East Melbourne, Gipps Street 080, Clinton Hall

These flats are a conversion of an old single storey house. MMBW plans show a small, perhaps four roomed house set well to rear of block, yet there is a small sketch plan in the Building Application file for Clinton Hall which shows a much larger house. It appears that the existing verandah was later converted to a hallway and small study, and a large room with a bay window was added to the front. A search of the Rate Books shows that the original five roomed house became a seven roomed house in 1923.
The old house was built for Alexander Morrison,carpenter (not, as previously thought, headmaster of Scotch College) c.1863
Clinton Hall was designed and built in 1934 by Bernard Evans (later Sir Bernard Evans) for his mother-in-law, Mary Ellis.

Bernard Evans (1905-1981) in the post war years 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. The son of a builder he studied architectural drawing at the Working Men’s College at night while working for his father. In the late 1920s Evans began building speculative villas. By 1935 he was describing himself as a designer and master builder. His designs were eclectic and in response to his clients’ wishes. In 1937 he travelled to London to complete a commission and while there he was accepted into the Incorporated Association of Architects, and in 1940, after his return to Australia, he registered as an architect in Victoria.