Gold and Graffiti: Tales of Melbourne: One step ahead of the cobwebs

We have current National Trust Membership so our plan this trip was to see as many National Trust properties as possible during our three week stay in Melbourne. This took some juggling as they are not all offered for regular tours or viewings and some only opened once a month to complicate things.

With only three weeks at our disposal we needed to plan carefully to see the sites of interest and even then we discovered we constantly had to stay open to disappointment, as so much to do with National Trust sites all over Australia we are discovering, seems to rely so heavily on volunteers, so if the volunteers happen not to be available that day, then nothing much is able to proceed. Added to which specific websites for specific National Trust sites often hold confusing, outdated, and even conflicting information. Which is not often able to be clarified by contacting full time staff, who seem to not want to be bothered. So, planning these visits tended to lean more towards the random.

As soon as our plane landed in Melbourne we taxied to our home for the next three weeks, dumped off our luggage, picked up the car we were to use, and drove south of Melbourne to visit one of the more rarely opened sites, Labassa. Labassa is an old mansion in present day Caulfield. It grew a little at a time, in a way reflecting the growth and development of the state of Victoria as it grew. As such, its tale is quite poignant.

The house, first called Sylliott Hill was built in 1862 for Melbourne lawyer, Richard Billing, who started construction from scratch then extended the house over the decades until his death there in 1882. The property was then leased to another Melbourne businessman who happened to be one of the Victorian Cobb and Co owners, and a director of R. Goldsbrough & Co. Ltd. His name was Alexander Robertson.

After a time Alexander purchased the property along with some 15 acres of parkland surrounding the house. He renamed it Ontario which is from where his Scottish family were migrating at the time of his birth. He set to work organising his architect, John A B Koch, to remodel it according to his wishes.

And the house grew grew and blossomed. Some of it was whimsical. Alexander had the money. He was born at sea and on the ceiling border in the billiard room are four painted cartouches, one of which depicts a ship at sea, believed to be a reference to Alexander’s sea birth. Above the grand staircase in the main hall an exquisite trompe l’oeil mural was uncovered in recent decades. Quite beautiful. It takes the eye from the four seasons motif on the stained glass windows of the landing, up over the graceful wooden curve of the staircase, to the expanded sky above.

Pieces of geometric stained glass were inserted into the grand front door panels casting colourful slashes of light into the main hall. And in the luxurious drawing room 22 carat gold leaf decorates the extravagant cornices and pillars. There are even eucalyptus leaves and gum nuts included in the carvings here— a nod to a federated Australia, no doubt. Such amazing craftsmanship, at a time when such skills must have been in really short supply in Australia, are to be treasured. Alexander, sadly, did not live long enough to enjoy his renovations. He died in 1886 just weeks after it was completed.

These were the last of her dressed up days. From 1921 onwards Labassa was sold to a series of owners and converted into flats for many decades. Great chunks of her beautiful ceilings and cornices were slashed and scarred and screwed to enable temporary partitions to be installed in the largest rooms, dividing the upstairs and downstairs into as many flats as could be squeezed into the spaces. Even the dark crawlspace under the stairs became a tiny roomed flat.

Thank god for the lady in Flat #5, The Laundry. From 1921 onwards, here lived Mrs Emily Jane Brearley, and her husband, who were appointed caretakers of Labassa by the new owners. Thanks to the Brearleys much of the beautiful craftsmanship still survives. During this time the various flats were occupied by louche bohemians, actresses, playwrights and musicians. The space in the gardens was soon taken up by tenement type blocks of flats, closing in on Labassa’s breathing space. Barry Jones lived in one of the surrounding flats for a time, as did Graham Kennedy. The fireplaces in the old home still worked as there is a tale told of a disused telephone pole being dragged into the house by one of the tenants and as the winter progressed the giant log was fed further and further into the flames, slowly turning to coal, then ashes. Amazing that the place did not burn down.

Through until the sixties, when she died, Emily Brearley was the meticulous minder of the old mansion. Stairs were polished, tiles waxed, cherubs dusted, parquetry patches repaired. She would not allow it to decay on her watch. Which lasted over 40 years. The National Trust took over in the eighties, thanks to a donation that allowed them to purchase the property and demolish some of the intruding tenement dwellings that cramped its outlook. There is still damage. There is little money. But, at times, Labassa is able to live on graciously still: as a wedding venue, a film set for a period murder mystery series, or as an exhibition showplace. Its tales live on with it.