During the 1840s Edward Bernard Green (1809-1861) bought four of the original 1842 lots in St Kilda, running between Church Square and Grey Street. He bought the first one, Lot 20, possibly as early as 1845, and built a small four roomed cottage for his family by 1847. This was called Barham Lodge, after his wife Eliza’s maiden name. In the next few years he also bought Lot 20 next door, and Lots 11 & 12 to the south, totalling nine acres.(1)
Green had arrived in NSW in 1831, ran many mail coach routes starting with Sydney to Melbourne from c1840, and was a successful Melbourne land speculator.(2)
In 1850 on Lot 20 he built a grand Regency style residence to the design of architect John Gill, calling it Barham House.(3) After this, he renamed the earlier cottage Swiss Villa, and rented it out.(1)
A plan of 1854 shows Barham was set close to Grey Street at the top of the hill, and set in landscaped grounds, perhaps largely paddocks, which stretched own to Church Square. After nearby Wattle House, built in the late 1840s, it was possibly the second earliest substantial building in St Kilda. In James Sinclair’s 'Beauties of Victoria' the property was described as being 'one of the finest seats in the colony’.(4) He did not however enjoy it for long, auctioning the furniture and putting it up for rent in 1853, undertaking trips back and forth to England.
For a few years his neighbour to the north was William Nicholson (1816-65), in a house called Fernleigh immediately to the north in Grey Street, built in c1851. Nicholson was a successful grocer and then an important politician who was briefly Premier in 1859-60. The history of the two properties became intertwined in the 1860s. In Nov 1861 Green died in England, leaving Nicholson as one of the executors of his estates in Australia. Because of this, or possibly just before, Nicholson leased Barham and moved his family from next door. Nicholson remained active in politics until a severe illness in 1863, and then died in 1865, survived by his widow Sarah Birkett née Fairclough. She is said to have leased her old house Fernleigh to Richard Twentyman about that time. He was a widower, and they were married in 1866, and he then moved into Barham with her.
In 1869 Twentyman purchased Fernleigh from his new wife, commissioning Charles Webb to remodel and extend it into a twenty room mansion, renaming it Mittagong. They moved next door in 1870, living there until Richard’s death in 1880 - Sarah had outlived two husbands, moving twice between two adjacent houses.
At the same time, in 1869 Barham was sold to wealthy Western District pastoralist John L Currie (1818–1898), and in 1871 he commissioned architects Reed and Barnes to substantially extend and alter it into a much grander Renaissance Revival composition.(5) He then effectively made it his retirement home.
Currie died on March 11, 1898, and his tomb can be found at the St Kilda Cemetery. His sons John Lang and Charles Sibbald took over his country properties, and he left an estate of £479,000 to his wife Louise and his 5 sons and 3 daughters, and his extensive library of Australiana is now in the State Library.(6) Louise died in 1901, and the house was soon put up for auction. In 1917 the first ads for Eildon as a guesthouse appeared, advertising ‘Most select accommodation’. The southern end of the extensive grounds was sold off in 1921 and subdivided, with an access road created, now the southern part of Eildon Road.(7) The northern part was created when Mittagong was sold and demolished in 1940.
In the 1940s a strip of the site to the south including the drive entry was bought by the next door property, making the entrance gate to what was stables courtyard into the main one.
From 1951 the mansion was owned by Mr. Ferit Ymer and his wife Qerime. In 1953, they sold off the last portion of the grounds, creating Newton Court, with three blocks, two quite close to the rear of the house. They raised their 6 children there, while they operated the home as boarding house, accommodating mainly single men, including newly arrived migrants. In the later years the rents they could charge declined, as did maintenance on the building. Two of the owner's sons, Enver and Danny, undertook extensive restorations in 2004, converting the house into backpackers accommodation with more than 100 beds, but sold it in 2006.(8)
The house was bought for nearly $4 million by the Alliance Française for their new Melbourne headquarters, moving from nearby Robe Street. Aided by a $500,000 French Government grant, about $1 million was spent on renovations. They restored the larger rooms, and set up the mansion for their workshops, French classes, functions, exhibitions and library.(9)
In early 2022, the Alliance Française sold the property for a reported $10.45 million to couple Gary Singer and Geoffrey Smith, who run a successful art and antiques auction house. In late 2023, after external repairs and refurbishment, they put it up for sale again.(10)
Sources
1. Research by Peter Johnson
2. Movers, Shakers and Money Makers, Carmel McKenzie, 2023
3. Argus 24.8.1850 p.2. Tender notice by architect John Gill for a Villa Residence, ‘now in course of erection, at St Kilda for Edward B Green, Esq.’
4. Richard Peterson A Place of Sensuous Resort 2009, Eildon, http://www.skhs.org.au/SKHSbuildings/24.htm
5. Tender notice Argus 26.5.1871 p.3. Extensive additions to Barham House, Grey Street, St Kilda for John L. Currie. Reed & Barnes architects.
6. Richard Peterson A Place of Sensuous Resort 2009, Eildon, http://www.skhs.org.au/SKHSbuildings/24.htm
7. The Age, 15 Oct 1921, p2. Eildon and Inverleith estates, sale of 24 allotments.
8. Wikipedia text likely written by Danny Ymer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eildon_Mansion
9. The Age, 11 July 2007 https://www.theage.com.au/national/alliances-new-home-brings-chic-to-st-kilda-20070711-ge5bmk.html
10. Ex deputy Mayor flips historic Eildon mansion, Realestatesource.com, 27 Sept 2023
