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Euro-Reko (Demolished) 27-29 Burnett Street

Euro-Reko, Donald McDonald, Port Phillip Heritage Collection

 

 
 


29 Burnett Street
St Kilda,Victoria
Australia 3182
  • Date Built: 1866
  • Demolished: c1911
  • First European Land Owner:

    1855 (prior to) Crown Allotments Maps - indentifying areas 24 25 26 and 41 as owned by F G Dalgety. With 41 being where 35 Burnett Street is located. The general area was primarily divided between F G Dalgety and H F Gurner. Burnett Street was not constructed at the point of the original land sales.-  https://stkildahistory.org.au/our-collection/resources/m27

    1857 (prior to) Crown Allotments identified on St Kilda Planning Maps reflecting subdivisions starting in 1843 Crown land sales. https://stkildahistory.org.au/our-collection/resources/m27

    1853 (in) the 12 acres (4.85 hectares) of land referred to as Dalgety’s Paddock was subdivided with the provision of 2 new streets - Burnett Street and Gurner Street. Most allotments  were auctioned  with  Oberwyl being built on five of these allotments (See source Cooper Vol 1 pg 134 and SKHS Place of Sensuous Resort).

    1855 Kearney Map 4 shows the new subdivision and associated streets - 35 Burnett Street is vacant at this point.  https://stkildahistory.org.au/our-collection/resources/kearney-1

    1857 Etloe Hall identified in St Kilda Rates book and also described as being next door to the house owned by Lampierre in Coopers Vol 1.

    1873 J Vardy WW3 Number 115 owned by J MacKenzie. Outline of house now largely formed.
  • Architects:

    Reed & Barnes
  • Owners and occupiers:

    Peter Davis, Alfred Davis, Miss L Davis
  • Description:

    A grand house in 'Lombardic Romanesque' style. It had two storeys with a rectangular form, with a single level verandah to the front portion and a tower over the entrance arch facing Burnett Street. The house faced south across the large garden on the very large site. The style was pioneered by architect Joseph Reed, the best known seminal example being the Independant Church in Collins Street, now St Michael's, which was complete the following year, making this possibly his first foray into the new style. The fancy polychrome brick effects he used here and in later works became extremely popular for houses and terrace by the 1880s. 
  • History:

    Euro-Reko was built in 1866 as the residence of Peter Davis, a Melbourne councillor and mayor of Melbourne from 1856 to 1857. Davis’ company, Peter Davis & Co. owned a 192,000-acre pastoral lease in NSW, called Naradhan East Station. Davis was also the director of the Commercial Bank of Australia and the president of the Fourth Victoria Building Society. After Davis died, his three sons continued to live at the property, with one of them (Alfred Davis, a St Kilda councillor) still recorded as living in the house in 1910.

    It was thought that was also the home to an organ that Peter Davis had commissioned, now in St Peter’s Lutheran Church, Stawell. However that organ was built in 1858, and sold by Davis in 1860. https://www.ohta.org.au/organs/organs/StawallStPeters.html

    The property was sold in 1910 as suitable for subdivision into house lots, with 'houses built to suit purchasers', and in 1911 a sale of the contents by Miss L Davis took place. Subsequently, 15 lots were created, and various late Edwardian style houses built, including eight in virtually matching style, facing both Burnett Street and Gurner Street. Newspaper notices include houses at the current addesses by 1915-1917.

    The name Euro-Reko, spelled variously Yroke or Youruk, was said to have been the aboriginal word for the St Kilda area. Cooper V1 pg 278 relates the early memories of Mrs Eleanor McWicking nee Nicholson, whose family lived on the Upper Esplanade in the 1840s who stated that "Euro-Reko meaning 'St Kilda' was the name given by Mr Davis to the big house he built in Burnet (sic) St. off Grey Street." She wrote a diary of her early life in St Kilda "Further Memories of Old St Kilda", and a copy of some pages of this diary in the Historical Society makes explicit reference to interactions with the aboriginal people from around 1846. 

    Another theory is that Euro-Yroke refers to the red sandstone which is the substrate for the St Kilda hill area.
  • Gallery:
    Euro Yroke MMBW
  • Sources:

    MMDB Entry 932 

    Raggatt St Kilda pg 65-66 Refers to Argus 21-12-1865 R&B Tenders for residence for P Davis.Adjoins Invernon. First house in the colony to be built in the Lombardic style of red and white pressed bricks. 

    Cooper Vol 1 History of St Kilda page 280 reference Mrs E M McMicking'Memories of Early St Kilda" (nee Germain Nicholson (father?).. Her extensive recollections of St Kilda state that the name Euro-reka meaning St Kilda (Sic); was given to the house in Burnett Street by owner by Mr Davis.

    Vardy Maps - WW3 page 3 Allottment 117 P Davis

    Reference/s:
    St Kilda Historical Society. (2018, April). St Kilda's Lost Mansions: Euro-Reko 29 Burnett Street, St Kilda. St Kilda Times, (224), 2 - 3. Retrieved from https://stkildahistory.org.au/news-and-events/newsletters

     
  • Compiled by: Peter Johnson and Sally Moore