27 September 2021:
The delightfully elaborate Spanish style Royce Hotel on St Kilda Road was built in 1928 as the #KellowFalkiner car showrooms, designed by the versatile and prolific Harry Norris (as a rebuild of an old cable car engine house). In the 50s the fabulous high arched roof showroom was divided by a new floor, which also unfortunately involved removing some of the external decorative terra cotta to insert those little upper level windows. The arched roof is still there, with a double height space partly revealed by removing part of the extra floor when it was refurbished and extra bits added behind and to the sides to became the Royce (as in Rolls) Hotel in about 2005.
Storey of Melbourne 