Sonoma

Parent Place or Precinct

25394 Union and Redfern Heritage Area

Statement of Significance

For information on the significance of the Union and Redfern Heritage Area refer to the Local Planning Policy for the Heritage Area.

Physical Description

177 Hamersley Road was designed as a late example of a modest Federation Queen Anne villa. Key elements include: • Asymmetrical plan, with a stepped façade. • Tuck-pointed brickwork to the main façade with two contrasting rendered string courses – one at window sill height and one at door-head height. • Gabled-hipped roof with red corrugated steel sheeting (probably originally tiled) and battened eaves. This extends in a continuous broken-back alignment over the deep corner verandah. • Tall face brick chimneys with simple rendered caps and terracotta chimney pots. • Rough cast gables with vertical battens to the projecting wings. • Two projecting wings, one facing Hamersley Road on the western side of the main façade and one facing east (at the southern end of the return verandah). Each of these features a shallow rectangular bay window. The street front bay features a bank of three multi-paned casement windows shaded by a raked ‘shingled’ awning, which is supported on simple carved timber brackets. Below the window, and extending around the sides of the bay, there is a projecting rendered sill above a splayed, rock-faced stone plinth. • Stepped façade between the projecting wings, creating a deep verandah area. The main entrance is located adjacent to the western wing. This is framed by highlights and half-height sidelights – all with stained glass panels. At the rear of the verandah, where it abuts the eastern wing, there is a pair of multi-paned French doors. • Corner verandah extending between the two projecting wings. This features paired, chamfered timber posts, with each pair linked by a cross-timber panel at the top. The late twentieth century additions (which include a single garage at the Hamersley Road boundary) have been detailed to match the original house. The house is set back approximately 4m from the front boundary, which is defined by a low, limestone wall with tall limestone piers and tall timber picket infill panels. Based on a streetscape inspection the building appears to be in good condition.

History

Perth Suburban Lot 255 was purchased by the Intercolonial Investment Land and Building Company Ltd of Sydney in August 1890. Two years later it was transferred to James Chesters of 155 Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, estate agent. By 1894 Chesters had subdivided this land as Deposited Plan 899, with 42 lots laid out around Queen Street (soon renamed Union Street). The Subiaco Rates Books indicate that Lots 3 & 4, with frontages to Hamersley Road, were transferred to Mary Isabella Halkett-Hay in 1915/1916, although the land title wasn't formally transferred to her until October 1917. Mary and John Halkett-Hay had built a house on the block and were living here by 1919, but had moved away by 1920 (and had settled in Queensland by the mid-1920s). The property was then purchased by Gilbert Wilfred Roberts, possibly in anticipation of his marriage to Hilda Dorcas Atwell in May 1920: ROBERTS-ATWELL.-On May 8, 1920, at St. Paul's Church, Beaconsfield, by the Rev. F. T. Bowen, Gilbert (Bert), son of Mrs. M. M. Roberts of Railway-road, Subiaco, to Hilda, daughter of Mrs, S. P. Atwell, Mary-street, Fremantle. At home, Wednesday, June 23, afternoon and evening, Sonoma, 177 Hamersley-road, Subiaco. It then became the long-term family home of Gilbert, Hilda and their son Keith (born 1922). In about 1923 Gilbert’s sister, Mabel, purchased the adjacent site (Lots 1 and 2, 173 Hamersley Road) and built a house, which she occupied with their mother, Mrs Maud Mary Roberts. The Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Plan for the street (as amended in 1955) shows that the area between the two houses was laid out as a tennis court (straddling the boundary between Lots 2 & 3). Gilbert Roberts died in 1949 and his mother in 1954, but Hilda and her sister-in-law, Mabel, continued to live side-by-side until Mabel’s death in 1969. Hilda then remained at 177 Hamersley Road until the late 1970s. Arial photographs show that the area between the two houses remained as an open grassed area in 1985, but that the central boundary had been defined and both houses extended towards this side boundary by 1995. These works included major alterations and additions towards the rear of 177 Hamersley Road and the construction of a new garage at the north-eastern corner of the site.

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