House

The house at 23 Ballater Street, Essendon, is significant. It was built in 1932 for owner Thomas Bird.

Significant fabric includes the:

original building forms and roof forms including projecting gable porch, bow window, fenestrations and building set back;

roof tiles and chimney;

gable end details including half timbering and shingles;

brick walls with textured render finish and unpainted clinker brick detailing;

detailing to porch including brick piers, arches, brick balustrade and planter;

door and window joinery including leaded glass to upper sashes and front door;

name plate; and

low brick front fence with mild steel panels.

The garage, rear extension and timber hoods to south elevation windows are not significant.

How is it significant?

23 Ballater Street, Essendon, is of local architectural (representative) significance to the City of Moonee Valley.

Why is it significant?

The house at 23 Ballater Street, Essendon, is a fine representative example of a late interwar Californian Bungalow. Its triple-fronted, masonry form is indicative of the middle-class means of its first owner. The house adopts the classic form of a Californian Bungalow, with a transverse gable roof with exposed rafter ends and prominent gable-front porch to the front facade, and characteristic features such as geometric leadlight windows, the box and bow windows, double front doors with quadrant lights in them, and the simplified half-timbering and shingles to the front gable. Its 1930s build date is indicated by up-to-date details such as textured render - seen both on the house and the front fence, the broad arched openings to the front porch, and the brickwork pattern on the intervening piers. This combination of stylistic elements makes it a good example of how details of the many interwar styles often mixed to provide picturesque outcomes. (Criterion D)

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House