Currajong

This Italianate house at 337 Auburn Road, Hawthorn built c.1887 at the height of the boom, shows a high level of artistic achievement, consistent with it having been built by an architect of the reputation of John Beswicke. The façade of the house is intact, with highly sophisticated detailing on its frieze, door and overall arrangement of the façade. This includes the elaborate use of a frieze of stylised acanthus leaves and bressummer to carry additional layers of decorative elements in the form of dentilation The verandah is supported by columns which have an applied oval decoration between the roofline and base of the brackets. The vermiculated quoining provides a sense of grandeur, which is balanced in the highly decorative treatment of the door and its surrounds.

Currajong, 337 Auburn Road, Hawthorn is significant for its representative and aesthetic significance to the City of Boroondara.

Currajong, 337 Auburn Road demonstrates the rapid development of middle-class housing in Melbourne in the 1880s boom. It is an unusual example of an Italianate villa, in the complex and sophisticated and refined detailing. This is unusual and indicative of the artistic and aspirational values of its builder, the manufacturing Jeweller William Lamborn and his wife Eliza. (Criterion D)
Currajong is distinguished from the surrounding Longford Estate in the sophistication of its detailing. The house is built as a double canted bay design, with an articulated composition, enhanced by the prominent cranked verandah. The sophisticated and layered applied detail shuns the more formulaic designs of many of its contemporaries. Likewise, the building is largely intact, maintaining its original fenestrations and materials. (Criterion E)
It is reasonable to assume that the house was designed by John Beswicke an architect prolific in Hawthorn and more especially in the area around Auburn Station.