendations
Recommended for inclusion in the Schedule to the Heritage Overlay of the Boroondara Planning Scheme as a precinct.
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Banool Estate Precinct - Physical Description 1
The Banool Estate Precinct at 1-21 and 2-20 Banool Avenue and 25-27 Stawell Street, Kew, consists of a collection of largely intact interwar houses of modest size.
Banool Avenue is a straight-aligned street which intersects, and extends the length of, the precinct, north from Studley Park Road to its junction with Stawell Street. It has generous mown-lawn nature strips with concrete footpaths and driveway crossovers, as common in interwar subdivisions. The street retains its bluestone kerbs and gutters on both sides. The streetscape has a lightly treed character, which is also consistent with interwar streets, but the plantings of small deciduous trees are of a more recent date than the subdivision and the housing stock. The 1945 aerial photograph shows a lightly treed character, which widely spaced street trees, approximately one per allotment.
The allotments within the Banool Estate are smaller than those in surrounding streets and relative to other interwar subdivisions; they have a relatively shallow depth of 33 metres. The 12 allotments on the west side of Banool Avenue are more or less uniform in size. The eleven allotments on the east side are larger, with irregular widths; alternately of c.17m and 20m wide. The smaller allotment sizes and varied frontage widths have had a bearing on the house designs and their predominantly modest scale as will be discussed below.
All but two of the houses in the precinct were built between 1920 and 1925, at nos. 1-11 & 17-21, and 2-20 Banool Avenue and 25 Stawell Street (27 Stawell Street was demolished in 2017). Stylistically, they all consist of variations on a theme of the brick interwar California Bungalow architectural style. Some of the houses are built to individual designs, but many of the houses share noticeably similar forms and/or detailing. In the descriptions that follow, the houses are grouped in terms of these shared designs and features.
Group A: The houses at nos. 6, 10, and 18 Banool Avenue are distinguished as slightly larger houses with wider principal elevations than the other houses, that correlate with their wider allotments.
No. 6 Banool Avenue has a wide frontage, with a slate transverse gable roof, street facing gables filled with roughcast render and timber strapwork. The walls are roughcast rendered, as are the squat, flat-topped chimneys with flat tops and terra cotta chimney pots. It has a gabled dormer to first floor room in roof space. Deep shaded verandah beneath the gabled roof has a brick balustrade with contrasting roughcast render panel. The front fence is not original, but not unsympathetic to the style of the house.
Nos. 2, 10 and 18 Banool Avenue are built to a similar design. The three houses feature a hip roof which extends over a shaded front verandah, and double street-facing gables filled with roughcast render and timber strapwork. The terracotta tiles seen on nos. 2 and 10 have been replaced at no. 18. Nos. 10 and 18 have similar roughcast rendered square chimneys with flat tops and terracotta chimney pots (overpainted at no. 18). No. 2 shares a chimney design with nos. 1, 5, 7, 13, 15, and 8 Banool Avenue. Nos. 10 and 18 have roughcast rendered walls. The walls at no. 2 are red face brick. The windows are different; single and grouped timber sash at nos. 2 and 10, and groupings of three and four timber sash windows with small-paned upper sash at no. 18. The front fences are not original but not unsympathetic to the style of the houses. Some of the windows at no. 2 have been modified.
Group B: Nos. 20 Banool Avenue and 25 Stawell Street appear to be built to a similar design, but mirrored. No. 25 is well concealed behind a high wall. Even so, it is possible to discern the same double-hip roof form with projecting, shallow pitched street facing gable (filled with wall-hung shingles to no. 25 Stawell). No. 20 Banool Avenue also features a corner porch with masonry balustrade and single column. The roof is terracotta tiled at no. 20 Banool Avenue. The tiles have been replaced at no. 25 Stawell Street. No. 20 retains an early concrete and lawn strip driveway and early medium-height masonry front fence and metal gates. Both have rendered chimneys but of different designs.
Group C: 11 and 19 Banool Avenue, double-fronted single-storey brick dwellings, with terracotta tile hip roofs and a street-facing gable filled with roughcast render and timber strapwork. Both houses have a return verandah contained beneath a continuation of the roof plane; no. 11 with similar square timber posts, no. 19 with heavy brick balustrade and brick piers. The chimneys with corbelled top and terracotta chimney pots are like those at nos. 1, 5, 7, 8, 13 and 15 Banool Avenue. The houses differ in window treatment: no. 19 has grouped timber framed casement windows, and a splayed bay window beneath the gable; no. 11 has tall timber sash windows, not commonly seen in interwar Bungalows. No. 11 has a low, flat topped picket fence in a style that is in keeping with the house. No. 19 has a high picket fence, which is not consistent with the style of the house.
Group D: Nos. 5, 7, 8, 13, 15 and 21 Banool Avenue form another discernible group. They share the similar essential form and distinctive red brick chimneys with corbelled top and terracotta chimney pots, suggesting they were built by the same builder. All five Bungalows have brick walls (overpainted at no. 5; red face brick at 7, 8, 13, 15, 21) and a terracotta tile roof (tiles replaced at no. 13) that combines a hip roof (rear) with a gabled roof (front) and prominent street-facing gable, with gable ends infilled with roughcast render and timber strapwork. They all feature a return verandah with heavy masonry (brick) balustrade and square brick piers. The balustrades are solid with a slightly scalloped bullnose brick top edge; nos. 5 and 21 differ with 'hit-and-miss' brickwork balustrades. Nos. 8 and 15 have timber sash leadlight windows. Nos. 5, 7, 13 and 21 have timber casement windows. Nos. 5, 7, 8, 13 and 21 feature a bay window (splayed) with a hipped awning (tiles, except for slate at no. 8). The front fences at nos. 7, 8 and 13 are sympathetic with the style of the houses. No. 21 has a second storey addition above the rear hip roof part of the house.
