Our house: histories of Australian homes
Anne Gartner
Australian Heritage Commission, 2001
24 - A home distant from war
121 Roslyn Street, Middle Brighton, Victoria
The Roslyn Street bungalow in 1997.
In the 1920s when Brighton was changing from a seaside resort into a residential suburb of Melbourne, about half the blocks in Roslyn Street were vacant land and held by small investors. New electric train and tram lines to bayside Brighton appealed to commuters, and the local population and land values rose rapidly. Some Victorian mansions remained on larger allotments, with cottages filling in the new subdivisions.
Ratebooks reveal that Mrs EJ Stephens, a married woman, was the first owner of the five room timber bungalow. From 1926 she rented it to a series of tenants: a civil servant, William Patrick Yelverton, an accountant Rupert James Rowe and later to bank official Gordon William Skewes. Between 1931 and approximately 1939 Johnson Stephens, a gentleman and possibly a relative, lived in the house. In 1940 ownership changed to Mrs V Lewis who rented the house to butcher Alan Howard Edwards. Joseph Porteous Hall, an advertising executive, was the tenant before my parents purchased the property in 1953.
Rudolf Gartner and daughter Anne in the front garden of their new Roslyn Street home, 1953.
My parents, Claire and Rudolf Gartner, were post Second World War refugees from Czechoslovakia. Australia offered the promise of a house of one's own, as well as psychological and physical distance from the scenes of war and dislocation. Proudly independent, my parents chose not to go through migrant hostels and other assisted housing. Instead they lived in boarding houses in inner Melbourne, then rented a house in Moorabbin.
During the post-war housing and building material shortage, they purchased 121 Roslyn Street, with very limited means. As the landlord wanted to move into the Moorabbin house, my mother was able to persuade him to lend them the deposit - equivalent to $600. A modest house in an affluent street in a suburb with a good reputation was the way to social and economic progress. The beach, although a half hour walk away, was an added attraction.
Initial lack of money meant that few internal renovations were carried out, although the garden was carefully redesigned. The front garden was formally planted, with an almond tree as a centrepiece, many varieties of roses and camellias, daphnes and hibiscus. Apple, apricot, cherry, plum and lemon trees were planted in the back garden, along with redcurrants, spinach and grape vines, and tomatoes. A tall eucalyptus dominated the space, which doubled as a support for the clothes line. The back yard had a sociable emphasis, the site for barbeques and outside meals in summer, wading pools for young children, and my building masterpiece - a two storey cubby house precariously wedged between the eucalyptus, a timber shed and a fuchsia. A carport was built in the late 1950s when my parents acquired their first car, a Volkswagen.
Slowly small renovations were undertaken, although my parents could not truthfully be described as 'handy'. I can dimly remember the ice chest being replaced with a fridge, a second toilet brought inside to the bathroom, a gas stove replaced with an electric stove, a gas heater over the bath replaced with an electrical hot water system, the dilapidated timber shed pulled down for a prefabricated aluminium model, and the picket fence replaced.
Much of the labour was done by handymen, often contacts made through the Czech community. Pine timber panelling was installed to cover over cracks in the dining and living rooms, a French door was put in to give better access to the front porch, leadlight was taken out of the upper panes of many windows to let in more light, an open Edwardian fireplace was replaced by a briquette heater, and tiles covered over the timber flooring of the verandah.
Rudolf and Claire Gartner on their verandah at Roslyn Street in 1958.
A timber house near the beach frequently needed painting, which my father attempted during his holidays, before a painter was hired. The most exotic interior furnishings were provided by a form of bartering. My mother performed secretarial duties after hours for a fine furniture company, which built French polished wall-to-wall cupboards in the bedrooms, the dining room table, and cabinets for stereo and radio equipment.
The major impediment to home improvement was perceived to be the local council. Because the south eastern corner of the house was close to the boundary, many requests in the 1960s to enclose the back verandah and refurbish it into a sunroom/television room were refused. A later scheme, the equivalent of dual occupancy, was also refused on the grounds that such development would always contravene the by-laws!
For many years, I reflected on my parents' housing taste. I speculated whether a visit to their former family houses in Europe might provide some answers. Although my mother's family had moved to England before World War II, they achieved their dream of moving from the crowded inner city apartment in Bratislava to a new suburban location with freestanding houses during the 1920s. When I visited the Slovak Republic in 1993 my mother's family house was being renovated, with the cast iron bath in a refuse pile in the front garden. What was most noticeable was the similarity of planting in the neighbourhood to the house in suburban Brighton: lilacs, roses, almond trees and grape vines. Unfortunately my father's house has been demolished. The only clues that remain are photographs of a substantial apartment over a shop with crowded interiors, and walls brim full of ornaments and paintings.
Gartner family and friends enjoying the garden at Roslyn Street, c1957.
The bungalow was sold in 1981, when maintenance was becoming a burden for my parents, and again in 1984, 1987 and 1989. The Shorts extensively renovated the house between 1984-5. They extended the accommodation and entertaining areas and paved over much of the back garden with a turning circle and double garage/toolshed. A bay window was added to the main bedroom facing Roslyn Street and the verandah was opened out. The house was painted apricot pink and the front garden replanted so now only small traces of the original bungalow remain.
Currently the house is rented while the owners, the Molcks, work in Brunei. Robert Molck describes himself as an 'economic refugee', forced to move from Australia when he couldn't find work during the early 1990s as a consultant electrical engineer in the petrochemical industry.
The character of the street has completely changed from my childhood with many interwar and Victorian houses being demolished and replaced with multiple occupancy developments or lavish refurbishments.
The garden at Roslyn Street, c1957.
The Gartner family's living room at Roslyn Street.
Acknowledgements and Bibliography
Rosemary Maughn, Bayside City Council, and the Molck family. Photographs: the Gartner family and Anne Gartner.
Bate, Weston, A history of Brighton, Melbourne University Press, Carlton 1962, 1983.
Brighton City Council, Rate Books, 1903-1956.
Butler, Graeme, The Californian Bungalow in Australia, Thomas C. Lothian Pty Ltd, 1992, 1995.
Sands and McDougall Directories, 1900-1939.
The Author
Anne Gartner has research interests in housing, urban history and the arts. A past Associate Professor in Urban Studies at RMIT University, she is currently director of City.Suburb.Home, an urban consultancy in Melbourne.
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