'Stop 1, 'Summerland Mansions', Interview with Carmel Shute'

Hello and welcome to this walking tour of St Kilda domestic architecture, in which changing house styles reveal the seaside suburb's rollercoaster ride from riches to rags and back again.

I’m Peter Mares from ABC Radio National and I’ll guide you through some St Kilda streets that show how history is captured in bricks and mortar, in verandah posts and window frames and roof tiles. The tour was designed by Heritage Victoria and produced by Malcolm McKinnon. It's a gentle stroll through generally quiet streets and it should take about one hour.

The features that we'll be pointing out are all easily visible from the street, but remember that we are looking at people's homes, so please respect residents' privacy – we don't want any complaints about architectural peeping Toms!

There are no public toilets on the route itself, but we'll end near the Acland Street cafe strip, where you will find facilities of all kinds– or a quick detour will land you on the lower esplanade where toilets are marked on our map – hopefully you've downloaded the map from the Heritage Victoria website or picked one up locally. If not, never fear, we'll give you clear instructions on how to proceed.

And just to check you're in the right place – you should be in the small park next to tram strop number 135 on Fitzroy Street – opposite a rather grand building called Summerland Mansions - and we'll hear more about in a moment. This is stop number 1 on our tour. The tour comprises 16 stops in total, corresponding with the 16 audio tracks that you’ve downloaded to your MP3 player. (As we progress, you’ll sometimes need to pause your player between tracks, allowing time to get to the next stop on the tour.)

Before we set off, have a seat under the spreading branches of the Morton Bay Fig which may be almost as old as the suburb itself – Moreton Bay Figs were a favourite decorative tree amongst early settlers. Try to imagine the scene before this tree was planted - it’s 170 years ago and you're on the land of the Kulin people. This stretch of sandy-ridged, ti-tree covered coastline is the home of the Yalukit Willam, one of the five clans of the Bunurong, or coastal tribe. And this spot we're sitting in was a meeting place for Aboriginal people long before European settlement.

With Port Phillip Bay to your right, you're looking up at a hill that Europeans called the “green knoll” and used initially for grazing - on our tour we'll pass a plaque where the first stockman's hut was built.

Shortly we’ll cross Fitzroy Street, to unravel the history of St. Kilda, but let’s pause here first and look at Summerland Mansions opposite. This is no ordinary block of flats

CARMEL SHUTE: Summerland mansions itself was built over a couple of years in the early 1920s and it was one of the first European style apartment blocks which also included shops down the bottom.

Long term St Kilda resident Carmel Shute moved into an apartment on the second floor of Summerland Mansions in 1987 – and she became fascinated by the building's history

CARMEL SHUTE: The flats were all owned by one owner and rented out to the yuppies of the day for six guineas a week, which was an incredible sum, when the basic wage would have been less than half of that.

By the 1920s, St Kilda had become one of the more fashionable places to live in Melbourne and most Summerland Mansions residents would have been independently wealthy.

CARMEL SHUTE: The rooms are beautifully proportioned, high ceilings, wood panelling, French doors between the lounge room and reception area – balconies with glorious sea views right out across the bay to Williamstown and the You Yangs ... ... just gracious living. Maid’s quarters at the back, but small kitchens - the kitchens were so small because there was actually an internal staircase that led downstairs to the public dining room which is now the Street Cafe. So you were expected to have your meals downstairs, which was a terribly progressive idea for the 1920s in Australia.

St.Kilda resident Carmel Shute who lived in Summerland Mansions for twenty years.

Summerland Mansions is a strange mix of architectural styles – a fusion of Arts and Crafts, inter-war Classical and Queen Anne. These terms will make more sense as the walk progresses…

Summerland is not overly decorative – the use of ornament is quite restrained. Above the awnings of the cafe you might be able to see the horizontal stained glass windows that would have thrown light into the dining room. The windows have an ‘arts and crafts’ feel – an aesthetic that emerged in the late 19th Century and idealised the handiwork of the artisan/craftsman – a response to the soul-less-ness of industrial production.

Now let's cross the road at the lights and head up Acland street, which runs along the north side of Summerland Mansions. While we walk Carmel Shute will tell you a bit more about the history of the site on which Summerland Mansions is built:

CARMEL SHUTE: Summerland Mansions is on probably the most iconic site in all of St Kilda. It was the first Crown land to be sold in 1842 and it was sold to the skipper of the Lady of St Kilda, which was a schooner moored in the bay and of course the ship that gave its name to St Kilda the suburb.

