East Melbourne, Hotham Street 100, Castle Coombe
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The building is designed in a mock medieval manner with splayed side walls, half-timbering, tuck-pointed brick quoins and pointed label moulds.
Castle Coombe was designed and built by Bernard Evans, master builder, VMBA for the Direct Investment & Mortgage Co Pty Ltd which was registered in 1930 by directors Stanley Clifford Steele and his wife, Ellen Anness Steele.
The building application date was 8 June 1933 and the building was completed roughly six months later. An advertisement in the Argus on 13 January 1934 describes the flats as being of Ultra-Modern Tudor Design.
Bernard Evans (1905-1981), was an army officer and architect. He was born in England and moved to Australia in 1913. His father was a builder and Evans completed his secondary education at night at the Working Men’s College while working with his father. He established his own building firm, Premier Building Co. in 1928 and started building speculative villas near his home in Hampton. He visited England to study between 1937 and 1939 and was admitted into the Association of Architects and Surveyors. On his return to Victoria he registered as an architect. In the post war years Bernard Evans became one of the state's largest developers of flats and apartments. He was Lord Mayor of Melbourne 1958-60 and was knighted in 1962.
Steele died in 1953 and it appears that the property changed hands at that time. A letter in the building file from H H Copley on behalf of owners Mrs Kearney and Mrs Dillon requests the building surveyor to make the plans of the building available to architects, P J O’Connor & Brophy.
1933-1953: The Direct Investment & Mortgage Co (Directors; Stanley Clifford and Ellen Anness Steele). 1954-? Mrs Kearney and Mrs Dillon
Public Records Office of Victoria, Building Application file dated 8 Jun 1933, VPRS 11201/P1 Unit 174 Item 14412
Public Records Office of Victoria, Building Application plans, VPRS 11200/P1 Unit 1646 Item 14412
The Herald, 22 Nov 1933, p.20: http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article243198780
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