October 2025

I just saw an old photo of this huge pile and thought it was a demolished mansion I hadn’t seen – but actually it’s still there ! It’s Moondah in Mt Eliza, the home of the quite wealthy Richard Grice. The 1860 Gothic house on the adjacent property was built by his father, early colonist businessman Richard Grice (Snr). He died in 1882, so his son had the funds to buy the piece next door and expand it in 1888-90 to 40 rooms – the size of a Toorak mansion.

The architect was William Salway, and he enveloped the house in high arched verandahs, that sort of spring up in various sizes and angle forward a bit too, out towards the quite mad porch, itself topped by three broken pediments. It looks huge partly because there’s a one room wide wing with more verandahs sticking out toward the sea. The @nationaltrustvic entry says it has ‘unsatisfying proportions’.

Surprisingly it’s not on the Heritage Register, only locally listed, perhaps because the verandahs were glassed in ages ago, and interiors altered. The fun red brick Tudor gatehouse on Kunyung Rd is however on the register (and is a near copy of the 1885 Parramatta Government House gatehouse).

Moondah was bought by Sir Reg Ansett in 1947, and turned it into a hotel (called Manyung, confusingly the name of the adjacent mansion) – it was maybe not so successful because in 1957 it became a management college, which closed, or at least the place was sold in 2016 to folks who thought a retirement village would be nice. But Council wanted there to be more open space, so been fighting it until 2023 when VCAT said ok. Not sure if anything’s happened yet though.

Pics 7,8 are renders of after it’s been restored, with parapets, orbs and balustrades reinstated.

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