29 August 2023:

This fab picturesque Gothic/Elizabethan house is St Kilda’s oldest, built in the late 1840s when there was only a scattering of houses on very large blocks. It was built by Samuel Jackson, one of Melbourne’s earliest architects as his own house, probably just after buying the block in 1846. Jackson subdivided his block in 1853, making a lot of £, and creating Jackson Street. He then retired back home to England in 1862, and for the next decade or so it was a girls school on a much reduced site. In 1884 it was purchased by Alfred Felton (chemist, and of the famous bequest), who enlarged the first floor in matching style, with a little turret, as well as the elaborate entry (info from here). After 1900 the site got smaller bit by bit, and the house became a guest house, then a rooming house, with a large plain addition to the rear, then backpackers, until finally a complete redevelopment was completed in 2016. This has seen the later wing demolished, replaced by units across the rear boundary (a bit too close!), but the house has been completely repaired and restored, including the complete reconstruction of the little bay window next to the entry, and it looks great. Except there’s shrubs right in front. Its a rental now, which is unusual. I think the restoration was by Bryce Raworth. The first image and the interiors are from the real estate ad, the rest mine, including during the works, and there’s a sketch from 1865, showing it without the left part or entry – I think the entry might have originally been on the other side, towards the bay. A remarkable survivor.

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