Durack Home

Values

The place has aesthetic significance as a particularly fine example of a Federation Queen Anne residence with landscaped gardens in the style of the day.

The place is associated with the settlement and development of the Subiaco area.

The place is associated with the Durack family, a prominent pastoral family in WA, who owned the place for many years.

Physical Description

The place is a tuckpointed brick and iron single storey house with smooth rendered bands and hipped with two prominent gables and a corrugated iron roof. There are bullnosed verandahs on three sides with turned timber posts and decorative timber arch detail between. The front entrance has stained glass in the timber door and fanlights and sidelights. Symmetrical in plan, it is an example of a wealthy pastoralist’s grand city house, with generously proportioned rooms featuring pressed metal ceilings and friezes. The gardens are as originally designed with a pair of palm trees, inscribed paving stones at the entries to the tennis court and a rose garden. The house and gardens are set behind a large cypress hedge. The place was restored in the late 1980s to its original condition.

History

Stratmore is one of the last examples of a substantial home in the Subiaco area. It occupies a relatively large piece of land, landscaped in the style of the day, including a cypress hedge and private tennis court. It was owned by the Durack family, wealthy pastoralists and a well known WA family. John Durack, JP lived there from 1920s to 1950. The earliest development in the ‘Triangle’ (where this place is located) was, naturally, closest to the Hay Street commercial centre. Churchill Avenue and Barker Road, and side streets such as Axon Street, Townshend Road, Olive Street and Coghlan Road, were mostly developed by 1905. Development then spread into the central area between Bagot and Heytesbury Roads by 1915, followed by the southern portion along Thomas Road. One of the first land releases was Berry Brow Estate which extended from Rokeby to Townshend Roads, between Hay Street and Barker Road. It was marketed as the ‘Toorak of Perth’. Others were Bowral Park (1896) and Parkerville Estate. The area has always been predominantly residential, and indeed the Triangle gained a reputation in the early days as being a prestigious area – workers settled along the railway line, and the more affluent moved up the hill to what was perceived as the better part of Subiaco.

Integrity/Authenticity

High

Condition

Very Good

Uses

Historic Themes

Creation Date

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