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KAWARAU
Location405 TOORONGA ROAD HAWTHORN EAST, BOROONDARA CITY
File Number602459LevelRegistered |
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Statement of Significance
What is significant?
Kawarau, an Italianate mansion originally known as Warrington, with nineteenth-century bi-chrome outbuilding. The residence was built for Robert Robinson, a Melbourne grain merchant, and completed in 1893 at the time of the bank crash and economic depression. The design of the original house has been attributed to Francis Coote, of the architectural practice Beswick and Coote. The house was acquired by Frederick Cato, of the retailing firm Moran and Cato in 1904. Cato commissioned the architectural firm Ussher and Kemp to undertake extensions, including a billiard room. The two-storey house is constructed of stuccoed brick with a slate roof and is symmetrically planned with a double-storey arcade supported by Corinthian columns. The interior is a mixture of Victorian and Edwardian styles. The 1904 billiard room contains deep fibrous plaster frieze of Art Nouveau ornamentation with a ceiling of red pine divided into an octagonal pattern.How is it significant?
Kawarau is of historic and architectural significance to the State of VictoriaWhy is it significant?
Kawarau is of historical importance through its ability to demonstrate the wealth amassed by Melbourne merchants in the late nineteenth century, and their demise following the economic depression of the 1890s. The former mansion is also of historical significance as a result of its association with the philanthropist Frederick Cato and his retailing firm Moran and Cato which was founded in 1881. It demonstrates the wealth amassed by the firm in less than a decade, and the continuing success of the firm illustrated by the addition of finely-detailed interior features, including the billiard room constructed in 1904. Kawarau is architecturally important as the grandest of a small group of Italianate mansions and possesses one of the most extensive and complete collections of Edwardian plasterwork in Victoria. It incorporates the widest known assemblage of decorative art nouveau fibrous plaster and timber work, including exceptional examples in the billiard room. Kawarau is important as a rare example of the architect Coote¹s work. It is also important as the most intact surviving example of the work of Ussher and Kemp, one of the most important practitioners in Victoria in the Edwardian period.
Group
Residential buildings (private)
Category
Mansion