2 Elmie St

Architecturally: an original but overformalised example of Queen Anne villa architecture which nevertheless represents its type well on a metropolitan basis and contributes to a civic-residential precinct: of regional importance.

Historically: the 20th century home of a 19th century commercial pioneer of Hawthorn: of local importance.

HO164 Leslie Street Precinct, Hawthorn

The Leslie Street Precinct, Hawthorn, which includes both Leslie Street and the Urquart

Estate and Oxley Road precincts, is an area of heritage significance for the following

reasons:

The place illustrates most of the significant development phases affecting Hawthorn

including the early years of settlement (1835-1855), the growth of Hawthorn as a

Victorian garden suburb, the Federation-era prosperity of 1901-1919; and interwar

concepts of the garden suburb.

- The place contains a number of individually significant buildings exemplifying High

Victorian and Italianate design, the Federation style in its formative phase, and a

series of characteristic interwar designs.

- Individually significant buildings in the Oxley Road precinct include institutional

buildings such as St Columbs Church, Auburn Uniting Church and its accompanying

buildings, and notable houses including Terrick Terricks and Auburn House.

- The place has a particularly well-preserved and notable collection of the prevailing

house styles of the 1880s through to the 1930s, with homogeneous concentrations of

style in several streets. The interwar Old English and Mediterranean is particularly

well represented in Urquhart Street and Swinburne Avenue and homogeneous arrays

of 1920s Bungalows are found in The Boulevard and Lyall Street. Oxley Road, Elmie

and Goodall Streets have a good variety of Victorian and Federation houses. Leslie

Street is a homogeneous run of 1880s workers' cottages, and Minona Street has a

relatively intact group of small late interwar housing units.

-Through the road layout, the footpaths transecting parts of the precinct, the broad

street lawns in the Urquhart Estate component, mature street trees and other landscape

features, and concrete road paving (Swinburne Avenue), the place clearly

demonstrates the application of the 'garden suburb' ideal as variously interpreted in

the later nineteenth century, Federation and inter-war periods. In Hawthorn the

precinct compares interestingly with its primarily Victorian and Federation

predecessor, the Grace Park Estate (HO 152). The Urquhart Estate component

(Urquhart Street, Swinburne Avenue, and The Boulevard) was the last substantial land

holding in Hawthorn to be subdivided for residential purposes (in 1919).

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

House