Leitrim Hotel, 128-130 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Leitrim Hotel, 128-130 Little Lonsdale Street, Melbourne
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1985
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BIF-CITY 106052
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2022:__________________________________________________DATE: 1888;ASSOCIATIONS: Victoria Brewing Company Ltd.;DESIGNER: Tolhurst, Henry E;BUILDER: Jason Fraser of West Melbourne__________________________________________________GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDY.Statement of SignificanceFormer Leitrim Hotel128-130 Little Lonsdale Street1889HistoryArchitect, H E Tolhurst, designed this former hotel for the Victoria Brewing Co. Ltd. in late 1888. Jason Fraser of West Melbourne was the builder and the site, that of an earlier Leitrim Hotel dating back to the 1860s. Early licensees included William Edwards and Richard Faber until 1906 when the owner, Emil Resch, leased it to the Carlton and Victoria breweries who apparently closed the hotel in 1907. Like the Exploration Hotel (qv) it had been absorbed by factories. Chinese cabinet maker, Lim Wing War & Co occupied the old hotel from early this century into the 1920s, joining other Chinese who pursued similar occupations in the north eastern parts of Melbourne city.The designer, Henry Tolhurst, enjoyed a limited private practice given his position as Surveyor of the Collingwood municipality. Description A three-storey and ornate, unusually complete facade, stylistically based on the Italian High Renaissance. It has a raised segment-arched pediment and entablature at the parapet, main cornice, successive string moulds at the storey levels, and generally arched fenestration, with associated architraves and impost mouldings. At ground level, the pilasters dividing the central bar windows and entrance (right hand) from the residential doorway (left) are complete, possessing rustication at the sides, pilasters and panels of fluting on the others. Incised, foliated patterns are used on pilasters and the upper facade to provide the final layer of ornaments to this intricate elevation. The cement facade is unpainted.External IntegrityInternally altered for use as a factory, as reflected by the new steel windows and cemented spandrels central to the facade. Doors have been sheeted over (?) or replaced and reputedly the cellar footpath entry has been closed in.StreetscapeDominant part of a generally 19th Century commercial streetscape.SignificanceAn unusually well preserved ornate late 19th Century facade, which possesses, in one plane, most of the devices used in the Renaissance revival of the 19th Century. As an externally near complete hotel, it has historical interest as a social meeting place, albeit over the relatively short period of 24 years. It …is also part of a commercial streetscape__________________________________________________Graeme Butler & Associates 2010. HERITAGE ASSESSMENT OF BUILDINGS AT 116-132 LITTLE LONSDALE ST, MELBOURNEStatement of SignificanceWhat is significant?Designed by Henry Tolhurst for his brewery client, Victoria Brewing Co. Ltd in 1888 this two storey boom-style classical revival hotel is externally well-preserved and has distinctive cement rendered façade. It is on a site occupied by a Leitrim Hotel since the 1860s and remains as one of the key building types in the notorious `Little Lon’ district.It forms part of a group with the nearby row house pair and the adjoining former Exploration Hotel, as a centre of well publicised and documented criminal and social events that characterised the district.How is it significantThe Leitrim Hotel at 128-130 Little Lonsdale Street is of local historical, aesthetic and architectural significance to the City of Melbourne.Why is it significantThe Leitrim Hotel, 128-130 Little Lonsdale Street, is locally significant.Historically:As a hotel over a 20 year period, on a site that has held a hotel from the 1860s, and externally well-preserved to its construction date, the building holds strong associations as a public place within the infamous `Little Lon’ district including the period linked with the growth of Chinatown.As a representative of one of the key building types that once made up the district helping to form its reputation as a refuge for low life and a vehicle for amoral behaviour, as well as a refuge for ethnic groups. Remnant buildings from the `Little Lon’ era are now scattered across the nearby City blocks.Like the adjacent Exploration Hotel, the Leitrim Hotel was also an example of a victim of the Licensing Reduction Board of the Edwardian-era that aimed to reduce the number and concentration of public houses particularly in dubious areas of the City.As a design by Henry Tolhurst for his brewery client, Victoria Brewing Co. Ltd , the hotel represents the emerging nexus between brewery ownership of hotels, hitherto privately owned. This corporatisation of hotel outlets for sale of bewery produce was to continue in the Edwardian-era under the Carlton & United Brewery Company Ltd. who developed numerous hotels using one architect and a distinct architectural styleAestheticallyThe hotel is a well-preserved example of boom style classicism as applied to a medium sized urban hotel, with distinctive cement ornament including extensive incised detailing across its walls. Unlike many hotels the typical ground level format of separate bar and lounge entries either side of a central bar window are still apparent.Many significant City Victorian-era hotel examples are also highly ornamented with significant Italian renaissance detailing and are on a larger scale but most but lack the highly modelled façade elements of the Leitrim and hence the vigour of its architectural expression.