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Northampton Terrace was probably built in late 1857, with Mrs Ries’s ladies college advertising its commencement there in January 1858. Also known variously as Northampton Buildings and Northampton House, the row was put up for sale in June / July 1858 with notices in the Argus advertising it as “four elegant residences each containing seven rooms”. Like many other houses of the 1850s in St Kilda it probably had only single storey verandahs. Also, like other terraces, they were simply numbered 1-4 Northampton Terrace.
The rate book for 1864 identifies tobacco merchant Isaac Jacobs as the owner of the northern pair, now nos. 27 and 27A, who used them a single residence. A few years later the rate book of 1867 notes some alterations to the ‘14 roomed house in progress’. Possibly a two storey verandah was built at this time, and features seen in a photo from the 1970s may have been added then - the door into no. 27A was bricked up, there was an elaborate arched opening in the balcony wing wall between the two houses at ground level. Newspaper notices have the family in residence into the early 1870s, though in 1870-71 the house was occupied by Joseph Dunn, a Crown Prosecutor.
Isaac Jacobs had a German Jewish background, and was prominent in business, and a foundational member of the St Kilda Synagogue in 1871. He had 12 children in total, many born in this house, notably daughter Daisy (Deborah) who in 1888 married Isaac Isaacs, later Australia’s first native born Governor General, as well as the first Jewish one.
The Jacobs occupation continued despite the fact that in Dec 1871 the four houses were put up for auction as two pairs - perhaps the Jacobs house did not sell. Each house was described as having ‘verandahs and iron palisading in front’, and ‘drawing and dining room (with folding doors), bedrooms,...kitchen, washhouse, servants’ room and bathroom’. No. 1 had five bedrooms, the others ‘two less’.
The two western houses were presumably purchased by A Benjamin, who appears as owner/occupant on the 1873 Vardy plan. He also appears in directories as living at no. 29, so he was probably there from 1872, and into at least 1895. He had a German Jewish background as well, and established Benjamin Jewellers in Little Collins Street, a business still run by the family in the same location. In 1885 architects Terry & Oakden called for tenders for the ‘erection of balconies’, so the two level verandahs with solid dividing walls on nos. 29 and 31 likely date from then.
No. 27 was occupied by financier David Henry from c1881 to his death in 1898, and his background was also German Jewish. His son Louis Henry was a noted medical doctor and helped establish the local arm of the British Medical Association in the 1879.
Like many larger St Kilda houses after the financial bust of the 1890s, no. 27 became a guesthouse, known as Northampton House. First advertised in 1904, an ad of 1906 states it had been ‘renovated throughout’. By the 1970s no. 27 and 29 were listed together as ‘apartments’, so those three at least operated as a single boarding house. By then the verandahs of all four were extensively altered, with balustrades in weatherboards, and the upper floors of nos. 29 and 31 infilled completely. In 1993 no. 27 was sold individually as 27 and 27A, divided into its two original private dwellings again after 130 years.
According to Phillip Stewart, a member of the St Kilda Historical Society for many years who has owned 27A since the late 1990s, through all these changes no. 27A has retained most of its original internal features and detail. Since the early 2000s, the four owners agreed to replace all four verandahs with new ones in 1850s style, largely based on the verandas of Landsdowne Terrace in Dalgety Street, also built in 1857. The balustrades chosen were simple geometric cross patterns, but only the central two owners followed that plan, the others opting for less costly plain balusters.
