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BUNDOORA PARK HOMESTEAD
7-27 SNAKE GULLY DRIVE, BUNDOORA, DAREBIN CITY

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Darebin City

City of Darebin Heritage Review 2000

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Statement of Significance
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Statement of Significance

Bundoora Park Homestead is of considerable architectural and historical significance.

The homestead is a substantially intact example of a large Queen Anne style house demonstrating outstanding craftsmanship in its interior. detailing including joinery and plasterwork. The building contains an extensive scheme of stained glass, attributed to the leading stained glass artist Auguste Fischer, and which has considerable intrinsic artistic merit. The staircase and upper landing are decorated with a complete set of pyrographic panels that are outstanding in terms of their number and intact condition, and their rarity as an example of pyrographic decoration used architecturally.

Bundoora Park Homestead is associated with its first owner, John M V Smith, a prominent figure in the horse breeding and racing industry in the early twentieth century and reputedly the owner of the racehorse Carbine. The house was designed by the prominent Melbourne architects Sydney H Wilson and Percy Oakden.

Bundoora Park Homestead was the principal building of the first repatriation psychiatric hospital established in Victoria. Its use from 1920 to 1993 as a repatriation hospital has important social and medical associations. Its initial acquisition for conversion to a hospital indicates the urgent need for care for returned service personnel following World War 1. The property's isolation suited prevailing of ficial and public attitudes the mentally ill, and at the same time provided a restful environment for Rehabilitation and the opportunity for a degree of self-sufficiency in food production.

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- Physical Description 1
  
  BUNDOORA PARK HOMESTEAD - Physical Description 1
  
  Bundoora Park homestead is a large two-storey red brick and stucco residence designed in the Queen Anne style. The building has a dominant hipped roof and asymmetrical principal elevations, facing south and east, with projecting two-storey gabled wings enclosing a two-storey return verandah at the south-east corner. The principal entrance is located on a diagonal axis at the comer.
  
  The slated roof has decorative terracotta ridge cappings. The original terracotta dragon gable finials have been replaced and the original terraeott a chimney pots have been removed. The tuck-pointed red brick walls have stucco dressings, including coved eaves. On the two gabled wings, the first floor windows form Serlian motifs, with the casement windows framed by gauged and moulded brickwork. A number of the original casement windows have been replaced with awning windows. The verandahs originally had turned timber posts and Art Nouveau cast-iron friezes and balustrades. They have been partly enclosed, probably in the 1920s, with shingled balustrades replacing the original cast iron panels. A single-storey day room extension and link were constructed on the east side in 1936. Two external fire escape stairs have been added.
  
  Internally, the house has irregular planning typical of the Queen Anne style. The internal detailing displays some outstanding craftsmanship and reflects Arts and Crafts ideals in its use of decorative timberwork, stained and coloured glass in windows, fanlights and roof lights and the moulded plaster ceilings. The stained glass, thought to have been executed by the leading stained glass artist Auguste Fischer, and the set of approximately 100 pyrographic panels on the stair, thought to be the only major extant example of architectural pyrography in Australia, are particularly notable.
  
  Apart from the addition of bathrooms and some alterations to the kitchen and other service rooms, the internal planning remains substantially intact. Internal detailing to most areas, with the exception of original fittings in the service areas, the over painting of most of the originally polished joinery and the addition of fluorescent lighting and wall-mounted panel heaters, also remains substantially intact. The Urban Land Authority propose to refurbish the house in the near future, ultimately for use as an art gallery or community centre.
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- BROADHURST TANNERY
  
  Victorian Heritage Inventory
- COUNCIL CLUB HOTEL
  
  Victorian Heritage Inventory
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  Victorian Heritage Inventory