"Thuringia" an Arts and Crafts style Villa - The Grove, Coburg
"Thuringia" (named after the German free state) is a Reformist (Arts and Crafts) style villa with its original metal picket and chain fence. It may be found in The Grove, the elm lined and most prestigious street in the inner Melbourne suburb of Coburg.
Built between Federation (1901) and the Great War (1914), the choice of rough cast stuccoed brick as a facade treatment is very in keeping with the Arts and Crafts Movement, as is the restrained use of decoration - most noticably pediment decoration, and the shingled barge boards underneath the central gable. The leadlight glass windows featuring a geometric pattern are also Arts and Crafts influenced. Unusually, this bungalow features slate tiles on its roof with teracotta capping.
Arts and Crafts houses challenged the formality of the mid and high Victorian styles that preceded it, and were often designed with uniquely angular floor plans. However, this house's floor plan appears to be more traditional than others, with a central hallway off which the principal rooms were located.
The Grove, was part of the Moreland Park Estate. This was Coburg's most prestigious subdivision in the 1880s. In 1882 Charles Moreland Montague Dare, a St Kilda businessman, bought Jean Rennie's forty acre farm and, with his architect, T. J. Crouch, subdivided thirty acres of it into 147 allotments. The Grove was originally christened Moreland Grove after its owner. A covenant was placed on the subdivision prohibiting the building of hotels or shops, or any house under the value of 400 pounds. By 1890 there were twenty-four brick houses on the estate, twenty one of them owned by Charles Moreland Montague Dare himself. There was a caretaker to tend the streets, the wooden pavilion and the tennis courts, which soon became a bowling rink to suit the more sedate interests of the residents. Men of substance, including a banker, a merchant, a manufacturer and several civil servants and accountants lived on the estate and the Moreland Park Ladies' College in The Grove offered a genteel education. By the 1890s the Melbourne property boom had burst and by 1900 there were still only twenty seven houses in The Grove and many vacant allotments; Charles Moreland Montague Dare's own place at "Moreland Park", a ten acre property on Merri Creek, added to the rural atmosphere. In 1896 Dare fell into financial difficulties and had to transfer many of his properties to the Australian Widows' Fund Life Assurance Society. In 1900 he owned only seven houses, a few allotments and Moreland Park. He died in 1919.
"Thuringia" an Arts and Crafts style Villa - The Grove, Coburg
"Thuringia" (named after the German free state) is a Reformist (Arts and Crafts) style villa with its original metal picket and chain fence. It may be found in The Grove, the elm lined and most prestigious street in the inner Melbourne suburb of Coburg.
Built between Federation (1901) and the Great War (1914), the choice of rough cast stuccoed brick as a facade treatment is very in keeping with the Arts and Crafts Movement, as is the restrained use of decoration - most noticably pediment decoration, and the shingled barge boards underneath the central gable. The leadlight glass windows featuring a geometric pattern are also Arts and Crafts influenced. Unusually, this bungalow features slate tiles on its roof with teracotta capping.
Arts and Crafts houses challenged the formality of the mid and high Victorian styles that preceded it, and were often designed with uniquely angular floor plans. However, this house's floor plan appears to be more traditional than others, with a central hallway off which the principal rooms were located.
The Grove, was part of the Moreland Park Estate. This was Coburg's most prestigious subdivision in the 1880s. In 1882 Charles Moreland Montague Dare, a St Kilda businessman, bought Jean Rennie's forty acre farm and, with his architect, T. J. Crouch, subdivided thirty acres of it into 147 allotments. The Grove was originally christened Moreland Grove after its owner. A covenant was placed on the subdivision prohibiting the building of hotels or shops, or any house under the value of 400 pounds. By 1890 there were twenty-four brick houses on the estate, twenty one of them owned by Charles Moreland Montague Dare himself. There was a caretaker to tend the streets, the wooden pavilion and the tennis courts, which soon became a bowling rink to suit the more sedate interests of the residents. Men of substance, including a banker, a merchant, a manufacturer and several civil servants and accountants lived on the estate and the Moreland Park Ladies' College in The Grove offered a genteel education. By the 1890s the Melbourne property boom had burst and by 1900 there were still only twenty seven houses in The Grove and many vacant allotments; Charles Moreland Montague Dare's own place at "Moreland Park", a ten acre property on Merri Creek, added to the rural atmosphere. In 1896 Dare fell into financial difficulties and had to transfer many of his properties to the Australian Widows' Fund Life Assurance Society. In 1900 he owned only seven houses, a few allotments and Moreland Park. He died in 1919.