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Currajong
337 Auburn Road HAWTHORN, BOROONDARA CITY
Currajong
337 Auburn Road HAWTHORN, BOROONDARA CITY
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
This Italianate house at 337 Auburn Road, Hawthorn built c.1887 at the height of the boom, shows a high level of artistic achievement, consistent with it having been built by an architect of the reputation of John Beswicke. The facade of the house is intact, with highly sophisticated detailing on its frieze, door and overall arrangement of the facade. This includes the elaborate use of a frieze of stylised acanthus leaves and bressummer to carry additional layers of decorative elements in the form of dentilation The verandah is supported by columns which have an applied oval decoration between the roofline and base of the brackets. The vermiculated quoining provides a sense of grandeur, which is balanced in the highly decorative treatment of the door and its surrounds.
How is it significant?
Currajong, 337 Auburn Road, Hawthorn is significant for its representative and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.
Why is it significant?
Currajong, 337 Auburn Road demonstrates the rapid development of middle-class housing in Melbourne in the 1880s boom. It is an unusual example of an Italianate villa, in the complex and sophisticated and refined detailing. This is unusual and indicative of the artistic and aspirational values of its builder, the manufacturing Jeweller William Lamborn and his wife Eliza. (Criterion D)
Currajong is distinguished from the surrounding Longford Estate in the sophistication of its detailing. The house is built as a double canted bay design, with an articulated composition, enhanced by the prominent cranked verandah. The sophisticated and layered applied detail shuns the more formulaic designs of many of its contemporaries. Likewise, the building is largely intact, maintaining its original fenestrations and materials. (Criterion E)
It is reasonable to assume that the house was designed by John Beswicke an architect prolific in Hawthorn and more especially in the area around Auburn Station.
Currajong is distinguished from the surrounding Longford Estate in the sophistication of its detailing. The house is built as a double canted bay design, with an articulated composition, enhanced by the prominent cranked verandah. The sophisticated and layered applied detail shuns the more formulaic designs of many of its contemporaries. Likewise, the building is largely intact, maintaining its original fenestrations and materials. (Criterion E)
It is reasonable to assume that the house was designed by John Beswicke an architect prolific in Hawthorn and more especially in the area around Auburn Station.
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Currajong - Physical Description 1
Currajong sits on the north east corner of Currajong and Auburn Roads, listed as Lot 2 of the Auburn Reserve sale. The blocks facing Auburn Road were designed for the more prominent houses in the Longford Estate. As such, the house which is an Italianate villa, is set back on a generous allotment of land, facing west, with a tennis court at the rear. The house retains a high level of integrity.
The house is a single-story symmetrical building, with a double cantered bay and a cranked veranda returning sightly at the sides. The veranda has a corrugated iron roof in a convex form. The facade has a highly sophisticated and elaborate treatment, particularly in comparison to other buildings in the Longford Estate, as well as to the comparison buildings, previously identified as significant in Boroondara (see below). The house has vermiculated quoining to the corners of the front facade. The side walls are painted faced brickwork, while the front facade is rendered. The house has a hipped slate roof running parallel to Auburn road, with a symmetrically placed pair of chimneys. These are cement rendered with cast decorative detailing. The verandah has an elaborate cast iron decoration, with a sophisticated frieze of styled acanthus leaves which is set between a timber frame, below which are a row of attached pendants. The posts have pendant brackets at the corners and are decorated with a running patterns of overlapping ovals reaching almost to the end of the brackets. Above the frieze the bressummer is decorated with a timber row of dentillation.
The front door is unusually six panelled, surrounded by elaborate decoration. The top of the door is framed by a frieze, while candy twist columns border the sides. These are finished with stylised Doric capitals which incorporate the frieze. The door has half sidelights, resting on timber plinths.
The property currently has a single pedestrian gate on the axis of the front door. The 1902 MMBW plan shows the gate in an asymmetrical position to the north of the Auburn Road frontage. The house is surrounded by an early picket fence, behind which is a high mature hedge which screens the house. The date of the hedge is unknown, although the movement of the gate may indicate it was planted later. The hedge acts as a privacy and noise barrier to the property. It does not diminish its integrity.
While the 1880s building retains its original footprint, the windows on the south side have been altered and the house has been extended on two occasions. These have made only minor changes to the original building, as they have been constructed as separate structures and linked to the building, so that its form and roofline remain unaltered. On the south side of the house is a double garage with attic rooms above. These later additions are connected to the original external wall by a hallway/laundry acting as link On the north side of the property a sunroom has been added, and although a doorway now connects this to the original house, it in no way disrupts the original house’s integrity. Between the sunroom and the boundary a lap pool has been constructed. None of this is visible from Auburn Road and it does not diminish the integrity of the house.
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AUBURN UNITING CHURCH COMPLEXVictorian Heritage Register H2034
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CESTRIAVictorian Heritage Register H1924
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NorwoodBoroondara City
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