IDENTIFIER CARRINGTON PARK CLUB Other Names Moran Residence; Carrington Park Address 40-52 Elizabeth Drive, Rosebud

Photographed March 2010 Extent of Listing House and curtilage to street frontage Designer/architect Best Overend Style Inter-War Functionalist Maker/builder - Constructed 1941 Her Act Category Heritage place Current Use Social club premises Her Item Group Residential Buildings (Private) Condition Good (minor repairs/maintenance) Her Item Category House Intactness Good (minor external alterations) Significance LOCAL Assessed by Simon Reeves Recommendation Local HO schedule (internal controls) Assessment date 4 April 2010; revised 23 Aug 2010 Statement of Significance What is Significant? Carrington Park at 40-52 Elizabeth Street, Rosebud, is a double-storey hip-roofed clinker brick Functionalist-style house, dominated by a projecting upper level with continuous window wall opening onto a narrow balcony with canted sunroom at the corner. The house was built in 1941 for Leonard & Muriel Moran (of the Moran & Cato retail empire) to the design of noted modernist architect Best Overend. Since 1964, the property has operated as the Carrington Park Club. How is it Significant? The house is of architectural, aesthetic and historical significance to the Shire of Mornington Peninsula Why is it Significant? Architecturally, Carrington Park is significant as a noted example of the work of Best Overend, Victoria's leading champion of the 1930s modernist movement. This house, which represents the architect's largest single residential commission, typifies his earnest (but never entirely successful) attempts to adapt pure modernism to the Australian context. Architecturally, the house is also of note as one of the last grand “country seat” residences, with lavish reception rooms and servants' quarters, to be built in Victoria before the Second World War. Aesthetically, the house is significant as a notable and substantial (if idiosyncratic) example of the inter-war Functionalist style. The upper floor, with its continuous glazing, narrow balcony with ship-like pipe handrails, and canted sunroom with curved promenade deck, is particularly evocative of European precedents (eg Mendelssohn), and contrasts with the more traditional elements such as the hipped roof and timber-framed double-hung windows. Historically, the house is significant for associations with original owners, Leonard E P Moran, one of the heirs to the prominent and successful Moran & Cato retail empire, who built this house in 1941 as a retirement residence for himself and his second wife, Muriel.

S H I R E O F M O R N I N G T O N P E N I N S U L A H E R I T A G E R E V I E W 2 0 1 0 1 History The building that now operates as the Carrington Park Club was originally a private house erected in 1941 on one of Rosebud's largest single land holdings. This vast 200-acre site, designated as Crown Allotment 31E (Parish of Wannaeue, County of Mornington) was originally granted to William John Peatey, a local fisherman, on 3 September 1930. Within a week, the title had been transferred to Melbourne businessman Leonard Edwin Pankhurst Moran, one of the heirs to the Moran & Cato retail empire. His father, Thomas Edwin Moran (1860-90) opened his first shop in 1881 and was duly approached by a cousin, Frederick John Cato (1858-1935) to form a partnership. Their business, styled as “wholesale and retail cash grocers'”, flourished and, at the time of Moran's early death from consumption, had 35 branches across Victoria. Under the joint control of F J Cato and Moran's widow, Elizabeth (1851-1932), the chain expanded thence into Tasmania and New South Wales. When Moran & Cato became a public company in 1912, the Morans' two eldest sons, Leonard Edwin (1878-1965) and Arthur Leslie (1882-1966) were included as shareholders; both would eventually rise to the position of Senior Director. At the time of the deaths of Elizabeth Moran and Frederick Cato in the mid-1930s, the chain comprised 120 outlets in Victoria and Tasmania, with a further 40 in New South Wales. The firm thrived thereafter until 1969, when it was absorbed by long-time rivals Permewan Wright Ltd. Leonard Moran married Evelyn Sarah Taylor in 1903; the couple subsequently lived in a modest house in Winter Street, Malvern, where they raised a son and two daughters. By the late 1920s, the family had moved to a more prestigious inner city address: a grand Victorian mansion (since demolished) at 57 Queens Road. Leonard Moran's purchase of 200 acres at Rosebud in 1930 (followed by his acquisition of two smaller contiguous Crown Allotments in 1932 and 1937) culminated in his proposal to build a lavish seaside residence. It would appear that the project was spurred also by his second marriage, in 1938, to the former Muriel Wither Robson (1889-1983). The Morans entrusted the commission to one of Melbourne's most prominent modern architects of the day, Best Overend. Described by Philip Goad as “the charismatic personality of Modernism”, Best Overend (1909-1977) began his career in 1926 as an articled pupil of H Vivian Taylor, an acoustics expert who specialised in cinema design, while studying at Swinburne Technical College and the Melbourne University Architectural Atelier. Travelling to London in 1931, Overend worked for two leading modernists: a brief stint with well-known Australian expatriate Raymond McGrath, followed by 18 months as Chief Draftsman for the more notable Wells Coates. Returning to Melbourne in 1933, Overend became a partner in his old firm, thence known as H VivianTaylor, Soilleux & Overend. His most famous project was Cairo in Fitzroy (1935), an innovative block of 40 minimum-dwelling units that strongly reflected overseas influences. During this time, he also became an arch-publicist for modernism, writing a weekly column in the Argus that championed flat roofs, open planning, metal-framed windows and the use of steel, glass and reinforced concrete. In 1937, he resigned from Taylor's practice to travel overseas; after working briefly in China and London (for Well Coates, as well as Serge Chermayeff and Erich Mendelssohn), he returned to open his own Melbourne office in 1938. The buildings (mostly houses) that he designed over the next few years represented a bold attempt to adapt European modernism to the Australian context. Unfortunately, it proved to be a short-lived phase; as Goad has noted, Overend's work after World War II never reached the same level of skill, innovation and excitement, and he entirely lost his passion for publicity. The house that Overend designed for the Moran family represented one of the architect's largest single residential commissions. Rate cards reveal that the building was completed between 1941 and 1942, when the Net Annual Value of Leonard Moran's Rosebud properties (more than 450 acres in total) doubled, from £100 in £200. His new double-storey dwelling comprised an imposing entrance hall with billiard room and den on the ground floor and the principal living areas above, dominated by a glass-walled lounge area with circular observation deck, plus a music room, dining room, kitchen and three bedrooms with bathrooms. There was self-contained servants' accommodation (two bedrooms, bathrooms and sitting room), a four-car garage with chauffeur's flat, facilities for electric generation and pumping fresh water from the nearby creek, and even a private boat-shed and bathing box on the beach itself. Although it has been asserted that the house was built solely as a holiday dwelling, these lavish appointments would suggest that it was intended as a semi-permanent residence. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that the couple's names are recorded in local electoral rolls; in 1943, listings for the Subdivision of Dromana included Leonard Edward Pankhurst Moran (“director”) and Muriel Wither Moran (“home duties”) as residents of Carrington Park, Rosebud – one of the first recorded uses of the estate's title. The name was clearly inspired by Carrington, Thomas and Elizabeth Moran's original city residence in Kooyong Road, Malvern, a large Victorian mansion that the family occupied from 1886 until 1929.

