11 October 2024

This rather amusing house once stood at 446 St Kilda Road; built c1925, it was designed by Harold Desbrowe Annear in the period when he played around with various Classical and Art & Crafts motifs. As Harriet Edquist notes in her 2004 book on him, this one ‘pushed asymmetry to the limit’, fusing spare plain forms with a Voysey roofline, decorated with two ‘oiel de bouf’ windows and a thrusting ionic portico. The first pic is from her book, the second rather surprisingly is from Identifying Australian Architecture, published in 1989, even though it had already been demolished. These are the only photos of it, but I’ve just found another, if you squint at a 1953 aerial. It’s a great shot, showing the street just before the houses and flats began to be replaced by office blocks. You can see that it was a mix of Victorian and later mansions, Victorian and later biggish houses like this one, and Interwar flats, so this is the gracious street some people still remember. From what I can work out, this house was called Hampton Lodge, and was built for Valleck S Meyers, perhaps by his father FS Meyers, who was managing director of London Stores in the city, and who lived next door to the right, in a big late Edwardian, called Deva (he bought the site in 1912). The house was built because Valleck had just started a family, having married Melba (Babe) Thomas in 1923 at her family home, also on St Kilda Road ! That was Koonwarra, a house built in 1913 that lasted till 1984, last pic. Valleck and Babe lived in Hampton Lodge until at least 1949, long enough to have children and see at least one married. I don’t usually do social history, but finding all that out took about 5 minutes on Trove, which also gave me a pic of the happy couple. And also informed me that Mrs Meyers Snr had valuable jewels stolen from the house in 1925, later recovered.

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