Kara 28 Dalgety Street

Kara was built in 1890 for Joseph Sabelberg, and probably designed by architect Sydney W Smith.

It was built on the northern half of the block, with a plan in the form of a large terrace house, so a matching house on the other half may have been contemplated, but never built.

Instead the house, built in a restrained Italianate style, was fronted by a verandah that projected beyond the frontage on both sides, as seen in the image from c1914.

The verandah had columned supports at ground level with a masonry arch at the entrance, while the upper level supports were in timber with unusual triangular brackets, perhaps derived from the emerging Queen Anne.

In 1926 the house was extensively altered, 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.

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. 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.

The house stayed as a family home until 1925, with a period around WWI when the Misses Pittman 'received 'paying guests'.