2 S H I R E O F M O R N I N G T O N P E N I N S U L A H E R I T A G E R E V I E W 2 0 1 0 As it turned out, Leonard and Muriel Moran owned Carrington Park for only a few years before offering it for auction in 1945. A lengthy Argus advert described it as a “most imposing brick seaside residence... built to provide the maximum of comfort, and its interior designed with thought and quality”. Special attention was drawn to the “magnificent lounge with circular observation lounge, beautifully panelled dining room, music room and all-glass sun deck”. After the property was sold, the Morans retired quietly to Melbourne, where they lived in Ringwood. The new owners of Carrington Park were Ralph Archibald Webb, a farmer, and his wife Stella. The couple remained there for a decade, during which time two images of the house were published in Robin Boyd's seminal book, Victorian Modern (1947) as a key example of Best Overend's work. The photographs, carefully composed to highlight the Functionalist balconies and sunroom without showing the hipped roof, were captioned as follows: “Catwalks on two sides of this 1941 Overend house on Arthur's Seat [sic] lead to a circular observation room which overlooks the silver stretch of the Bay”. In 1955, the property was acquired by Phillip Patrick McLaren (1914-2003), a prominent local businessman who had, since the 1940s, worked as a general carrier, with a depot in Normanby Street, South Melbourne, and an office in Dromana. It was during McClaren's tenure that Carrington Park was whittled away by subdivision. By the early 1960s, the house occupied only a three-acre block in the north-western corner of the original Crown Allotment 31E, with principal access off Elizabeth Drive. In 1964, the property was acquired as the new premises of a new social club, the Carrington Park Club Ltd. The house was refurbished for its new function by architects McIntyre & McIntyre; this work included the installation of new public toilets, locker-rooms, kitchens and a bar, although key spaces such as the entry foyer, stairwell and distinctive timber- panelled billiard and dining rooms were left largely untouched. By the late 1970s, two sets of lawn bowling rinks had been laid out at the rear of the former dwelling; a substantial addition proposed at that time (to be built on the north side of the house, and containing a large open-planned auditorium) did not proceed past the sketch design stage