Keep walking up past Summerland Mansions.to the corner of with Jackson Street, and take a seat at the concrete bench opposite number 8 Acland Street.

'Stop 2, The Evolution of St Kilda'

This spot on the corner of Jackson and Acland Streets is stop number 2 on our tour.

This is very close to where I first lived when I moved to St Kilda in 1986 – sharing a rundown rental house with two artists, a musician, three children aged under four and rather too many mice for anyone's comfort. But I soon discovered why real estate agents spruiking houses in St Kilda often resort to that well worn line - location, location, location – because in this case it's true. St Kilda is a great place to live – its density makes it vibrant, exciting, close to the beach and the bay and it has plenty of parks – and it's within easy reach of the city. Waves of residents have washed through St Kilda, attracted in the boom times by its exclusivity and status, and in periods when the suburb was more down at heel, by cheap rents and low priced land.

St Kilda’s changing social status over time is visible in the different block sizes and the variety of homes. It started life as a grand and fashionable suburb for the wealthy. The houses, particularly those on St Kilda Hill, were large and often surrounded by extensive estates - gardens, orchards and lawns. On the flat were smaller homes on matchbox blocks for working class families, often employed by the rich folk up the hill.

When depression hit in the 1890s the grounds of many large estates were sold off; creating some of the subdivisions we’ll see along our route. Many grand homes were broken up into flats or boarding houses.

In fact this spot – on the corner of Acland and Jackson streets, is a perfect place to view the evolution of St Kilda. There’s a range of mid and late Victorian terraces on the right hand side of the road. The building opposite us at number 8 Acland Street is an example of a Victorian house turned into flats. Built in about 1890 it replaced an earlier single story house on the site.

Looking up the street, you can see other blocks of flats built at various times, where once you would have seen the sweeping grounds of grand Victorian mansions.

Let's resume our walk up Acland St again, under the shady avenue of plane trees that were planted around 1940. We're going to turn right at the next intersection, and stop in front of the flats that run from 14-20 Victoria Street.

'Stop 3 – Victoria St'

You should now be standing in front of the flats at 14 – 20 Victoria Street. This is stop number 3 on our tour.

Look at the three buildings across the road, which present an unusual sequence in building styles and periods.

The middle house, number 19, is a Victorian home, probably built around 1880. A classical late Victorian building, this represents the first main era of stand-alone family homes in St Kilda in the second half of the nineteenth century.

Next door at number 17, Valma illustrates the subsequent building period in St Kilda - the inter-war block of flats, which often replaced Victorian homes or were built in the subdivided grounds of former mansions.

On the other side of the Victorian, at number 21, is Crigan House a post-modern reinvention of the St Kilda home dating from 1989 and heralding the beginning of the suburb’s latest wave of gentrification.

Together these three buildings tell a profound, if simplified, story of St Kilda’s residential development.

Crigan House was designed by Melbourne architect Allan Powell:

ALLAN POWELL: It was an attempt to bring together the meanings that I found in St Kilda – a really very self-conscious attempt. The first thing was an obvious allusion there to a ship and to decks and to climbing a narrow stair.

Crigan House has both modernist and post-modernist tendencies. Modernism was all about clean lines and a lack of decoration and is expressed here through the cylindrical concrete columns and the exposed stairways. Post-modernism is a self-conscious, ironic style which eclectically samples elements of much older periods, but subverts and plays with them.

ALLAN POWELL: I’ve intentionally exploited the idea of a beachside playfulness, exemplified by the Brighton Pavilion in England – it’s a kind of playful carnival type of architecture by the sea. I like the metaphysical idea that it’s not building-like – that you’re forced into something more abstract. So, in fact the thing is a giant stair that goes up. At the same time as being contained in a house and having a domestic quality, you’re contained in a giant stair.

The post-modern influence on this house can be seen in the cutback, sliced front wall which references shapes of a doorway and window, echoing those of its neighbour, the late Victorian at number 19.

ALLAN POWELL: On a drawing it looks like a Victorian House, and I had to that to get it through town planning.

