Mt Dandenong & District Historical Society Inc.
Photograph, Braco Park, c1913
Braco Park Guest House was owned by the aunts of Sir Keith Murdoch, Eliza and Grace.
It became a Red Cross convalescent Home for nurses in 1918.It was sold to Mrs. Techow and renamed "Clovelly" in 1920.
It had been the Murdoch sisters' guest house, Braco Park, that originally introduced Prime Minister Billy Hughes to the hills. Walter Murdoch's nephew Keith Murdoch, a young parliamentary reporter for the Age, took Hughes and several other politicians up there before the war. Keith's father had been a friend of the previous PM, Andrew Fisher. Keith Murdoch was sent to London as a reporter in 1915, and developed an influential relationship with Hughes who bought a small farm in Sassafras, and ran some of the business of government there during the war and after.
Acquired by The Education Department about 1985, the Sherbrooke Community School was built, with the Clovelly house being stripped back to its frame and renovated to form the main building of the school. An existing cottage on the site is also used.
B & W postcard showing the front view of Braco Park with another small building to the RHS. Newly planted garden in the front.The Rose Series P. 106. "BRACO PARK" SASSAFRAS, VICTORIA.braco park, clovelly, guest house, murdoch, sherbrooke community school