KERBY'S KIOSK - LIVING IN ST KILDA KIOSK
ST KILDA HISTORICAL SOCIETY
WHAT: LIVING IN ST KILDA KIOSK
WHEN: 3.00 PM, SUNDAY 12 AUGUST 2007
WHERE: COMMUNITY ROOM, ST KILDA LIBRARY,
150 CARLISLE ST
SPEAKER: ALEX HEYDON
COST: FREE. NO RSVP – JUST TURN UP!
Alex Heydon is the guest speaker at the August meeting of the St Kilda Historical Society. Alex did an honours thesis at Deakin University in 2005 about the St Kilda Pier kiosk, entitled “Stories of the Pavilion”.
Great enjoyment was afforded the many thirsty souls who paid a visit to the Pavilion at the end of the pier. Mr Francis Parer, the popular caterer had evidently foreseen the rise of the mercury and laid himself out to provide the pleasant cooling creature comforts so much in demand on a hot day by picnickers. The fame of the pavilion is growing and justly so, for nowhere can more enjoyable peaceful happiness be secured at St Kilda than by lounging restfully on the broad balcony of this pleasure place.....
St Kilda Advertiser, 30 December 1905
Tiny St Kilda Kiosk, originally constructed in 1904, is a unique and much-loved seaside building to Melburnians. Few are aware however that for most of its history it was also a family home. In fact two families operated and lived there above the water for over eighty years in total. Hayden Stewart, our August speaker has documented the Kiosk’s history in his thesis.
A catastrophic fire on 11 September 2004 precipitated kaleidoscopic memories and oceans of public emotion. The Premier, Steve Bracks, immediately undertook to reconstruct the kiosk provoking debate by both community and professionals, as to whether the past is lost, or can be regained. By 2006 Allom Lovell Pty Ltd had re-constructed the kiosk as per the 1904 drawings plus a single-story dining facility to the west of the kiosk building.
The kiosk was one of several quirky Edwardian establishments for refreshment and amusement on the St Kilda foreshore erected after 1900 and depicted in postcard views. Today an astonishing 2.5 million people visit the pleasure promenade of St Kilda Pier each year.
Francis Parer, (1860-1935) operated and lived in the kiosk for about the first 30 years, well into the 1930s. He also designed the kiosk according to his family letters. He emigrated from Barcelona in the1850’s. Known universally as Parer’s Pavilion, the building’s actual name was the Austral Refreshment Rooms. The Parer Brothers operated at least four Bourke Street hotels and restaurants, including the splendid four-storied Parer’s Crystal Café, a landmark for generations. Francis’s son was Damien was the legendary film-maker who won Australia’s first Academy Award. Another son, Ray, aviator and adventurer, established an airline in New Guinea. Francis ‘offered fish and fruit luncheons, without any intoxicating liquors of any sort!’ He also ran a weather service on site:
The pavilion enjoys, under the Commonwealth Meteorological Bureau, a semi-official status... Mr Parer is an enthusiast in weather lore... Flags are showing what the weather forecast for the day is, and these flags are hoisted from information received each morning from …. the Commonwealth Meteorologist.
The surviving architectural tender drawing indicates that John W. Douglas was the original builder. He was a showcase-maker, shop and office fitter of 315A Block Place, Melbourne.
Mr Noble and Mrs Ivy Kerby acquired the lease in 1939. Their son Colin (1921- ) had already worked there since 1934, as a young boy. Kerby operated the kiosk in the pavilion for 18 years. Mr Kerby’s performing seals are remembered. During World War II, a dance deck with a polished steel floor was erected over the first floor balcony. Dances were held there on Sunday afternoons. Many remember being taught to jitterbug by American servicemen at Kerby’s.
The Kerbys replaced the 1905 window joinery with plate glass picture windows, close the deck to the public and cluttered them with clotheslines and ramshackle extensions. The building bore little resemblance to its 1903 drawing. The kiosk was reduced to a milk bar with take-aways.
Noble died in 1959. Colin and Judy Kerby (photo left), a former Tivoli Theatre dancer, took over the lease. They lived upstairs. Colin stated he saved 200 people from drowning off the pier.
The Kerbys retired in 1987, after Colin’s incredible 53 years in the kiosk They sailed off around the world in their boat ‘Ooroo’.
For a decade until the fire, it was operated as a café by Joe Sillito. Sidney Nolan whilst painting his first Ned Kelly series at Heide, Bulleen in 1945, also completed Under the Pier, St Kilda (also known as: Playing under the Jetty, St Kilda). It recalled his memories of growing up in St Kilda. How many boys lay under the pier and gazed up the dresses of the girls promenading overhead?
Further Information regarding this talk
Meyer Eidelson 0408 894724
Alex Heydon 0434 141 466
http://www.skhs.org.au/SKHSbuildings/1.htm (Buildings of St Kilda by Richard Peterson)
Press release by
Carmel Shute
Council Media Officer
City of Port Phillip
Private Bag 3
St Kilda Australia 3182
July 2007