Terrace Row

They are two-storey masonry Italianate houses of bichrome face brick (no. 5, overpainted) and rendered brick (nos. 3, 7 & 9), with wing walls bracketing the two-storey verandahs with cast-iron frieze, brackets and balustrades. They have slated hipped roofs with bracketed eaves on three sides, and typical Italianate corniced chimneys. They are a bit wider than usual, with three sash windows to the first floor, above a canted bay window to the ground floor. The four-panel front doors have elegant arched upper panels.

How is it significant?
The houses at 3-9 Kensington Road are of local architectural and aesthetic significance to the City of Stonnington.

Why is it significant?
Architecturally, they are largely intact representative examples of the substantial houses built for the middle-class residents of South Yarra during the boom years of the 1880s and early 1890s. The terrace house form, with blind boundary walls, designed to fit on a narrow building block, was most commonly built in rows in the densely packed inner suburbs. In the better part of Stonnington, particularly South Yarra, there were many free-standing houses that followed the terrace typology on more spacious sites. The houses at 3-7 Kensington Road exhibit typical features of this type, including the blind boundary walls and verandah wing walls creating a focus on the front facade. (Criterion D)

Aesthetically, they are distinguished by their large size and details such as the canted bay windows, the Italianate label mouldings to no. 7, and verandah detail. The ground-floor verandah beams have a large applied scallop detail and a sawtooth detail along the edge. The cast-iron to nos. 3 & 5 is a set of three patterns with Aesthetic Movement motifs including a sunflower in a vase, a stylised sun, and foliage draped over a bamboo screen. (Criterion E)

Group

Residential buildings (private)

Category

Terrace