Wave Three: Machines For Taking A Holiday

The style and form of these more privileged holiday houses altered between the 1870s and the 1920s and, with the use of Burley Griffin's Knitlock (q.v.) construction system for experimental holiday housing at Frankston (see Fig. 22) and the eccentric manners of the McClelland artist complex in Palm Court1, the shire became an experimental ground for holiday architecture. One of the more radical departures from the appearance of the Frankston holiday house was erected on the flat of Long Island, not the heights of Mt. Eliza.

On Long Island several innovative holiday homes were constructed for families of Melbourne businessmen and professionals. Whereas suburban house-builders often resisted the principles of the architectural movement which was to be known as Modernism, the owners of holiday houses were often prepared to take a risk with new designs. The modernists after all promised simplicity and flexibility in design, the qualities most prized in a holiday rather than a permanent home.

Amongst these new designs, was one house built in 1937 on Long Island and held up as a model for holiday home style. Designed by Roy Grounds for a Collins Street doctor, the house was presented as a building with no expensive finishes so as to cut down on maintenance. The building had hardwood floors and simple architraves and skirting boards. "In keeping with the holiday spirit everything in the house was subdivided". A light timber frame was covered with asbestos cement, all the main rooms faced onto the beach and the main room was designed on an, open plan. The roof had porcelain chipping. Along with other holiday home designs the building expressly included sleeping space which could be easily subdivided so that relatives and guest could easily visit.2

22 Burley Griffin's minimum house prototype, Pholiota in Heidelberg, c1919, was the basis for other modest houses in the Frankston area and, with other Griffin designs, served as an inspiration model for the 1950s houses of Chancellor and Patrick [Johnson, 'The Architecture of Walter Burley Griffin', p.61 noted as based on working drawings.]

The building of holiday houses many of them designed by innovative architects continued in Frankston between the wars. The number of these houses increased in the 1950s and 1960s when the firm of Chancellor & Patrick designed several experimental modern holiday homes (and permanent homes) in Frankston but more especially in Mt. Eliza.3 Amongst these was the house at 30 Gould Street, Long Island, built in 1956 by Arthur Moore for the Bennett family. David Chancellor's own house in Gulls Way adapted new techniques of construction to a relatively small floor space. The living area had no internal walls, the external walls sloped outwards at a 25 degree angle and a cantilevered bookcase and dining table gave a greater sense of light and space to the interior of the home.4

Another architectural firm Godfrey and Spowers brought modern shapes to parts of Frankston after the Second World War. Their house for J.K. Dougall in Mt. Eliza, Seaview, was thought in 1946 to "express the gaiety of the seaside spirit."5 Built to three storeys to take advantage of sea views, the building had a flat roof, used local stonework both inside and out and had slender iron pillars and railings.

A few years later an even more striking design was built on Oliver's Hill; Moonacres, coloured pink and with a flat roof reached by a ship's companionway boasted a silver sundeck. From it the owners the Rodwell family could take in a "view to inflame the soul and lighten the heart."6

The house made full use of its site and was designed as an open plan to make for easier movement and so that sunshine and sea breezes could penetrate to the heart of the building. With its Chinese bamboo blinds, the "Pale grey immaculateness" of its kitchen and built in sideboards and robes, it added a touch of the modern world to the old seaside resort.

23 One of many modern houses illustrated in home journals of the 1940s-60s: this was Bruce Sutherland's nine-square design to house six persons and one car (under): all overlooking the bay. Flat roofing, use of local rubble stone in chimneys and a modular light-weight structure were all very modern concepts for their time and were used many times in following years. ['The Australian Home Beautiful' 11.1946, p.27].

In Mt. Eliza the grounds of some of the older estates were sold off and more of these modern designs were built. When sited so as to take advantage of seaward views the flexible open-plan designs proved more significant than in any ordinary suburban house. One such house stands at 6 Yamala Drive on the former grounds of Yamala. The house here was built for Lady Jacobena Angliss in 1961 to a distinctive modern design.

These modern holiday homes are amongst the truly distinctive buildings in Frankston. They are important for their links to innovative designers and to the established figures for whom they were often built. In addition elements of their design have been copied at beachside resorts around Victoria. The small, simple space living spaces, with fold-away tables, built-in bookcases, benches between kitchen and living area and wooden and stone surfaces have been mimicked in the most mundane holiday home. The easy relaxed living and the communality supposedly inspired by these spaces extended to the outside of the building.

Modern materials were used in the hope that holidays could be maintenance-free. The houses were sited to give views and windows were placed so as to bring sunlight and air inside. Entrances were planned to avoid formal front and rear doors. A view almost always meant a balcony and even houses without views were often given sun-decks. Informality, relaxation and accommodation for more than the nuclear family unit were almost always major considerations in these houses. The work of Chancellor & Patrick and of other architects in Frankston used the principles of modern design, the house as a machine for living, to create innovative spaces for happy holidaying.