What I was conscious of was the juxtaposition of styles. It did all meld together and you really did have completely incompatible styles simply connected.

What I like is admitting that you can’t find resolution. Admitting that all your states of mind won’t go together. You push them together and if it’s ironic, well, that’s one way of putting it, but, really, it’s just plain irresolvable!

Architect Alan Powell, designer of Crigan House.

Now let’s turn our attention to Valma at number 17.

Valma was given live in 1936 by the architect W H Merritt, who designed some of the most distinctive inter-war flats and houses in the Moderne style, mostly in St Kilda and Elwood.

ROBIN GROW: Generally what appeals to me are the clear, simple, elegant lines, compared to Victoriana. Some buildings of the deco style do have ornamentation but generally they’re quite clean and smooth, with little fussiness on the facades.

Robin Grow, President of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia.

ROBIN GROW: Overall, we’ve got a combination of developers wanting to build blocks of flats and rent them out. We’ve got architectural styling that was coming from Europe, and we’ve got new materials able to be used in the buildings, such as steel frames and counter-levered balconies. It’s a combination of these things that leads to the development of blocks of flats like Valma.

The emergence of blocks of flats like Valma also reflected social changes in the 1930s:

ROBIN GROW: Most of the flats that were built down here were tenanted within a month or so of completion.

It was people who were looking for a social time, but it was also people who were down-sizing from bigger houses. Some of them had been through financial reversals during the depression years and they could no longer maintain a big house. They were also people who were committed to having the latest facilities in their blocks of flats. All of the things that constituted “modern living” as it was in the 1930s were very important, so architects changed the way that they fitted these places out.

Robin Grow, President of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia.

Now let's cross the road – don't forget to look out for cars – and stand by the fire hydrant outside Valma.

'Stop 4 - Things are Not What They Seem'

This spot outside Valma at number 17 Victoria Street is stop number 4 on our tour. Turn your attention back to the spot we just left, the building at number 14 – 20 Victoria Street.

There’s something unusual going on here. See the vertical line that divides the balconies and façade of the building from the side-wall? This is a clue to a building where everything is not as it seems…

At first glance this looks like an inter-war block of flats. We can see Arts and Crafts influenced features in the front façade of this building with its balconies and red brickwork and heavy use of wood, and in the bay windows down the side too. But if we look at the construction of the side-wall, it tells a different story.

The wall appears to be built from large stones and was part of a grand house dating from the 1850s. This original double story house was converted into flats in 1918 and it seems the bay windows and the front façade were added at that time. In short, a Victorian house has been hidden beneath a 1918 façade.

But that is not the end of the story. Look even more carefully at the construction. What are those walls made of? Closer inspection reveals that this is made of mock masonry. What appear at first glance to be large stones are in fact bricks covered with stucco, then ruled to look like stone.

In the 19th century stuccoing was a decorative technique, a skill in itself… Part of the Victorian tradesman’s repertoire was to make one material look like another. This principle was applied to interior surfaces too … you might have employed a master painter to paint a grain over your wooden doors, or to paint your wood so it looked like marble. What was on display was not the intrinsic qualities of the material, but the skill of the person working with them.

The arts and crafts movement, which came at the end of the Victorian period, was a revelation, because it was about celebrating the authentic qualities of the materials themselves.

Stay where you are for another minute and look at the next row of houses towards the bay, numbering down from 12 to 8, all in a row. Numbers 12 and 10 look very similar. Number 8 looks quite different. Here is another architectural mystery. All three were built at the same time and are part of the same series. The giveaway is the chimney…

Don't believe me? Let's walk down and take a closer look at number 8. Stop at the corner of Pollington Street, beside the brightly coloured figures that decorate the new high-rise apartment building.

'Stop 5 - Architectural mysteries'

We’re on the corner of Victoria and Pollington Streets. This is stop number 5 on our tour.

Architectural mysteries will keep appearing on this walk, and like the house we just visited at number 14, at number 8 all is not as it seems. At first glance, this is an ordinary Edwardian house – a prime example of residential architecture from the period between Federation in 1901 and the end of the First World War.

Edwardian houses like this are a rarity in the parts of St Kilda that we cover – and in fact this one is something of a fake. Number 8 is in fact a continuation of the Victorian terrace at numbers 10 and 12.

