The impressive, delightful, yet odd, #Benvenuta on#DrummondStreet, Carlton, designed by Walter Scott Law, crazy extra Belvedere thing up top, layering of attached #corinthian columns, arcading, that extraordinary floral decoration (nothing else like it here), and great interiors too. Built for Mrs Leah Abrahams, widow of a ‘small arms manufacturer’. Its very #highvictorian, from the last of the #landboom period, built 1893, just as the boom crashed, so she mustve been cashed up.
Later notorious as a boarding house reputedly with some illegal gambling, gangsters etc. At least they kept it intact during carltons slummy period in the first half of the 20thC, and when it became #medleyhall residential college of #MelbourneUniversity they didnt meddle either. So when refurbed in 2010 just needed a clean, and looks fantastic (actually looks like they couldn’t clean the years of black soot off some parts).
Storey of Melbourne 