Large two storey painted brick house. The house had been extended at the front during the 1930s including balcony with a solid brick balustrade and brick brackets above.
During the McFarlands ownership of the house it was variously described in the rate books as nine or ten rooms, sometimes with stabling. During the 1930s it was altered to accommodate flats.
1861-1891: McFarland family. Patrick McFarland, leather merchant and co-owner with his brother-in-law, John McCrae, of a saddlery business, which later he ran in partnership with his sons. Patrick died in 1887. His wife, Rebecca, continued to live at the house until her death in 1889. Patrick's eldest son, Robert, initially a leather merchant and later a pastoralist, and John, second son and county court judge, also lived there. John died in 1884. Robert sold the house in 1891. Both sons were bachelors, although Robert was sued for £12,000 in 1882 in a breach of promise action brought by Amy Margaret Genevieve Watson of St. Kilda. Possibly she was the mother of his daughter, Jeanne.
1892-1898: Rev. Alexander Skene, professor of Hebrew
1899-1915: David Blair, timber merchant. He frequently visited Borneo and Sumatra and imported exotic timbers. His first house in East Melbourne was on the corner of Simpson and George Streets and was built for him in 1878. It is now the Cliveden Hill Hospital.
City of Melbourne rate books City of Melbourne Intents to Build Reg. No. 404, 17 July 1860 Obituary for John McFarland, Argus, 7 April, 1884 Bendigo Advertiser, 10 May 1882, p.2. Breach of promise