Euro-Reko was built in 1866 as the residence of Peter Davis, a Melbourne City Councillor, and Lord Mayor 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 Dr and 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 Euro - Yroke, Eurok or Youruk, was said to have been the aboriginal word for the St Kilda area. Cooper V2 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.
