The small 1847 house known as Swiss Cottage occupied one of the original St Kilda lots, and was owned by E B Green, who built the larger house Barham, later Eildon, next door in 1850. Following his death in 1861, his executors put it up for auction in 1868, and it was subdivided into two lots.
Irish-born Thompson Moore (1832-1912) made his fortune through shops in the goldfields in the 1850s, then investing in the mines themselves. From1871 and 1886 he was a member of Parliament, where he was active in improving postal services, water supply, and country rail lines. He presumably bought this lot, because he then commissioned local architect Sydney W Smith to design the mansion Stradbroke in 1872. He did not enjoy the house for long, moving to Toorak, which was becoming the preferred home of the wealthy, but retaining ownership of Stradbroke. The Bruce family occupied the house by 1878, and future Prime Minister Stanley Melbourne Bruce was born there in 1883. The family moved on in 1885, also to Toorak, and the house was put up for lease, and the next year it was occupied by John Goodall, and by 1888 known by a different spelling as Stradbrook.
Goodall had arrived in Australia to try his luck in the goldfields in the 1850s, but found his fortune in the stock exchange business. His wife had died in 1871, leaving him with a teenage son and daughter, the latter marrying in 1888, perhaps prompting his move to Stradbrook. He remained there for many years, living to a remarkable old age for that era, dying in Sept 1915 aged 83. The house was put up for sale only a month later in Oct 1915.
The skylit room on the north west corner is not shown in the Vardy map of 1883 – this room is typical of one for billiards, and a tender notice by Crouch & Wilson in 1890 for ‘Billiards Room, additions etc’ for Grey Street is probably for Stradbroke. The etc. may have included a new front verandah since it is a heavy masonry one with medieval references is more typical of the late 1880s, and perhaps replaced a light timber verandah similar to others of the early 1870s, such as Villa Capri next door, probably also by Sydney W Smith.
These alterations would have been for John Goodall, who may have paid for them but did not own the property himself until 1893, according to the rate books.
Presumably it did not sell, since when it was bought by the Presentation Sisters of Windsor in 1925, Mrs Goodall (his daughter in law) is mentioned as the seller. The sisters also bought Villa Capri next door in order to establish a convent and college, which both opened in 1928 as St Fintan’s.
Possibly in the late 1940s (after 1947), a portion of land was purchased from the Eildon property next door, enlarging the garden. Thirty years later the larger part of the site to the west was subdivided off in c1978 and sold to the City of St Kilda, allowing the development of a small park, and the children’s adventure playground, which opened in 1981.
In 2012 the Presentation Sisters offered to sell the house to the City of Port Phillip, which declined the offer, and the property was sold at auction. By then, the mansion was described as having 18 rooms, including a chapel and a wine cellar.