ALEX NJOO: You get a perspective when you see the two so-called “working-class cottages” and this one, the third one at the corner. You can get some idea of its evolution.

Alex Njoo is an architect and the current owner of Number 8 Victoria Street.

ALEX NJOO: My understanding is that around about 1926 or ‘27 somebody renovated this place and redid the whole thing, making it into a hybrid of Edwardian, Federation, Victorian… Some of the windows like those on the front of the cottages next door were relocated and used as the side windows for this house. There’s a bit of Queen Anne as well, with the little oriel stained-glass windows. So it has all of these little elements. Internally it still has a lot of late Victorian features, like the pediments above the doors.

This house, like numbers 10 and 12, began life some time in the mid 1860s as six-roomed terraces. Number 8 became a holiday residence, some kind of respectable B & B.

ALEX NJOO: Further on, in the 1940s, they built a two-story place in the back. It’s just an ordinary cement rendered two-story block without any particular characteristic. I dubbed it “Tel Aviv Moderne” in the St.Kilda terminology.

Like many of the buildings we look at on this tour, the fortunes of Alex Njoo’s house mirror the fortunes of St Kilda itself:

ALEX NJOO: When I first bought it back in 1979 it was a boarding house. There used to be nine so-called “apartments”, because there were numbers on the doors of each room.

Nobody wanted to live in this part of St.Kilda. This used to be known as part of the “devil’s rectangle”, where the prostitutes used to hang around. Even across the road, the renovated two-story Victorian - that was a brothel.

St Kilda architect Alex Njoo, the owner of Number 8 Victoria Street

Let's continue down Victoria Street towards the bay.

As you pass the glass foyer of the large apartment block, look at the large tree growing in the foyer, and note how the huge glass windows reflect the backs of the buildings opposite: two Victorian homes dwarfed by the two blocks of brown-brick flats rising above them.

Keep walking towards the sea and turn to your right when you reach the corner of the Esplanade. Our next stop is outside the famous Espy, a Victorian hotel with sweeping stairs leading to its entrance. Behind it looms a huge new apartment tower with curving lines.

'Stop 6 - Development and Protest'

We’re outside the Esplanade Hotel. This is stop number 6 on our tour.

The high-rise residential complex behind the hotel was completed in 2006, after seventeen years of furious planning debate. The Espy is one of Melbourne's great local music venues - a place where some of Australia's biggest bands have started out. Local residents and music lovers feared the development would dwarf or even destroy the famous hotel and kill off its live music culture. Fierce opposition forced many previous plans to be abandoned, and resulted in a design with greater setbacks so that the residential tower does not completely dominate the original hotel building.

St Kilda is legendary for planning disputes – and at the heart of campaigns is a desire to maintain the special qualities that define St Kilda – a suburb that maintains a village feel despite constant development pressures and rising land values.

The desirability of a bayside location and sea views has made St Kilda a contested site throughout its history. And although flats have been common for almost a century, nothing of this size could have been contemplated or even imagined a hundred years ago. This is the inevitable result of rising land values, as developers try to squeeze as many real estate opportunities as possible onto every parcel of prime land.

Walk back along the Esplanade past Victoria Street and turn left at Alfred Square so that you have the park on your right and houses to your left. Cross over to the grassy square itself, which was set aside for public recreation in 1842 when the area was first subdivided - a farsighted move given how tightly developed the area would become. Note the plaque commemorating the site of the first European structure built in St Kilda – a stockman's hut with bay views.

Now let's continue to the top corner of the square where you can see a cluster of trees and a park bench. Across the road is a pair of single-story Victorian terraces, numbers 1-2 Alfred Square. That’s our next stop…

'Stop 7 - Alfred Square'

We’re in Alfred Square, looking at the Victorian terraces at numbers 1 – 2. This is stop number 7 on our tour.

How incongruous these two remnants of old St Kilda look in amongst the apartment blocks and framed by the green glass tower growing out of the Espy Hotel. In the nineteenth century, Alfred Square would have been surrounded by Victorian houses facing the green. Now these are the exceptions - the only homes not craning their necks for a sea-view.

