The house was originally built in 1870 for Henry Talbot Thornton as a single storey cottage. He called the house Talbot Villa as shown in a birth announcement in the Argus. Another birth announcement in 1883, this time for the child of Mr. and Mrs. Alex Henderson, shows that the house was still known under the same name.

In about 1885 the house was bought by architect, William Crook, who added a second storey in 1902. William Crook was a close friend of Thomas Welton Stanford, also an East Melbourne resident, and brother of Leland Stanford, the founder of Stanford University. Both were spiritualists. William Crook named his children, Welton and Minnie, after Stanford and his wife.

Welton Crook later went to Stanford University, gaining degrees in mining and metallurgy. In 1921, he joined the teaching staff, where he remained for thirty years. On his death in 1976, he left his whole estate to the university, part of which was to endow a chair of Applied Earth Sciences, known as the Crook Professorship.

The house was advertisded for sale in 1986 with the information that it had recently been renovated by architect Susan Balderstone while retaining most of the original features.