House

Parent Place or Precinct

25394 Union and Redfern Heritage Area

Statement of Significance

The Union and Redfern Street Heritage Area is significant for:
Aesthetic Value:
The area contains aesthetically pleasing streetscapes with a strong heritage character. In particular, cohesive streetscapes have been created by a limited palette of materials and styles.
The area contains many good, representative, suburban examples of Federation Queen Anne houses and Federation Bungalows. These include both gentlemen’s villas and modest suburban houses, and collectively illustrate a gradual evolution in architectural detailing of these places between 1899 and the early Inter-war years.
Historic Value:
The residential subdivision of this area represents the early development activities of Sydney and Melbourne based real estate agents and property developers. In this context it helps to illustrate the status of Western Australia as a place of opportunity during the gold rush era of the late nineteenth century – attracting significant interest and investment from the eastern states.
The collection of houses in the heritage area helps to demonstrate the manner in which the family residences of professional men and business owners (such as senior civil servants and merchants) existed side by side with the smaller houses of semi-professional and tradespeople.
The collection of houses in the heritage area helps to illustrate the scale and standard of housing considered appropriate for these families in the early twentieth century.
The area was a place of residence for a number of people who were prominent in the local business community or were otherwise public identities of the early to mid-twentieth century.

Physical Description

1 Redfern Street was designed as a large Inter-War California Bungalow.
Key elements include:
• Asymmetrical façade.
• Visually prominent low-pitch roof, clad with terra-cotta tiles and finished with ball-topped, terracotta finials.
• Flat-topped chimneys with roughcast rendered faces and slender face-brick caps.
• Wide eaves overhangs.
• Prominent gables to the main north and east facing facades.
• Timber framed ventilator to the primary, north-facing gable.
• Tuck-pointed face-brick walls to mid-window height, with roughcast render over.
• Wide verandah returning around the north-east corner of the house.
The verandah roof is a continuous extension of the main roofline. It is supported by robust paired posts set on roughcast pylons with smooth-rendered flat caps.
Low rendered masonry walls (which were probably originally finished with tuck-pointed panels) link the pylons and create a semi-private outdoor area.
The western end of the verandah (which is set under a secondary gable) has been partially enclosed with louvered windows, forming a sleep-out area – possibly as part of the original design.
• Side entry, abutting a prominent gabled wing towards the rear of the side (eastern) elevation.
• Diamond pattern lead light window wrapping around the north-east corner.
This is set in a slightly projecting square bay window with two casements to either face.
• Traditional single garage (with a later roller door), set at the rear, south-eastern corner, of the block
The house is set approximately 9m back from the front boundary and close to the western boundary. Along the eastern boundary there is a set back of approximately 6.5m, accommodating the entrance path and a grassed driveway. There is no front fence and the front yard has been laid out with lawn, roses and clipped shrubs.
Based on a streetscape inspection the building appears to be in fair-good condition.

History

A Certificate of Title for Perth Suburban Lot 256 was issued in the name of The Intercolonial Investment Land and Building Company Ltd of Sydney NSW on 22 August 1890. This was bounded by Hamersley Road to the north, Hensman Road to the west and Heytesbury Road to the south. In June 1896 the whole of this property was transferred to James Thomas Peet and Austin Bastow of Melbourne, Estate Agents, and by August of that year Peet and Bastow had subdivided this as Deposited Plan 938, with Lots 25 to 30 along the northern side of Beryl Street (later renamed Redfern Street) and Lots 31 to 36 along the southern side.
Lot 36 was sold to ‘Emily Jane Body of Bowenvale in the Colony of Victoria, Married Woman’ in September 1896. However, the site was not developed and, after returning to the ownership of the Peet and then Bastow families in the early 1900s, it was sold to Christina Ellen Ball of Perth, in November 1906 (together with Lots 41 and 42, facing Heytesbury Road). Christina and her husband, Charles Ball, also acquired Lot 35 and, in December 1923, these two vacant lots were transferred to ‘Thomas Alexander Burns of 40 Hamersley Road, Subiaco, Master Baker’.
Thomas Burns was the son of William Burns, who had moved to Subiaco from Melbourne in c.1897 and helped to establish Brown and Burns Bakery at 388-392 Hay Street, Subiaco (corner Hay and Catherine Streets). William died in 1904, but his wife, Alexandra, later took over full control of the business, eventually taking her four children into partnership with her in 1930 – at which time the business was described as bakers and manufacturers of and dealers in bread, flour and biscuits.
Thomas, who had trained as a baker, married Gertrude Anne Hingley in Bristol, England, at the end of his war service in 1919, after which they settled in Subiaco.
In April 1924, Lots 35 and 36 were mortgaged to the War Service Homes Commission to secure £800, and in the Electoral Roll of 1925, Thomas and Gertrude were listed at 1 Redfern Street, where they lived for many years with their three daughters: Ilsa, Nancy and Neta.
Thomas was a prominent local businessman and, when he died in September 1948, the following obituary was published in the Sunday Times:
Mr. T. A. Burns, managing director of Brown & Burns, Subiaco, bakers, died yesterday. He died on his 63rd birthday. Mr. Burns was a past-president of the W.A. Master Bakers' Assn., and a former president of the Federal Master Bakers' Assn. His bakery was founded in the gold rush days by his late father with Mr. Brown, who went out of the business about 1920. Mr. Burns served with the AIF in 1914, then transferred to the Royal Flying Corps. In the last war he was on the Air Force Selection Board. He was a member of the Air Force Assn. For some years he was a WATA [Western Australian Trotting Association] committeeman. He was also interested in the Subiaco Football Club. Mr. Burns leaves a widow and 3 daughters.
The house has continued to be owned and occupied by members of the Burns family from the time of its construction through to the present day.
Occupants of the property from its time of construction until 2014 included:
1924-1948 Thomas Alexander Burns (manager, Burns & Brown Bakers) and his wife, Gertrude Anne Burns
1949-1983 Gertrude Burns (widow), living with her daughter, Neta Burns
1983-present Neta Burns

Integrity/Authenticity

Note: The external form and detailing of this place remains consistent with the original design and the key elements of the traditional streetscape. It is also of some aesthetic value as a good example of an Inter-War California Bungalow.

Condition

Good

Uses

Creation Date

Publish place record online (inHerit):

Last Update

Disclaimer

This information is provided voluntarily as a public service. The information provided is made available in good faith and is derived from sources believed to be reliable and accurate. However, the information is provided solely on the basis that readers will be responsible for making their own assessment of the matters discussed herein and are advised to verify all relevant representations, statements and information.