Modern in Melbourne 1

 Melbourne Architecture 1930 - 1950

 Harry Norris

 Burnham Beeches, Sherbrooke Road Sassafras, 1930 - 33
A family mansion in the cool Dandenong Ranges to the east of Melbourne, designed for Alfred Nicholas an shrewd business entrepreneur whose fortune was based on the purchase the German patent for a headache remedy which Nicholas marketed under the brand name 'Aspro'. The design combines elements of the geometrical and the streamlined forms of Art Deco. Norris said of the design 'Our man wants fresh air, sunshine and outlook at command and under control. These then shall be the keynotes of the building. Burnham Beeches is the most distinguished and best preserved of a trilogy of adjacent residences for the Nicholas family. Here photographed in 2000 after several years unused the house's status as perhaps Australia's best example of residential Art Deco is still evident.

 

images D. Evans

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