Portland Lodge

1 Plummer Avenue, Frankston

History
Arthur Henty commissioned architects Mewton & Grounds to design a house on land on Oliver's Hill between Plummer Avenue and Sweetwater Creek, fronting the Pt. Nepean Road.1 Prior to this, M.G & F.G. Plummer had owned these and other lots in the area.2

Two years later, the architects won First Prize in the Ideal Home and Building Exhibition of 1936 for a house of more than eight rooms. The sloping site allowed three levels: the main level being linear in plan and north oriented, with sun and living rooms at one end (west) and the attached garage at the other. About central to the plan were the service rooms (kitchen, bathroom and maid's room) with a formal interface (via a servery room) to the adjacent dining room. Nearby was the morning room, close to the stairs which led to the three bedrooms on the third level. These bedrooms were demarcated as the "mistress's", "master" and "daughter's" (central). The basement held the laundry, box room, two maid's rooms and a study, providing all of the traditional and modern comforts.

Description
Resembling American houses in the 'Midwest Modern' style,3 the house was fragmented in form to suit the purposes within, but not flat – roofed as demanded by the European Modernist pioneers. Instead, it had gabled bays of differing widths, orientation and height, to create modestly scaled but extensive accommodation. The linear plan, determined by the sun and view access, helped create the form which was distinctive then but much more common now when combined with the gently gables Californian Ranch Style, which became the basis for Victoria's post-War Modern buildings.

Painted boards and brickwork also recall the American Colonial revival look, as well as the white-pointed European Modern Designs. Roy Grounds' own beach house repeated some of these forms and finishes.

External Integrity
Generally Original

Context
Represents one of the many stages of building now evident on Oliver's Hill, this stage being in the minority.

Significance – Study Grading B
Architecturally, the house is among the first modern designs in the American manner to be built in the State and by architects who promoted modernism in their designs, using both European and American influences: regional importance.

Historically, the house is a prize winner for its architecture in 1936 and linked with the pioneering Henty Family also a valuable representative of the superior buildings erected in Frankston During the 1930s: of local importance and regional interest.