John Curtin's former Melbourne home sells for $710,000
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The former home of one of Australia's greatest prime ministers, John Curtin, sold for $710,000 at weekend auction.
The 1906 Brunswick weatherboard came with $600,000-plus pre-auction estimates. Bidding commenced on a $600,000 vendor bid and then another at $610,000 at the auction (pictured above). The opening bidder at $620,000 secured the property, beating off three other potential buyers.
“I think I’d better grab my nervous wife from the car,” the buyer said before being ushered inside to sign the paperwork by W.B. Simpson & Son's Syd Sherrin and Tim Maher.
Curtin lived in the double-fronted Fallon Street from 1912 to 1915, when in his late 20s he was the secretary of the Victorian Timber Workers Union and an organiser for the Australian Workers Union.
He stood unsuccessfully for his first parliamentary election, a state seat, in 1914.
It was the Fallon Street home Curtin returned to after spending a few days in jail in 1914 for protesting against conscription during World War I.
He was elected to Federal Parliament in 1928, became prime minister in 1941 and steered the country through the World War II years until his death in 1945 of a heart attack shortly before peace was declared.
The unrenovated house – which has heritage demolition restrictions – has been owned by the McAnally family since 1921, so many of its original period features remain.
It sits on a 463-square-metre block and is of aesthetic significance given the timber ashlar villa comes with fine detailing including the central pediment to the veranda, intact cast iron lacework and paired elongated double-hung sash windows.
It has a hipped painted corrugated iron roof return and a bullnose veranda.
It has red brick chimneys with rendered caps and plinths and paired brackets under the eave line.
The veranda has turned timber veranda posts.
It was a six-room house during Curtin’s rental.
The Creswick-born politician subsequently moved to Brunswick Road and in 1917 left Victoria for a new home with his wife, Elsie, in Western Australia.