RoyalCollege
of Anaesthetists of Australia
and New Zealand
(formerlyUlimaroa)
630 St Kilda Road,
Melbourne
Ulimaroa
is one of only five surviving nineteenth century St Kilda Road
mansions in what was once a glorious avenue of mansions. All five were designed
by important architects. The others comprise: Charlesfield
(1889) by Charles Webb, at 478; Estella (now the Willows, 1890) by
G.Woolf, at 462; Airlie
(1891), by Anketell Henderson at 452 and Warwillah (Redholme)
by John Beswickeat 572.
In 1875, the first residential allotments on
the west side of St Kilda Road
(then Melbourne Road)
were offered for sale by the Colonial Government. The FawknerPark
frontages on the east side had been sold from 1859, in the face of vigorous
protest from Council and the public. Prior to 1859, St Kilda Road
passed entirely within parkland.
As early as 1855, there was a proposal to
subdivide the southern part of the parkland that became Albert Park, which did
not proceed (19). James Kearney’s Plan of Melbourne and Suburbs
shows an ambitious plan of streets radiating about the axis of the present
Princes Street.
In 1864, the Colonial Government made the
Melbourne City Corporation and the Board of Land and Works, joint trustees of
the parklands, including the South, or Albert Park. But the dimensions of the
park reservation remained uncertain.
Alienation of parklands began then, as an
issue which continues with no less anguish today, 145 years later. So the March
1875 surprise government announcement in the St Kilda Advertiser was
worded with the kind of astuteness recognisable in the twenty-first century:
It has been decided by the Government to
permanently reserve the Albert Park Lagoon and the greater portion of the park,
for recreative purposes. At present, there is
nothing to prevent the whole area being cut up, and sold, in building
allotments. A strip of the park, facing the St Kilda Road will not, however, be
permanently reserved, but this means, it is anticipated that handsome residences
will be erected there, as is the case on the opposite side of the road, and the
approach from Melbourne, from the south will then be something worthy of a great
city.
There were caveats on the Crown Grants
restricting use to the construction of one masonry villa. Similar conditions
applied to Royal Parade, Parkville.
These caveats seem to have been since forgotten as office blocks replaced the
houses from the 1970s. All grants were snapped up in months. When tolls were
abolished in 1877, and with the consequent lack of income for maintenance, the
road fell into disrepair.
Early map showing the name Ulimaroa,
c.1795
The land at 630 St Kilda Road
was bought by T.M. McGrath and remained vacant for about ten years. By 1888 it
had been bought by Dr I.E. Watkin, (1839-1916) an
unusual Wesleyan minister, ‘a particularly broad-minded man (with)...a
catholicity of sentiment,’ explained the Argus. He was born in Sydney,
where his missionary father briefly was, en route from eight years in Tonga,
to become the first missionary in the South Island of New Zealand to the Maori
people.
Educated at WesleyanCollege,
Auckland,
aged 20 Watkin junior also entered the ministry.
His ‘powerful and popular’ preaching was heard around Victoria,
including St Kilda. From 1859 he was minister of Wesley Church, Lonsdale Street,
for two periods. He persistently advocated union of the seven disparate
branches of the Wesleyan Methodists. His journalism included editorship of the
Methodist The Spectator and frequent articles in the Argus on
geographical and historical topics. He published Australian Native Names and
their Meanings and was honorary secretary of the Royal Geographical Society,
Victorian Branch. He was a particularly influential Australian Methodist, yet
as the developer and owner of a substantial St Kilda Road
mansion, he was also an astute investor. As was his son, Stanley
EntwhistleWatkin who
became a stock and sharebroker.
Ulimaroa
is an eighteenth century name for Australia.
It is indicated on Reilly’s map and Canzler’s map
offers it as an alternative name to New Holland. Both were published in 1795 in
German. The name clearly derives from Watkin the
geographer, educated in Auckland
and reputed for his knowledge of early Australian and Polynesian history. It
appears to be a Polynesian name, possibly Hawaiian origin, not Maori, as there
is no L in the Maori language. Presumably it should therefore be pronounced: ‘oo-li-ma-roar-a’.
Ulimaroa,
c.1980
The house appears to have been designed by
John A.B. Koch (1845-1928) who called tenders for a two-storied house in
St Kilda Road
on 31 August 1889.
Koch was born in Hamburg,
migrating to Melbourne
with his family at the age of ten. He served articles with F.M. White,
architect of the Palais (3). Koch is known
for over 78 buildings, often in Richmond,
or Hawthorn where lived in Yarra Street,
St James’ Park from 1896. His tour-de-force is Labassa
(1889-91), Caulfield. His houses and shops frequently include Hellenistic
elements: key pattern (as at Ulimaroa), masks,
caryatids, acroteria and foliated scrolls and consoles.
Koch became a Richmond City Councillor
(1877-85) and mayor (1883) and president of the Royal Victorian Institute of
Architects (1903-04). He ceased to practice in 1913 and moved to Adelaide,
although his family deny that this was due to the Great War and his German
birth.
