Blairlogie Training Centre

Newton Avenue, Baxter

Citation:

History
As early as 1904 Henry Toombs, a seaman, was rated as the owner of a building on 96 acres in Crown Allotments 73B and part of 73A, Parish of Langwarrin.1

Toombs was shown as the registered owner of 73A in 1905.1 However 73B, the site of the Blairlogie Training Centre, another selection block, was owned in 1886 by the Universal Permanent Building and Investment Company.2

From about 1908, Henry Toombs was rated as the owner of the wooden house on Allotments 73A and 73B, occupied then by Charles Toombs, farmer.3 Charles Toombs was there still in the early 1920s when he was both owner and occupier.4

The site of Blairlogie in Allotment 73B was sold in 1926 by Albert Henry Toombs of Ascot Vale.5 From that time and into the early 1930s, following a subdivision, Newton C. Holdsworth of Bayswater owned the former Toombs property, together with Allotment 74.6 Newton Avenue may have been created at this time.

According to Rod Puls, the executive officer of the Blairlogie Training Centre, the present occupier of the site, the property was bought in the 1980s by Greg Campbell; the Centre's benefactor. He leased the site to a society established by the parents of a group of intellectually disabled children. They opened the Centre in 1986 on the present eleven acre site. It provides training in living and vocational skills for a group of intellectually disabled adults. Activities include gardening and recreation. As well as the 2-storey house, the property also contains a number of small structures said to be dog kennels. The Centre will move to another location soon.7

Description
This attic style stuccoed house has a gabled roof, associated garage and is surrounded with Monterey cypress and other mature plantings on its hillside siting. The house is simply styled in the English cottage manner typical of the 1920s-30s but may include an earlier house. Beyond the house is an extensive number of skillion roof (reputedly) dog houses, most clad with fibrous cement sheet which are from another era of development.

Condition
The house appears close to the form of its last major renovation.

Context
The house and trees are sited on the top of a pasture-covered hillside, with recent subdivision to the north.

Significance
This house, which appears to date from just after the First World War period and is well-preserved externally, has local historical significance for its good representation of the now disappearing large farm houses built in the district early this century and, later, as an example of the continuing choice of a rural location within the south and eastern part of Frankston City for welfare housing.

Boundaries
Extent of current allotment, including the Monterey cypress row, front fence and house exterior.