These are amongst the earliest homes we pass on this walk, dating from 1855 and 1858. Both are plain, with minimal decoration and this would have been standard for the time. Although gold was first discovered in Victoria in 1851, the erection of the house at 2 Alfred Square pre-dates the boom that earned our city the nickname of Marvellous Melbourne and produced the more ornate homes of the mid to late Victorian period.

Number 2, “Tranmere” is the older of the pair and has been less altered over time. It's likely that the original verandah was canvas and was replaced later with corrugated iron, or the entire verandah may be a later addition. The giveaway is the way in which the verandah cuts into the window head on the western side.

Leave the Square now and walk up Wimmera Place, the street running away from the beach.

As you pass Number 3, the large brown high rise on your left, try to imagine it in another life. Once, it was a graceful mansion called Euretta, built in 1857, around the same time as the two terraces we’ve just looked at. In the 1850s, five houses faced the bay view on Alfred Square, all of which have now been demolished.

You should have a church in your sights as you head down Wimmera Place. Very likely the residents of Alfred Square were members of this new congregation, and would have walked up to Church on a Sunday morning…

Stop at number 7, the house with the rainbow lorikeets in the trees.

'Stop 8 -Cream Brick Veneer'

This cream brick home at 7 Wimmera Place is stop number 8 on our tour.

As a city Melbourne has generally spread on a low-density suburban model – individual houses on substantial blocks. This stand-alone house would not look out of place in Melbourne’s mid-ring suburbs but it stands out like a sore thumb in St Kilda, which developed a much higher density – with more terraces, semi-detached dwellings, boarding houses and flats.

There wasn’t much building being done after the Second World War in St Kilda, and certainly not of family homes like this one. Flats were springing up – built for an increasingly transient, ethnic, working class population – but respectable families had all but deserted the suburb. Number 7 is a representative example of the Post-war housing that sprung up throughout the 50s and 60s, particularly in new sub-divisions in the outer suburbs.

Brick-veneer gave ordinary timber framed houses a respectable, solid look for less cost than double-brick and became the mainstay of post-war suburban development.

Cream clay bricks first became fashionable before the war in the late 30s, replacing red clinker as the most desirable colour. After the war they became commonplace and were mass-produced along with many other building materials – with standardised construction techniques providing a speedy response to the post-war housing crisis.

Next door is Wimmera, one of the earlier purpose built blocks of flats in the area. Built during the first world war in 1917 to a design by the architect Howard R Lawson, Wimmera shows characteristics of the art and craft style with its un-rendered brickwork, leadlight, timber shingle cladding, deep eaves, generous verandahs and restrained decoration.

Let’s continue walking up Wimmera Place. When you get to the corner of Acland Street, have a look at the wall of the Victorian house to your right – once again you can see that the stucco clad brick has been ruled to give the impression that the walls were built from blocks of stone.

Watch out for traffic as you cross the street, and take a seat at one of the benches in front of the church.

'Stop 9 - Church Square'

We’re at Church Square on the corner of Acland Street and Eildon Road. This is stop number 9 on our tour.

The Church’s foundation stone was laid in 1854 and the building completed in 1857. At that time most of the surrounding land was occupied by large estates.

This church square would have been the focal point of the area, used for social and religious gatherings.

The Square’s Morton Bay Fig trees here were probably planted not too long after the Church was built.

Once you’ve taken in the surroundings, continue walking away from Port Phillip Bay along Eildon Rd, which borders Church square.

On your left you’ll see a variety of blocks of flats. They stand on the grounds of another of the area’s former grand mansions - Inverleith. Built in 1868, Inverleith had 35 main rooms and extensive gardens covering three acres. All the flats you will see on your way down to number 15 Eildon Road were built on the grounds of Inverleith. In 1888 the architect William Pitt added a large ballroom that was apparently a huge success and designed in the style of Moorish architecture.

Keep walking down Eildon Road and stop opposite the flats at number 11. As you view the various blocks of flats looking back towards Acland Street, listen as historian Seamus O’Hanlon explains how large mansions such as Inverleith ultimately became unviable:

SEAMUS O’HANLON: The subdivision of the land has a number of reasons, but the most important is a shortage of servants. When Australia industrialises, just after World War I, it becomes a huge issue. If you’re a young woman, the factory starts at 8 o’clock and finishes at 4. If you’re a domestic servant, you start work at 6 or at 5 and you keep going ‘til 11 at night. So young working class women fled to the factories as fast as they could! What that means of course is that the big mansions became unworkable. Those mansions can only work when they’ve got an army of servants. By the 1920s, those places are just redundant. So you’ve got these big empty houses on these big blocks of land. What do you do with them?

