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, though it did not sell, and by 1870 rates show that it was two lots, then sold separately.
The southern lot (variously 71 or 73-75 Grey Street) was bought by Gavin Shaw. He was a businessman with a stake in various enterprises, as well as a Councillor of St Kilda in the 1870s and 80s serving as Mayor in 1881 and 1882. A tender notice in Feb 1871 by Sydney W Smith is probably for this house; Smith was a local architect who was also surveyor for the City of St Kilda in the 1860s, then for the City of South Melbourne. He did not engage in much private work, but designed Stradbroke next door, and his own house in Princes Street, both just after this house.
Rates show that by 1874 Shaw owned the two houses to the south up to Neptune Street. In 1891 he added a subdivided section of his own property to the small plot immediately next door to allow the construction of a pair of grand Queen Anne style terraces, numbered 77-79 Grey Street. They were completed in 1892, and are probably the two houses tendered for by Sydney Smith & Ogg in Sept 1891, since that was the firm of the son of Sydney W Smith, who had done Villa Capri for Shaw 20 years before.
Shaw died a few years later in 1894, and his widow Jane seems to have moved to Bendigo, where she died a few years later in 1900. In 1902 the house was advertised as a boarding establishment run by Mrs Katzenstein, and the house was then put up for sale in 1904.
In (or by) 1925 it was bought by the Presentation Sisters of Windsor, along with Stradbrook next door in order to establish a convent and college, which both opened in 1928 as St Fintan’s. The school closed around the late 1960s.
The larger part of the sites of both houses to the west was subdivided off, possibly both in c1978, when the larger part of Stradbroke became a children’s adventure playground, which opened in 1981. A portion of the site behind both houses became a small park. The larger part of the rear of Villa Capri became part of the site of the Australian Institute of Management, which had replaced the mansion St Leonards with an office building in c1969. That portion was redeveloped in the mid 1990s as townhouses, along with the rest of the AIM site.
In 2012 the Sisters sold Stradbroke, and have continued to occupy Villa Capri, which has been well maintained and painted in heritage colours.
