17 September 2024
Had regular appointments in East Melb earlier this year, so took snaps of this crazy behemoth a few times, but the light was never right. Here’s what I said in 2017: #QueenBessRow #EastMelbourne – looks like a hotel or apartments but actually it’s three enormous #ThreeStoreyTerrace houses plus attics. Built in 1887 for Miss Cornwall and designed by #TappinGilbertandDennehy in the then new #QueeneAnne style, popular in London for mansion flats in the 1880s. it was described in 1888 as the East Melbourne #coffeepalace, but instead became a private hospital:nurses home (old ad). All very odd, since it’s built like terraces wuth three stairs, three doors etc, but also had archways between them. From 1896 said to have been apartments, but it wasn’t unusual for people or families to rent single rooms or suites of rooms in a #terracehouse, so I doubt they were self contained apartments in the modern sense either. I remember them being more like #boardinghouses (and appropriately spooky/mysterious) until 1989 when sold off to become the HUGE houses. They’re built right up to the rear boundary, so no parking, and seems the second room in doesn’t have a window, and so the middle terrace might not much light at all. Plan and interiors from real estate site.
Storey of Melbourne 