Inverleith, like many of St Kilda’s mansions, was converted to a boarding house at the turn of the century, catering to an upmarket, slightly bohemian clientele:

SEAMUS O’HANLON: Inverleith was really interesting, because it was sort of a bohemian boarding house. I found reference to someone whose uncle lived there, and this woman talks about her uncle being flamboyant and a “confirmed bachelor”. Now, I don’t know whether people today realise this, but “confirmed bachelor” was a euphemism for gay. Inverleith and other boarding houses like it in St.Kilda were havens for gay men. They could live quite comfortably, and obviously there were tolerant land-ladies.

Inverleith was ultimately demolished to make way for apartments. This shift from mansions to boarding houses to flats was one symptom of St.Kilda’s changing demographics in the early part of the twentieth century.

SEAMUS O’HANLON: By the 1920s, there’s beginning to be an idea that boarding houses are no longer respectable. What this means is that the respectable young women are moving out. There are also middle-class people who used to live as couples in these places who are moving out. They’re moving in to flats. As the wealthier people move out of boarding houses the rooms become cheaper to rent. Landlords make the decision that it’s not worth their while. The boarding houses were then demolished to become flats.

Historian Seamus O’Hanlon.

Keep walking down Eildon Road, past the corner with Inverleith Court.

Eildon Road came about as a result of the subdivision of two other large St Kilda estates – Eildon and Mittagong.

Eildon, which still stands facing Grey Street, had its grounds subdivided in 1922 and the houses on your right were built on that land in the 1920s and 30s, in different styles of the Interwar period. The buildings on your left were built on the grounds of Mittagong. Mittagong was demolished in the 1930s and the land was bought by developers who built the blocks of flats still standing today.

Let’s continue on until we stop opposite Number 28 Eildon Road.

'Stop 10 - Spanish Mission Style'

We’re looking at 28 Eildon Road. This is stop number 10 on our tour.

The house before us, Granada, was built in 1928 and is a fine example of the style known as Spanish Mission. Its arched porches, its balcony, its ochre-washed rendering, and the elaborate wrought iron all have an Hispanic feel. The semi-cylindrical “Cordoba’ tiles, laid alternately face down and face up, were all the rage in the 1920s when architects turned away from Britain as the model for housing and began looking to building designs in warmer climates for inspiration.

This was the era of silent movies and the rise of Hollywood, so it's little wonder that California influenced fashion. The term “Spanish Mission” refers to the catholic religious outposts established in California in the 18th century but “Spanish Mission” was a pastiche, a Hollywood motif, a mix of romance, fantasy and architecture, inspired by western movies and Hollywood glamour.

There’s a bit of a walk to our next stop… Let's walk back down Eildon road, the way we came, but before you get to Acland Street you’ll see a smaller street on your left called Church Square, bordering the back of the church. Turn down this street and cross through the nature strip at the end. You'll then be standing in St Leonard’s Avenue. Turn left again and stop opposite number 8A.

'Stop 11 - Queen Anne'

You’re in St Leonards Avenue, opposite number 8A. This is stop number 11 on our tour.

St Leonards Avenue was another street created on the remains of a large 19th century estate. The mansion called St Leonards was a substantial property, built in 1870 for John Matheson, the general manager of the Bank of Victoria.

St Leonard’s Avenue itself was created in 1907, when the grounds of the estate were subdivided. Most of the houses in the street were built at this time, in a style variously called Queen Anne and Federation. This was the dominant style in Australian architecture immediately before and after the turn of the Century.

So why is an architectural style popular in late 19th and early 20th century Australia named after a queen who ruled Great Britain around two hundred years earlier?

Queen Anne was neither an architect, nor a passionate proponent of architecture, but the Queen Anne style revives architectural details reminiscent of the buildings around at her time. Both Britain and America have Queen Anne revival architecture, and although similar, the Australian variety is quite unique. In Australia, Queen Anne refers to an eclectic style of red brick buildings with ornate detailing and old-world elegance.

