27 July 2018:

A sort of plain #StKildaRoadMansion called Redholme, built 1896, and designed by the pretty prolific #JohnBeswicke (who had done the Gothic Bendigonia 13 years earlier a few blocks away on Queens Road).

It’s very much the Edwardian/#QueenAnne style a few years before it got really popular; also unusual that its 1896, nothing much built then, the 1890s crash didn’t lift till the later 1890s.

In 1933 like many of the big houses it became a ‘private hotel’, and in 1961 it became ‘Warwillah’, a teachers hostel- I remember it with an entry arch with that name, and that there was a slight fuss when it was sold in 1985, I think they protested at being chucked out. By then it had a large rear addition, also in red brick. (Commenters below tell me it became the office for advertising firm Young & Rubicam into the 90s).

Then in 2007 the rear wing was replaced with a tower for a hotel. I quite like the neo-Brutalist style, though awfully dominating, and the garden design not great either. Looks like the house is used for various dining rooms for the hotel, some lovely details, but much lost as some point.

B&W is 1982, I couldn’t find any other old pics.

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