Physical Description The former Carrington Park on Elizabeth Drive is a substantial clinker brick residence in the inter-war Functionalist style, with a hipped roof clad in green-painted corrugated cement sheeting. Although its principal frontage is double-storeyed, the house is actually built into a hillside so that the principal living areas are all located on the upper floor, with only a partial lower level where the ground falls away beneath. On the main (west) facade, the upper level projects forward of the one below, and otherwise dominates the building with its bold horizontal expression and slick detailing, typical of the progressive modern style: a continuous bay of large metal-framed windows with low spandrels and broad eaves, opening onto a narrow balcony with a simple metal pipe handrail. While this distinctive treatment extends partly down the side (north) facade, the corner itself, facing Elizabeth Drive, is conspicuously emphasised by a projecting curved sunroom with canted glazed walls opening onto a wide and curving “promenade deck” with matching pipe handrails. At ground level, the facade is recessed to form a full-width loggia, with steel pipe columns and I-beams supporting the level above. This loggia, with its panelled Caneite ceiling and concrete paving, also serves as a porte cochere, with a (non-original) concrete driveway providing access at its north end. This entry is marked by two wide brick piers, which support the sunroom and promenade deck above; the gap between is infilled by a low brick planter box and a projecting half-round basin, formerly an ornamental pond (now a flower bed). On the north facade, the lower level has a row of five narrow windows divided by fin-like brick piers, which open onto another planter box. The principal entrance, off the porte cochere on the west side, is set into a wide recess with a glass brick wall and a pair of brick piers in antis; the wide timber front door has three glazed vertical strip panels and handle in the form of a yellow-tinted resin block. Flanking this entry porch are a number of windows, of various sizes, with brick sills and timber-framed sashes. Windows and doors to the remaining elevations (south, east and the upper level of the north) are similar treated in a more conventional way, both in terms of their utilitarian position and their traditional timber-framed double-hung or casement sashes. Internally, the building has been somewhat altered to accommodate its current function as a social club premises, although most rooms retain at least some of their original finishes, such as polished timber skirtings/architraves, or moulded plaster cornices in fluted or stepped profile, all typical of the era. The ground floor entry foyer notably retains its original flooring of beige-coloured glazed tiles and matching skirtings, as well as an eye-catching cantilevered concrete stairway, which curves around the far end of the room with a balustrade of slender mild-steel posts and a japanned handrail of sinuous form. The adjacent billiard room, and part of the former dining room upstairs, both retain their original dark-coloured polished timber wall panelling.

S H I R E O F M O R N I N G T O N P E N I N S U L A H E R I T A G E R E V I E W 2 0 1 0 3 Comparative Analysis During the later inter-war period, a number of prominent and moneyed Melbourne businessmen erected substantial architect-designed residences for themselves to serve as a seasonal “country seat”. Within the Shire of Mornington Peninsula, Carrington Park can be compared in this regard to two large seaside mansions, both designed by architect Harry Norris: Illuka at Portsea, the Spanish Mission mansion of American-born oil executive Henry Cornforth (1929) and Hendra at Mount Eliza, the Tudor Revival residence of retailer Edgar Coles (1938). Neither of these, however, are truly comparable to Carrington Park in their architectural style. There are certainly comparators outside the shire, notably Alfred Nicholas' Burnham Beeches in Sassafras (Harry Norris, 1934), Maurice Nicholas' nearby Strathalbyn (Harry Norris, 1938), and Earl Cole's Llanhydroch at Olinda (Esmond Dorney, 1938). Ultimately, such grand “country seat” residences, with lavish reception areas and servant's quarters, fell from favour after the Second World War; Carrington Park, completed as late as 1941, must surely be considered one of the last ever to be built in Victoria. Within the ouevre of architect Best Overend, Carrington Park is typical of his idiosyncratic approach to modernism. While he was an advocate for the pure Functionalism of flat roofs and glass walls – evident in his sketches for unrealised projects – his actual buildings struggled to adapt this to the Australian environment. Many of them – such as the Armytage House (1933) and Finlay House (1934), both in Balwyn – therefore display a hybrid quality, combining overt modernist forms and motifs (eg steel-framed windows, balconies, railings, portholes) with a traditional hipped roof. Carrington Park follows the same vein, but otherwise stands out for the way in which it incorporates many elements that recur throughout the architect's best work, such as clinker brickwork, sinuous cantilevered staircases and balconies with ship-like railings. It could perhaps be considered the quintessential Overend house, combining some particularly striking Functionalist elements with more traditional ones, and his largest single residential commission.

Thematic Context (per Graham Butler & Associates, 2008) Developing Australia's Cultural Life Holiday Homes: Inter-war and Beyond – Architects and summer house designs Designing and Building Fine Buildings – Architect designs on the Peninsula in the 19th and early 20th century

Management Guidelines Retain original unpainted finish to clinker brickwork; Retain original interior finishes and fittings, such as original glazed tiled floors, timber architraves and moulded cornices, and especially the timber panelling in former billiard and dining rooms and the concrete staircase to the entry foyer; Proposed extensions to the building should be restricted to the east and south elevations only; The front balconies and promenade deck should remain open, and never be infilled to create additional interior space; Consider reinstatement of former fishpond (presently a flower bed) below the sunroom promenade deck.

References Author Title Year Department of Lands Certificate of Title, Folio 5662, Volume 1132218 1930- - “Auction”, The Argus, 24 February 1945, p 16 1945 Robin Boyd Victorian Modern: 111 Years of Modern Architecture in Victoria, p 48 1947 Department of Health Public Building File No 14,284 (Carrington Park Clubhouse) (held PRO) 1964- Philip Goad “Best Overend: Pioneer Modernist in Melbourne”, Fabrications, Jun 1995, pp 101-124 1995

4 S H I R E O F M O R N I N G T O N P E N I N S U L A H E R I T A G E R E V I E W 2 0 1 0