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Milston House
6 Reeves Court KEW, BOROONDARA CITY

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Boroondara City
'Milston House', 6 Reeves Court KEW
'Milston House', 6 Reeves Court KEW
'Milston House', 6 Reeves Court KEW
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Statement of Significance

What is Significant?

6 Reeves Court was designed by Ernest Edward Milston as his own house in 1955. The dwelling and garage are significant to the City of Boroondara.

How is it significant?

Milston House is of historical, architectural, and associative significance to the City of Boroondara.

Why is it significant?

6 Reeves Court is of historical significance as it demonstrates the period of development of Kew, when architects were drawn to the Studley Park area to construct their own homes.

The dwelling is aesthetically important as the work of an influential architect who worked in both the International Style and the Melbourne Regional style. The house and its response to the landscape and climate demonstrate the ways the International style was adapted to by Melbourne architects to become a distinct style. (Criterion A)

6 Reeves Court is an intact example of a Kew Émigre House designed by Ernest Milston. It is illustrative of the patterns of migration and the influence of European ideas in the period following the Second World War. Émigre architects like Milston brought European Modernism with them to Australia from the late 1930s. The houses they produced challenged prevailing sensibilities; they had low-pitch or skillion roofs, large expanses of modular glazing. Melbourne's emigre houses heavily influenced the development of the Melbourne Regional style. (Criterion D)

The Milston House is a rare, intact survivor of the works of Ernest Milston, an influential architect in both Melbourne and the Czech Republic. Milston's work was widely recognised. His Australian projects included the 1939-45 Forecourt at the Shrine of Remembrance. He worked with Don Hendry Fulton to design the Queensland mining town of Mary Kathleen before focusing on residential work, often for his emigre friends, like Dr. Meyer and artist Louis Kahan; he designed homes for both in Boroondara. (Criterion H)

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    • Physical Description 1

      Milston House - Physical Description 1

      6 Reeves Court is a lightweight, timber framed structure. The plan is formed of two rectangles reflective of the zones; the kitchen and living area are aligned with the street and run across the slope, while the bedrooms, bathroom and laundry are at right angles. Each wing has a separate skillion roof sloping to the other wing, creating an asymmetrical butterfly roof. A concrete driveway leads up from street level to a garage and studio, connected with the house by a pergola-covered path. A separate open pergola covers the entry. The building features extensive modular timber framed glazing. Horizontal awnings provide shade to the north, echoed in the open timber framing over the windows to the south that allow light penetration.

      The house has been painted since Milston's time. Early photos show light coloured walls with dark frames to the windows that highlight Milston's International Style inspiration.

      The house itself appears substantially intact. Milston extended the house several times during his time there (refer plans), using the same builder. A 'car shelter' was added in 1957; a laundry was added in 1963; and in 1967, a bathroom was added to the lower ground floor. A studio has been built at the front of the lot above the garage in a sympathetic design. The timing of this addition is not known. The garage appears intact beneath the new studio, as does the driveway. Stacked stone piers at the boundary line are not original. There appears to be some original planting, including a eucalypt tree behind house and some native shrubs, although this is interspersed with more recent formal planting; for example, a formal hedge has been planted along the driveway and paths. There may have been some alterations to the rear of the house, where a balcony has been added.

      Heritage Study and Grading

      Heritage Study and Grading

      Boroondara - Municipal-Wide Heritage Gap Study Volume 4: Kew

      Author: Context
      Year: 2018
      Grading: Significant

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