The Queen Anne style is romantic, picturesque architecture. Notice the floral decorative elements on the houses at numbers 5, 6 and 8a, especially the small tulips in the fence posts and woodwork. The complex rooflines with terracotta chimney pots are the most striking feature of the style.

Once you’ve finished looking at the Queen Anne houses, walk to the front of the former vicarage on Church Square, facing number 4.

'Stop 12 - 'Del Marie'

This vicarage in St Leonard’s Place was built prior to 1855, making it one of the earliest buildings on our walk. However it’s not the vicarage we’re here to talk about, but rather “Del Marie” the wonderful block of flats at number 4, in front of you. This is stop number 12 on our tour.

Designed by S.W. Hall in 1938, Del Marie is an archetypal example of the global Art Deco style – severe, streamlined and simple.

The curved steel windows that wrap around the building and the flat roof were common Art Deco features. The rendered curved corner and projecting balcony are reminiscent of an ocean liner.

Robin Grow is the President of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia:

ROBIN GROW: The “nautical moderne” was almost a sub-genre of the style. This was an era where shipboard travel was very attractive, and a lot of this came from the Hollywood films. We have a lot of buildings in Melbourne that were designed to look like ships, and Del Marie is a good example. We’ve got streamlined markings stretching back and we’ve got the ship’s railings at the top of the building there.

The palm tree extends the ocean metaphor as does the name. Del mare is Spanish for ‘of the sea’. It seems like her owners were not only aware of her ship like nature, but possibly one of them was called Marie.

ROBIN GROW: They gave the flats exotic names or named them after exotic places. This increased their “rentability” and was a part of giving them the latest style. This is a block that would have appealed to someone with a strong sense of difference, compared say to the Cal Bung next door to it.

And certain features of Del Marie’s design reflect the social mores of the time:

ROBIN GROW: There was a lot of reaction to living in flats, and a lot of people criticised flat dwellers. And so what was important to a lot of people in flats was having your own entrance, so you had the illusion of living in a separate house, and also not having to listen to other people’s noise. And so the walls and flors were quite thick, generally concrete and so you could have a lot less noise that what you might get in apartments built today.

That’s Robin Grow, President of the Art Deco and Modernism Society of Australia.

Our next stop is right next door at number 2 St Leonards Avenue, a very different style from Del Marie.

'Stop 13 - Californian Bungalow'

We’re now opposite number 2 St Leonards Avenue. This is stop number 13 on our tour.

The modest house in front of you represents one of the most familiar suburban house styles - the Bungalow. Most commonly called the Californian Bungalow, this kind of house dominates the middle-ring suburbs, like Thornbury, Northcote, West Footscray and Glen Iris, suburbs that were subdivided and populated between about 1910 until 1930.

From the early 1920s the State Savings Bank of Victoria not only lent money for mortgages, but also provided pattern book designs for small houses. Many followed the practical and robust Bungalow style. By the 1920s speculative builders had embraced the Californian Bungalow and constructed street after street of them.

The Californian Bungalow was a style created by Los Angeles architects, borrowing from the English Arts and Crafts philosophy to suit their climate and lifestyle. And equally, it suited ours.

There’s something about the honest, natural-looking bungalow that epitomises suburbia and its garden ideals. Bungalows are grounded, cool and spacious. Number 2 has lots of the typical features in its roughcast render and its low pitched roof with shingled gable.

There’s something almost ironic about the origins of the Aussie Cal Bung, stalwart of our suburbs…originating in the US, and with the word Bungalow deriving from the Hindi bangla meaning ‘of, or belonging to Bengal’….bangala is the word used to describe the Indian form of dwelling which evolved to become our own.

Now, cross the road and walk back to Acland Street. Turn left and stop opposite Aston Court, at 43 Acland Street.

'Stop 14 - Mediterranean Style'

We’re opposite 43 Acland Street, “Aston Court”, the fabulous building with tall palms in the front courtyard. This is stop number 14 on our tour.

While “Granada” at 28 Eildon Road was an example of Spanish Mission style, this is more indicative of a Mediterranean style. Both styles were popular during the inter-war period, but while Spanish Mission reflected a Californian idea of Spanish style; Mediterranean style represented more accurately the architecture of Spain and Italy.

