Burnham Beeches (Australia)
Encyclopedia
Streamline Moderne
Streamline Moderne, sometimes referred to by either name alone or as Art Moderne, was a late type of the Art Deco design style which emerged during the 1930s...
mansion built for Aspro-brand
Aspirin
Aspirin , also known as acetylsalicylic acid , is a salicylate drug, often used as an analgesic to relieve minor aches and pains, as an antipyretic to reduce fever, and as an anti-inflammatory medication. It was discovered by Arthur Eichengrun, a chemist with the German company Bayer...
sales magnate Alfred Nicholas on Sherbrooke Road, Sherbrooke
Sherbrooke, Victoria
Sherbrooke is a settlement in Victoria, Australia, 35 km east of Melbourne. Its local-government area is the Shire of Yarra Ranges. At the 2006 census, Sherbrooke had a population of 196....
, Victoria
Victoria (Australia)
Victoria is the second most populous state in Australia. Geographically the smallest mainland state, Victoria is bordered by New South Wales, South Australia, and Tasmania on Boundary Islet to the north, west and south respectively....
in the Dandenong Ranges
Dandenong Ranges
The Dandenong Ranges are a set of low mountain ranges, rising to 633 metres at Mount Dandenong, approximately 35 km east of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia...
, 40 kilometres from Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
.
History
Built during the late 1920s and 1930s, the property was named after the English National Forest of Beech treesBurnham Beeches
Burnham Beeches is an area of 220 hectares of ancient woodland, located close to Farnham Common, Burnham and Beaconsfield, in Buckinghamshire. It is approximately 25 miles to the west of London, England.-Preservation:...
in the county of Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
, near the location of Nicholas's United Kingdom Aspro factory.
The architect was Harry Norris
Harry Norris
Harry Norris was an Australian architect whose works are spread across Melbourne. He was well known for his strong Art Deco Style combining American and Australian architecture. He was one of the most prolific commercial architects between 1920 and 1930...
, who had toured Europe and America in 1929 for G J Coles to research the latest elements in chain-store design and construction before he finalised the plans for Coles store No. 12, the Bourke Street store, in Melbourne. Nicholas and Norris were neighbours in Melbourne, and Norris was engaged to design a house with the brief
Brief (architecture)
An architectural brief is, in its broadest sense, a requirement a client may have that an architect designs to meet, usually by creating a building to accommodate the requirement. A brief is a written document that might be anything from a single page to a multiple volume set of documents...
that it was to have “fresh air, sunshine and an outlook of command, yet under control”. Nicholas visited the Chelsea Flower Show
Chelsea Flower Show
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show, formally known as the Great Spring Show, is a garden show held for five days in May by the Royal Horticultural Society in the grounds of the Royal Hospital Chelsea in Chelsea, London...
in 1929, obtained many plants and engaged a Cornishman, Percival Trevaskis, to do the landscaping.
Norris’s design was for a three-storey mansion in the Art Deco
Art Deco
Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...
Streamline Moderne style. The house was completed in 1933. The lines are said to be reminiscent of an ocean liner. The zig-zag motif was used as decoration on the decorative wrought-iron work and the balcony balustrades. The exterior of the house was of reinforced concrete, painted white and decorated with Australian motifs of koala
Koala
The koala is an arboreal herbivorous marsupial native to Australia, and the only extant representative of the family Phascolarctidae....
s and possums in moulded relief panels.
A contemporary journal article cited in a 1980s pamphlet stated that the house included a “private theaterette with talkie equipment”, an “electric pipe-organ” in the music room, orchid houses, a dairy with “prize Jersey cows”, and the gardens included artificial waterfalls, a lake and floodlighting at night.
Nicholas died in 1937, survived by his widow, Isabel and two children.
In 1941, during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, the house was loaned as a children’s hospital. After the war from 1948-50 it was redecorated by Nicholas’s widow. Mrs Nicholas moved from the house to Toorak
Toorak, Victoria
Toorak is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 5 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district located on a rise on the south side of a bend in the Yarra River. Its Local Government Area is the City of Stonnington...
in Melbourne in 1954. Two additional wings called the Garden and Forest wings were constructed during the 1950s and 1960s.
From 1955, the Nicholas Institute used the house as a research facility. The gardens, having been named the ‘Alfred Nicholas Memorial Gardens’, were donated to the Shire of Sherbrooke in 1965 and were transferred to the Forest Commission of Victoria in 1973. In 1981 the house was sold and operated as a small hotel for about a decade.