Group E: Nos. 1 and 3 Banool Avenue share the same basic form, but mirrored; square in plan with a terracotta tile hip roof and projecting side verandah or portico with a gabled roof. They appear to have both been designed to address Banool Avenue. The side porch has tapered piers at no. 1, and square brick piers at no. 3. Both houses have red, face brick walls, with a contrasting painted rendered lintel above a group of three casement windows. No. 1 is distinguished by a projecting, street facing gable, infilled with roughcast render and timber strapwork, with timber brackets supporting the eaves, and a bracketed terracotta tile awning above the grouped timber sash windows. No. 3 has a bay window (splayed) with timber bracket supporting a terracotta tile awning over the timber casement windows. Both houses have original brick chimneys, of different designs. The chimneys at no. 1 are similar to those at 5, 7, 8, 13, 15 and 21 Banool Avenue. The high brick front fence at no. 1 is not original. The brick with picket panel fence at no. 3 could be original or built to an original design.
Group F: Nos. 4, 9 and 12 Banool Avenue also appear to have been built to a similar design. They comprise interconnecting terracotta tile hip roofs with a projecting street-facing gable, infilled with roughcast render and timber strapwork. Like the houses at nos. 2, 10 and 18 and 11 and 19 Banool Avenue, the verandah roof is a continuation of the hip roof. The squat chimneys are built to different designs, those at no 12 similar to the chimneys at 1, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 15 and 21 Banool Avenue. The piers to the corner porch are of different designs (brick piers with narrow grouped timber columns at no. 9, square brick piers at no. 12, tapered piers at no. 4). No. 4 has been substantially altered, including a second storey addition, infilled front verandah, and enlarged front porch with gable roof. The verandah windows at no. 9 have been replaced. Despite these changes, it retains features and an essential form that are consistent with the interwar character of the precinct. The front fences are not original, but the front fence at no. 12 may have been built to an earlier design.
Other properties:
No. 17 Banool Avenue has a transverse gable terracotta tile roof with a prominent projecting gable over a shaded verandah. The gable end is filled with wall-hung shingles. The walls are face brick to mid-window height and roughcast render above. It has timber sash leadlight windows in groups of three. The house is distinguished by a striking roughcast rendered stepped parapet that projects above the roof plane beside the gabled verandah. It is topped with flat cement and brick capping. Stepped masonry balustrade with flat cement capping recalls the verandah balustrade at no. 18 Banool Avenue. The square clinker brick piers of the front fence are likely to be early, possibly 1930s. The flat-topped picket infill is sympathetic to the style of the house.
No. 14 Banool Avenue has a visually dominant and unsympathetic second storey addition which detracts from the original dwelling's contribution to the interwar streetscape.
No. 16 Banool Avenue is a recently constructed double storey dwelling of a modern design.
Comparative Analysis
The subdivision pattern of the Banool Estate echoes other interwar subdivisions in Kew, in particular those subdivided in the c1920s, which were subdivided from the grounds of larger estates, and were usually intersected by a straight-aligned street or avenue.
Similar subdivision patterns can be seen in the Goldthorns Hill & Environs Precinct (recommended for the HO by this study), and the Thornton Estate Precinct (recommended for the HO by this study)and the Bradford Estate Precinct (recommended for the HO by this study). The Banool Estate subdivision is distinguished by its smaller-sized allotments, which have notably less depth (approx. 33 metres as opposed to a range of depths between 41-50 metres for the aforementioned estates.
The nearby Barry Street Precinct, Kew (HO143) is comparable in terms of its concentration of high quality designs, but the housing stock is earlier, predominantly Victorian and Federation era houses. Likewise, the Barrington Avenue Precinct, Kew (HO142) contains good concentrations of high quality housing stock, but predominantly of the Federation and interwar periods.
The houses in the Howard Street Precinct (HO528) were similarly constructed in relatively quick succession, over a five-year period. Subdivided a few years later than the Banool Street Precinct, its concentrated burst of building activity represents a different (though also popular) building style, the Old English revival style.
The Banool Estate Precinct comprises an impressive concentration of interwar Bungalows of high integrity that reflects the strength of Kew's development in the interwar period.
Similar to the Thornton Estate Precinct and the Bradford Estate Precinct, the houses were all built in quick succession over a relatively brief time span, in the 1920s, and over a period of a decade or less. The scale of the houses in the Banool Estate Precinct is overall smaller than for the Bradford Estate Precinct, but on average they are equal to or larger than those in the Thornton Estate Precinct. They represent a less eclectic group than the houses within the Thornton Estate Precinct. Visual cohesion of the Precinct is created by the consistency of the interwar Bungalow architectural style, and the repetition of some of the designs and decorative features throughout the Precinct.
Heritage Study and Grading
Boroondara - Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study Volume 4: Kew
Author: Context
Year: 2018
Grading: Local
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XAVIER COLLEGEVictorian Heritage Register H0893
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D'ESTAVILLEVictorian Heritage Register H0201
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POLICE STATION AND FORMER COURT HOUSEVictorian Heritage Register H0944
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