Aston court was built in 1926 to a design by Edwin J. and C.L. Ruck. The Rucks intended to create a little piece of Mediterranean paradise in the middle of St Kilda. But again there is a deception here - beneath the Mediterranean flats is a large single story Victorian residence.

The original home was styled as an “Indian bungalow” and called Rajpootana – reflecting British colonial influences. The house featured a flat roof, a large verandah, well planned ventilation and a focus on keeping cool in a warm climate. All of this would have been novel when most housing styles in the Victorian time were being adopted wholesale from Britain, with little attention given to the differences in climate or conditions.

Start walking down Acland Street to your left towards number 26, Linden. As you head down you’ll see blocks of flats on both sides.

Number 45, next door to Aston Court, is one of our more interesting examples of 20th century architecture. Its stark but stylish stairwells and window openings are the only decoration.

Acland Hill, as the block is known, was built in 1939 in fashionable cream brick to a design by Arthur Plaisted, an architect generally known for his Arts and Crafts and Old English style houses. He created a building that was heralded as an important early step on the way to Modernism in Melbourne, It’s an early example of the International Style, which was not commonly seen in Australia until the 1950s and 60s.

'Stop 15 - Linden, elegant Mid-Victorian'

We’re at 26 Acland Street, Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts. This is stop number 15 on our tour.

Linden is the only building we visit which is not privately owned, so feel free to wander into the yard and take a seat on one of the benches. Better still, if you’re there during opening hours you can go inside. It’s a free art gallery and besides looking at the exhibits, wandering inside will give you a sense of the grandeur of this 1870, mid Victorian mansion.

‘Linden’ means lime tree in German. However the two trees you see in the front garden are not limes, but a kind of hoop pine.

Linden was built for a respected businessman and philanthropist Moritz Michaelis in 1870. The architect, A F Kursteiner, was a Swiss immigrant, a prolific architect in Victoria in the period 1853 to 1893. His design for the 18-room mansion was classically Mid-Victorian - with its restrained ornamentation, slim double columns and wonderful lace-like cast iron verandah.

Internally, Linden has remained intact, and gives us a sense of how these large homes worked spatially. The proportions of the rooms are grand, especially in the front rooms open to the public.

The Michaelis family owned and occupied the house until 1957 - decades after most respectable families had left central St Kilda. Linden was used as a rooming house until 1984, when it was purchased by the St Kilda City Council as a community art gallery.

Once you’ve finished wondering around Linden, walk back out to Acland Street, turn left and take a short stroll to the concrete seats on the corner of Robe and Acland Streets, diagonally opposite Halcyon, the late Victorian mansion across the road from Linden.

'Stop 16 – Halcyon, Boom style Late Victorian'

You’re on the corner of Acland and Robe streets looking diagonally across the road to Halcyon, the grand mansion located opposite Linden. This is stop number 16, the final stop in our tour.

Take a moment to ponder the differences between Linden and Halcyon. There is only 16 years between them, barely a generation in the lifetime of a house, yet their styles are worlds apart. The comparison speaks volumes about the economy of Victoria over this time. The owners of Linden could certainly afford comfort, but the builders of Halcyon could indulge in opulence.

Halcyon, built in 1886, is a wonderful example of the late Victorian style, also known as Boom style. Its exuberance and excessive flourish express a confidence that in retrospect we know was misplaced. For the terrible bust was soon to come, and in the 1890s recession would hit Victoria hard.

The boom time optimism expressed by homes like Halcyon was soon to fall flat. Built with an architectural sense of self-importance, Halcyon was not immune to the falling fortunes of St Kilda for most of the twentieth century. It too fell from grace, being used as a rooming house for most of the last century.

I hope you’ve enjoyed your stroll around the residential streets of St Kilda, and have learnt a little about housing styles on the way. If you wander on down the hill you’ll find the cafes and cake shops of Acland Street. Along the way, on your left, you’ll pass small terraces that also reveal some of St Kilda’s architectural history – they would have housed workers who served in the grand houses on the hill or kept the grounds of the sprawling estates.

If you’re interested in learning more about Melbourne’s domestic architecture, Heritage Victoria has a section of its website devoted to housing styles, called What House is That?. You’ll be able to explore an interactive neighbourhood and download a booklet that illustrates and describes the various housing styles you’ll find on this walk. Go to www.heritage.vic.gov .au