Ulimaroa
is a characteristic Melbourne
Italianate tower house: asymmetrical, with canted windows, hipped roof,
bracketed eaves, round-headed windows, tower in the angle and return verandah in
cast-iron. It had 12 rooms. If the design is by Koch, it is unusually subdued.
The first, and famous tenant of
Ulimaroa was John Traill
(1826-1916), shipowner. He clearly approved of the name which he later gave to
one of his Huddart Barker ships. There is a model
of the ship at Malvern Grammar. Traill was also
unusual, in that he lived quietly with his family, not involved with
Melbourne’s
demanding social whirl. Born on the Scottish east coast, educated at Edinburgh,
at 28 in 1854, he immigrated to Geelong,
becoming manager of Smith Barker & Skinner who operated in the coastal shipping
trade between Melbourne
and Geelong.
In 1860 he married, and had four children.
In 1867, Skinner died and by 1876, Parker,
Webb & Traill joined with
Huddart Parker & Co, coal importers from Newcastle,
merchants. Huddart Parker expanded rapidly. By
1886 they had inaugurated the Melbourne-Adelaide shipping service and in 1882
entered the Sydney Melbourne trade. By 1890, Traill
had moved from Geelong
and offices on the wharves, to Collins Street
and he had moved into Ulimaroa.
Huddart
Parker were one of the seven major coastal shippers,
when this was the principal means of interstate transport. Their steamers
including the Ulimaroa,
were household names. They also operated the famous and glamorous Port Philip
steamers, including the Ozone,Hygeia
and Weerona. Aboard these, bands played
popular songs, couples danced, serenaded by an orchestra on moonlight cruises,
for over a hundred years from 1842 until 1949, particularly from the 1880s to
1920s.
By 1895, Traill
was the only surviving original director. He remained chairman until his death
at 92. The Traills never owned a carriage,
coach-house or stables and John walked each day to the office until he was 90.
It is said that in about 1899,
Watkin was financially embarrassed by the financial
crash and sold Ulimaroa to John
Traill. The family of John Cuthbert Traill
(son of John and also director) continued living at
Ulimaroa until 1946 when it was sold within the family. Dr Harvey Barrett
was the last Traill relative to live there (and use
it as a surgery) until 1960. The Traills had lived
at Ulimaroa for seventy years.
Ulimaroa,
2002
The family took great pride in the planning
and evolution of their St Kilda Road
garden as an integral part of their home. In 1891, Robert, son of John Cuthbert
described in words and sketches how the garden was altered in the 1920s by John
Cuthbert after his father’s death. The Victorian garden had a symmetrical pair
of palms behind a hedge and corrugated iron fence on St Kilda Road,
with a central path from a splayed pedestrian gate. The house had perimeter
paths and a shrubbery on the north boundary, through a lattice fence and gate to
a large racetrack-shaped garden bed, like the Piazza Navona,
in Rome
with two small trees and a central fountain. On the south was a (clothes)
drying green, vegetable garden, almond and peppercorn trees.
In the 1920s, at last a vehicle was acquired
and a drive made on the north boundary, reducing the width of the shrubbery to a
double(?) garage behind the house. The oval garden
vanished and a lawn tennis court installed across the west (rear) boundary on
Queens Lane.
From 1960, Ulimaroa
was no longer a house. It was sold to Repco Limited
as their international corporate headquarters. The rear wing, with a modern
verandah, was extended by an unknown architect. A new
bathroom, and kitchen were installed. The quality of the workmanship by
Swanson Bros builders is particularly high, with very fine joinery in
fiddleback
blackwood. In 1985 Repco was acquired
by Ariadne Limited and Ulimaroa
was auctioned in April 1986. It was sold again at auction in March 1993, when
it was purchased by the Royal College of Anaesthetists of Australia
and New Zealand.
The College engaged the distinguished architect Norman Day to design a major
addition.
Day was educated at University
of Melbourne,
then worked for Robin Boyd (46) and Prof.
Frederick Romberg. In 1971-72 he was a director of Romberg and Boyd. In 1972
he founded Norman Day & Associates. He has inherited some of Boyd’s mantle as
an architectural journalist. forThe Age, The
Sydney Morning Herald, ABC TV and various papers and books. He is adjunct
professor at RMITUniversity.
His works include: MowbrayCollege,
Melton (1995-96), Patullo House, Richmond
(1995), and Burford Pool House, Hawthorn (1987) and Elderly Persons’ houses in
Chelsea.
Day went through a strong Post-modernist phase, towards his most expressive and
complex forms, but this design and other recent work are more subtle and indeed
beautiful.
The new wing sits over the site of the 1920s
tennis court on Queens Lane:
a seven storied building (over a three-level basement car park), surrounding a
full-height atrium space. All is clad with a beautiful shimmering
multi-coloured glass screen, when seen from the house. The National Trust had
no objections to the addition. Though large, it was not felt to dominate and it
uses the 1960s addition as a connecting link. It was built about 2001.
Plans and Elevations of major additions to
Ulimaroa, 1993
References
Buckrich,
Judith Raphael. Melbourne’s
Grand Boulevard.The Story of St Kilda Road.State Library
of Victoria.
Melbourne
1996. pp 50, 51 & 56.