Northampton Terrace (Extant) 29-37 Acland Street

My own house has followed this trend. It is one of four terraced houses in what was called Northampton House, or the Northampton Buildings. It was built in 1857, and the sale notice from the Argus of 1858 advertises its merits to speculators. It has accommodated the full range of uses in its almost one hundred and sixty years, starting as the home of Melbourne’s Chief Prosecutor, then of Isaac Jacobs, a wealthy tobacco merchant, and father in law of Sir Isaac Isaacs, Australia’s first native born Governor General. In the financial “bust” of the 1890s the house declined into becoming a guesthouse, and then for most of the 20th century existing as a rooming house, before being rescued in the 1990s as a private dwelling again. In its 159 years, Northampton House has retained most of its original features and detail, mainly through sheer neglect. The front verandas were the only removal or mutilation of the building. This has been remedied in recent years as the four residents agreed to replace all four inappropriate and dangerously dilapidated verandas with verandas in the 1850s style, based on the verandas of the contemporary Landsdown Terrace, 1857. Landsdown is a particularly beautiful and elegant terrace in Dalgety Street, though only three of the original six terraces survive, the others were demolished and replaced by 1960s blocks of flats.