Kara (altered), 28 Dalgety Street

A house is shown on the Vardy plan of 1873 at no. 67.

The 1896 MMBW plan (both shown below) shows a house with a very similar plan, in the same location, though on a larger block, adress is no. 28. That plan also matches the appearance of the house in the 1914 photo. The 1890 works may have completely replaced the house on the same outline, or may have been mainly adding the unusual verandah. The larger block was created by adding a section of the triple block next door at no. 66 (now 22-24), which was subdivided off possibly when the mansion Asgard was built in 1878. This extra land was added to the Kara lot, creating a larger side garden.

Joseph Sabelberg had a German background, arriving in Melbourne aged 12 with his family around 1854. He married Marianne Brentani, the daughter of Carlo Brentani, an early settler and ex-convict and jeweller, and had two claims to fame. Firstly, in the 1880s, Mrs Bentani, long a widow, reminisced that the first gold nugget to be found in Victoria was brought to her husband's shop in 1849, but its source was uncertain, and no further gold was found until the next year, sparking the gold rush. His family back in Italy also had a literary connection. While he was incarcerated in Tasmania, his mother and brothers ran a hotel on Lake Como, where Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein, stayed for a couple of months in 1840, and she wrote fondly about them in her subsequent "Rambles through Germany and Italy" (1844). Marianne grew up with her mother Mary Ann ('Annie'), at various properties in St Kilda (STKS Newsletter April 2020). By 1898 Joseph Sabelberg was living in Albert Park, then later back in St Kilda, and at his death aged 91 in 1933 he was known as Melbourne's oldest practicing solicitor (Death of Mr Sabelberg, the Sun, 3 Aug 1933, p14). 

The house stayed as a family home until 1925, with a period around WWI when the Misses Pittman 'received 'paying guests' (as per advertisement, St Kilda By The Sea, 1914)

In 1926 the house was extensively altered (date from building records), and added to, on the front, side and back, creating a block of flats with both Mediterranean and Old English features known as Kara Mansions. The only surviving original features of the house are the hall and stair inside.

By the 1950s the name Kara Mansions fell into disuse.