5 Avondale Road Armadale

Location

5 Avondale Road ARMADALE, STONNINGTON CITY

Level

Included in Heritage Overlay

Statement of Significance

Statement of significance
What is significant?
The pair of Italianate villas, 'The Briars' at 3 Avondale Road and the house at 5 Avondale Road, Armadale, both built in 1890. The two houses are single-storey dwellings with rendered brick walls and an asymmetrical plan form featuring a canted projecting bay and cast-iron verandah to the front facade of each.
Also the rendered brick stables at 3 Avondale Road, constructed in 1905, are significant.
The current front fences and rear extensions of both properties, as well as the garage of 3 Avondale Road, are not significant.

How is it significant?
3 and 5 Avondale Road are of local architectural and aesthetic significance, while the stables at 3 Avondale Road are of local significance for their associations and rarity.

Why is it significant?
Architecturally, the two dwellings are fine and intact representative examples of Victorian Italianate villa residences built for middle-class residents of Armadale, of the sort that began to characterise the suburb in the 1880s and 1890s. The two near-identical villas exhibit typical features of this type including the asymmetrical plan form of a projecting canted bay to one side of a cast-iron verandah, ruled render finish, hipped roof clad in slate and rendered chimneys with decorative cornices. (Criterion D)
Aesthetically, the two dwellings retain a high level of ornamentation executed in cast and run cement and other materials. Decorative elements of note include diaper patterning of the slate roofing, cast wythes and brackets to the chimney cornices, dog-tooth mouldings to verandah beams and to a window sill (sill of No. 3, only), vermiculated quoins and panels, scrolled keystones to window arches, acanthus leaves to impost blocks, and twisted colonnettes to window reveals (No. 5, only). (Criterion E)
The stables to the rear of No. 3 Avondale Road is a very rare and intact example of a nineteenth century stables complex in Stonnington. It is also of significance for its association with its owner and builder, James Wright, who was a prominent Melbourne builder and contractor. (Criteria B & H)

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Villa