28 August 2025
Wanda Court, cnr Malvern and Clendon Rds, Toorak, a quite stylish block of 6 Deco flats, which goes a bit classical on the rounded corner. Surprisingly not heritage listed and not strata titled, sold as a block in 2023, and still one owner, now serviced apartments called @urbanrest.
So date and architect unknown, but Sheila Fitzpatrick, now a history professor at ACU, grew up there in the late 1940s and has written a book about her early life, plus a website summary – most of her neighbours were jewish refugees with complicated histories of how and when they arrived. The block was owned by the Vavjeneski’s (Wanda was Mrs first name) who lived in flat 1, and the various residents spoke Yiddish, Russian, Polish, and often French. Mr Vavjenevski was I think French and had a chocolate shop in the Block Arcade; and I can add that he was there in 1934, and later in Toorak Road – he might have built the block in the mini boom of the first years of the war, it looks c1940 to me.
Storey of Melbourne 