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Spcnt 2 Residence 20 Ridge Street (Cat B) Management CITY OF SOUTH PERTH Category LOCAL HERITAGE INVENTORY B PLACE RECORD FORM Prepared by Heritage Today , March 2000 Most recent update by City of South Perth, November 2015 Place No: SPCnt 2 Residence: 20 Ridge Street (Heritage Today, 1999) LOCATION Name of Place Residence: 20 Ridge Street Other / former names Address 20 Ridge Street Suburb South Perth Local Government Authority City of South Perth Scope of listing This heritage listing applies to the entire site. LISTINGS BY OTHER BODIES Name of Body Reference No. Grade of Listing Date Heritage Council of Western Australia 4818 Data base only – not listed - CITY OF SOUTH PERTH LOCAL HERITAGE INVENTORY Place No. SPCnt 2 : Residence: 20 Ridge Street Page 2 LAND DESCRIPTION Reserve No. Lot No. Location No. Plan/Diagram Vol/Folio - 801 P376 66385 PERIOD Inter-War Design Style Inter-War Californian Bungalow Construction Date c mid-1930s Source/Details Based on design style derived from Richard Apperly, Robert Irving and Peter Reynolds: A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture , Angus and Robertson NSW, 1989. USE(S) OF PLACE Original Residence Present Residence Other / former HISTORICAL NOTES The Residence: 20 Ridge Street has associations with Dorothy Hewett and her family. Dorothy Coade Hewett AM (21.5.1923 – 25.8.2002) was an Australian feminist poet, novelist and playwright. She was born in Perth and was brought up on an isolated sheep and wheat farm near Wickepin in the Western Australian wheat-belt. Her father , Tom Hewett, was a carpenter and builder by trade, before becoming a farmer and investor. Dorothy Hewett was initially educated at home and through correspondence courses while in Wickepin, but after the family moved to Perth in 1935, from the age of 15, she attended Perth College. The family initially lived with Dorothy’s grandparents at No. 19 Ridge Street, while her father built the house at No 20, opposite. In an article by Bruce Bennet 1, Hewett is quoted as having reminisced that her grandparents’ house (at No. 19 Ridge Street) on a large block of land in South Perth, was like a ‘magic garden’. “It became a kind of Garden of Eden for me,’ she reminisced, “it was a beautiful garden with fruit trees, … lots of trees and flowering shrubs and with a marvellous view of the river as well.” The House at No. 19 Ridge Street has also been described as being “an unusual dwelling on a full acre”. 2 The Hewett family had a literary and artistic background – the Regal Theatre in Subiaco, was built by Dorothy Hewett’s grandfather, and her father was the manager when it opened as a cinema on 27 April, 1938. In 1944, she began studying English at the University of Western Australia. While there, she joined the Communist Party in 1946. Also during her time at UWA, she won a major drama competition and a national poetry competition. 3 From 1958, she taught English at UWA, was a prolific and popular writer, and became one of Australia's leading playwrights . Dorothy Hewett published twelve collections of poetry, three novels and thirteen plays, as well as many articles and short stories. She was writer-in-residence at eight Australian universities and her other residencies have included one at Rollins College, Florida, USA. She was awarded eight fellowships by the Literature Board of the Australia Council and a lifetime Emeritus Fellowship from the Literature Board. She received an Australian Artist's Creative Fellowship, and in 1986, was made a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for services to literature. 4 1 ‘Dorothy Hewett’s Garden and City’ , Bruce Bennett, 1995. Taken from journal ‘Dorothy Hewett: Selected Critical Essays’ pp 19-31. (http://www.austlit.edu.au/common/fulltext-content/pdfs/brn243681/brn24368.pdf) 2 Description provided by Joe Flood, Dorothy Hewett’s eldest son. 3 Dorothy Hewett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hewett) 4 State Library of Western Australia ‘Hall of Fame’. (http://pba.slwa.wa.gov.au/hall_of_fame/dorothy_hewett) CITY OF SOUTH PERTH LOCAL HERITAGE INVENTORY Place No. SPCnt 2 : Residence: 20 Ridge Street Page 3 HISTORICAL NOTES (cont’d) In an article in the West Australian newspaper dated 4 July 1942, the winner of the narrative section of a poetry competition run by the Queensland literary journal, ‘Meanjin Papers’ , was listed as Dorothy Hewett, of 20 Ridge Street, South Perth, WA. The adjudicator of the competition, Mr James Devaney, stated that all her work submitted for the competition revealed her as “a poet of unusual parts”. She was then a second year university student. 5 An essay about Dorothy Hewett written by her daughter, Kate Lilley,6 describes the house that she (Kate) had lived in as a child, at 89 Forrest Street, South Perth, as having been built for her family by Dorothy Hewett’s parents, Tom and Rene Hewett, who then lived on a three-quarter acre property in South Perth. The Forrest Street house had been built on the site of Lilley’s grandparents’ former tennis court at the rear of the property. 