16 February 2025

Who hasn’t noticed this impressive shop building on the crest of St Kilda Road, cnr Alma, with that chandelier shop that was always having a sale ? Well it closed a year ago, and @studioy.com.au bought it, and director Yaron kindly asked me in to have a look – and it’s just as impressive inside. The ceilings are at least 6m high, supported by cast iron columns, complete with lace panels, and a half a stair to nowhere. Room for a mezzanine, and there’s also a basement, with hefty columns and wrought iron beams. The shopfront (and two others) and even the door are original too. Round the side is a generous entry hall to what was a 10 room house above and behind the corner shop, converted to flats in the 90s (with an additional floor you can barely see), and there’s stairs everywhere, including newer ones inside the top corner flat that go up to the roof – quite a view ! (Thanks to Trish and Trent for letting us in). The whole thing was built in 1886 for Alex Macadam, who ran his grocery business from one of the other shops, but found his investment soured quickly; the shops were all filled in 1890, the corner one as Hewitt’s crockery and glassware (I think), but by 1895 only his grocery remained, and the corner shop wasn’t occupied again until about WW1. Meanwhile the house was occupied by Mr Harricks, physician, who appears to have been the St Kilda coroner at the time, joined by 1895 by Dr McAdam -they might have used the ground floor on Alma Road as a surgery (all that comes from directories and Trove). I found one old pic on Facebook from 1967, when what was once a narrow shopping strip called High Street was being bulldozed into the wide St Kilda Road it is now. It was an antique shop then, Franzi & Filcock, and I was told the chandelier shop started 40 years ago, run by the sister of the owner of the whole building, who was a property developer (I didn’t quite catch the name). Pic 2 is streetview.

Update : a few commenters recall that Ian McDougall of @armarchitecture had his studio in the top corner in the early-mid 80s, and the partnership formed in 1988 might have started there.

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