Formosa Terrace (Extant) 62-68 Barkly Street

Formosa Terrace was completed by December 1856, when a sale notice described them as ‘enjoying an uninterrupted view of the bay’, with ‘plate glass windows’, and ‘French casements opening onto the balcony’.

This is one of St. Kilda's oldest terrace developments, pre-dating other early examples such as Northampton Terrace, Acland Street, built in 1857, and Lansdowne Terrace in Dalgety Street, completed in 1858. Earlier examples include the two terraces built by 1854 attached to the earlier Apsley House in Acland Street (all much altered), and the central three houses of Marli Terrace on the Upper Esplanade, which may date from 1854.

Similar to the earlier examples, Formosa Terrace was at a modest scale, presumably in order to capitalise on the value of the views from near the top of the hill.

At some point, the slate roof was replaced with terra-cotta tiles and the walls covered with roughcast, possibly soon after their sale in 1912. The verandahs may also have been replaced, since they lack typical Victorian timber detailing. The terraces have a common tall horizontal boarded fence, typical of the 1970s.

In the 1860s and 70s newspaper notices note a weatherboard house facing Waterloo Street as Formosa Cottage, with one ad listing Barkly Street as well - this is probably the house behind the terraces, replaced by a pair of Edwardian era terraces.

There was another set of early terraces over the hill at 26-32 Barkly Street, shown on Vardy Sheet 1, lots 45- 48, as belonging to P Joske. These were built after November 1856, when a tender notice from architects Ohlfsen-Bagge, Spencer & Kursteiner for Paul Joske was published. The Rate Book listing of 1857 gives some indication of their quality by valuing each house at £150, when a detached cottage of 4 rooms might call a value of £50. They were replaced with an office building in the postwar period, now part of the site of a high rise apartment block.