7 City records show that the Forrest Street house was built in 1959 and demolished in 1992. Dorothy Hewett is also honoured by a ‘star’ in the footpath at Circular Quay, Sydney, and by a street named after her in Canberra. 8 DESCRIPTION This Inter-War Californian Bungalow residence is one of a group of houses built to take advantage of views available from the west over the Swan River. The single storey house is constructed on an ashlar limestone base with rendered brickwork. The roof has Marseilles patterned tiles with hipped half timbered gables. The panoramic window, which is curved, is made up from segments of clear glazed casement sashes. The street frontage view to Residence: 20 Ridge Street has changed with the addition of the ashlar limestone retaining wall and pergola which have been added to the western elevation. These to some degree add inappropriate complexity and changes to the balance of the street elevation. ASSOCIATIONS ASSOCIATION TYPE Dorothy Hewett, Australian feminist poet, Lived at the property owned and built by her novelist and playwright. parents. HISTORIC THEME / Sub-theme CATEGORIES OF SIGNIFICANCE Demographic Settlement/ Aesthetic Residential Land Subdivision Representative 5 Trove Digitised Newspapers. The West Australian, 4 July 1942. (http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/47338493) 6 Dr Kate Lilley BA, PhD Lond., Associate Professor at Sydney University, contemporary Australian poet and academic. 7 ‘In the Hewett Archive’, Kate Lilley, University of Sydney. Taken from the Journal of the Association for the Study of Australian Literature, Special Issue: Archive Madness . (http://www.nla.gov.au/openpublish/index.php/jasal/article/viewFile/2169/2637) 8 Information provided by Joe Flood, eldest son of Dorothy Hewett. CITY OF SOUTH PERTH LOCAL HERITAGE INVENTORY Place No. SPCnt 2 : Residence: 20 Ridge Street Page 4 RATING AND ASSESSMENT High Low Aesthetic value (streetscape, setting) 1 2 V 3 4 5 Architectural merit (design features) 1 2 V 3 4 5 Rarity value 1 2 3 V 4 5 Value as part of a group/precinct 1 2 V 3 4 5 Condition 1 2 V 3 4 5 Integrity 1 2 V 3 4 5 STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE The Residence: 20 Ridge Street has aesthetic and representative cultural heritage value. The house is representative of the Inter-War period of domestic architectural design. The Residence: 20 Ridge Street is a Californian Bungalow and has many of the features characteristic of this distinctive design style. MANAGEMENT RECOMMENDATIONS Management Category B : Considerable significance Conservation essential. Reflects the highest level of local cultural heritage significance. Very important to the heritage of the locality. High degree of integrity and authenticity. Demolition or significant alteration to a place in Management Category B of the Heritage List is not permitted. Any alterations or additions are to be guided by a Conservation Plan, if any, and reinforce the heritage values of the place. SUPPORTING INFORMATION / BIBLIOGRAPHY • Richard Apperly, Robert Irving, Peter Reynolds: A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture , Angus and Robertson NSW, 1989. • City of South Perth Municipal Heritage Inventory (No.1) 1994. • Reviews of Municipal Heritage Inventory by Heritage Today in 2000 and 2006. • Various web site addresses, as cited throughout. HISTORY OF HERITAGE LISTING BY CITY OF SOUTH PERTH Date Adopted by Council Initial listing in MHI December 1994 Update of MHI February 1996 Update of MHI December 1996 Update of MHI December 1997 Review of MHI by Heritage Today June 2000 Update of MHI June 2002 Update of MHI March 2003 Review of MHI by Heritage Today February 2006 Interim Heritage List – Policy P313 ‘Local Heritage Listing’ April 2013 Updated in renamed LHI November 2015 CITY OF SOUTH PERTH LOCAL HERITAGE INVENTORY Place No. SPCnt 2 : Residence: 20 Ridge Street Page 5 Dorothy Hewett at her home at the Residence: 20 Ridge Street, South Perth, at the time of her graduation from Perth College in 1939. (Photograph provided by, and reproduced with permission of, Dr Rozanna Lilley, daughter of Dorothy Hewett.) Images of Dorothy Hewett at various times of her life (dates unknown). (Photographs provided by, and reproduced with permission of, Dr Rozanna Lilley, daughter of Dorothy Hewett.) CITY OF SOUTH PERTH LOCAL HERITAGE INVENTORY Place No. SPCnt 2 : Residence: 20 Ridge Street Page 6 Dorothy Hewett (left) and family members at the Residence: 20 Ridge Street , South Perth, 1941. (Photograph provided by, and reproduced with kind permission of, Dr Lucy Dougan, niece of Dorothy Hewett.) The 1959 house built at No. 89 Forrest Street for the Hewett family (demolished 1992) , on the site of the former tennis court at the rear of the Residence: 20 Ridge Street, South Perth.
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