__________________________________________________VICTORIA HERITAGE REGISTER H2242Statement of Significance.What is significant?The former Leitrim Hotel was designed by the architect Henry E Tolhurst and built in 1888 for the Victoria Brewing Co Ltd by Jason Fraser of West Melbourne. The site had been occupied from 1852 by a four-roomed brick house and stable, which by 1855 was owned by Martin Rooney and used as a shop. The first Leitrim Hotel was built on the site by Rooney in the mid-1860s, and was named after a hotel of the same name in Dublin where an historic meeting was held in 1850 to express sympathy with the dismissed Orange magistrates. By 1882 the hotel was described as dilapidated and dirty, the license was in doubt and in 1888, at the height of Melbourne's boom, the building was replaced. The architect Tolhurst had been Town Clerk and Surveyor for the Borough of Eaglehawk, where he had designed the old Town Hall (replaced in 1901) and the Mechanics Institute (1865, VHR H713). In 1884 he became Surveyor for the Municipality of Collingwood, but also practised as a private architect and surveyor and was involved with a number of works for brewing companies. The hotel was in the part of Melbourne known as 'Little Lon', notorious in the second half of the nineteenth century for its supposed poverty, crime and debauchery, where hotels abounded. The hotel was taken over in 1906 by Carlton & United Breweries, which closed it in 1907. A Chinese cabinet-maker, Lim Wing War & Co occupied the building until the 1920s, joining other Chinese who pursued similar occupations in this part of the city. The building was converted into offices in the 1980s and later into a residence.The former Leitrim Hotel is a three storey brick building with an unusually intact unpainted stuccoed facade ornately decorated with classical motifs. At the ground level the pilasters dividing the central bar window from the former bar entrance on the right and the former residential entrance on the left are decorated with rustication, incised fluting and foliated patterns. Decorated panels, pilasters and stucco roundels also adorn the stucco on the upper levels. The building is surmounted by an elaborate entablature, a balustraded parapet and a central segmental-arched pediment with 'LEITRIM HOTEL 1888' written in the raised letters. The exterior is intact apart from the replacement of the bar window. The interior has been completely rebuilt.This site is part of the traditional land of the Wurundjeri people.How is it significant?The former Leitrim Hotel is of architectural and historical significance to the state of Victoria.Why is it significant?The former Leitrim Hotel is architecturally significant for its ornate and unusually well preserved boom period stucco facade, which displays many of the elaborate decorative devices used in the Renaissance revival of the nineteenth century. It is unusual as a particularly fine and intact example of a smaller city hotel of the period which retains its original appearance with separate bar and residential entrances either side of a central bar window on the ground floor.The former Leitrim Hotel is historically significant as a reflection of the many smaller hotels which were once common in Victoria and particularly in this area of the city of Melbourne, which was once part of the notorious 'Little Lon' district.__________________________________________________GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM cites source 77; Parapet date__________________________________________________DARYL JACKSON EVAN WALKER ARCHITECTS PTY. LTD 1976 FOR HISTORIC BUILDINGS PRESERVATION COUNCIL; MELBOURNE: THE AREA BOUNDED BY VICTORIA, SPRING, LONSDALE AND SWANSTON STS (source 77)Building Name Leitrim HotelAddress 128 Little Lonsdale StreetDate Built 1862 Extensively renovated 1885-------------------_.Construction materials3 storey brick with stucco decoration, timber floor structure.Recommendation·That the building be included on the Historic BuildingsRegister.1 HistoricalThe hotel was opened by Martin Rooney in 1862 on the site of a hay and corn store which was in Martin Rooney’s name the previous year. (1) By 1865 Rooney called his hotel the Leitrim Hotel. (2) 2 Architectural2.1 When built in 1862 it was described as a “bar and four rooms" (1) It is likely that the building was of two floors (considering the present floor plan). In 1865 the description changed to "bar, six rooms, stable and out offices of brick (2), the increase in accommodation probably provided an additional storey. In 1885 the facade was· renovated (according to the date on the building) and an additional 'room added (3).2.2 .3 Storey cement rendered building but for one exposed band of 2 courses or brick between the 2nd and 3rd storeys. At the first level there is a 3 part division with 2 narrow doors on each side of a wider central window which has been replaced with steel windows in the 20th Century. The sides have been built up in blocks with tooled margins, or imitation sunk margins, and the 2 vertical divisions between the doors and the 'windows are in a reduced form of pilaster consisting of a plain base block, then a block with 4 rather coarse flutings on the face then a short block of incised decoration, another fluted block and finally another block of incised decoration carrying the mouldings for the first cornice. The second level has two arched windows and a moulding at springing level. The arcaded treatment in the second .floor is inconsistent in that the piers don’t continue down below sill level and there is a very strange device supporting the sill. One panel of incised decoration between the paired windows and the impost moulding is supported on rather rudimentary paired scrolls rather than ·on any sort of special pilaster. Closing this storey on either side is a pilaster treatment with a recessed panel and ornamental paterae and then instead of continuing into a capital there is a paired scroll supporting a projecting block.At the 3rd level the recessed panel and paired scrolls are repeated carrying an even more projecting block. There are again 2 windows with segmental rather than arched heads and with the same incised decoration between the windows and a plain panel on either side and small areas of incised decoration above impost level as well. The top cornice is supported on very crude brackets with 4 foliated panels in between. The cornice itself is quite plain and then there is a deep balustrade which is in a pattern with a circular opening with a fluted block at each end surmounted by a smaller block and carrying a ball on top and the Name Plate (semi-circular) with a segmental arch over it, in the centre.2.3 The building is in a late eclectic manner with mixed Renaissance sources, and less dense than Hitchcock's treatment. The stucco facade is finely detailed. The incised decoration to pilasters at the first level and between windows at the upper levels is of particular interest. This form of decoration is reminiscent of the work of George Lacey Evans as seen in the Lygon Buildings, Carlton. The facade is in remarkably original condition.3 Recommendation That the building be included on the Historic Buildings Register on the basis of architectural importance. The shell of the building only need be specified.Footnotes(1) M. C. C Rate Book Gipps Ward 1862.(2) M. C.C. Rate Book: Gipps Ward 1865.( 3 ) M.C.C. Rate Book Gipps Ward 1885.__________________________________________________LEWIS, M- AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE INDEX:Record 74852 Tholerst (sic), H E; Victoria Brewing Co Ltd Melbourne VIC Hotels Fraser, Jason - 124 Spencer St west 1888 11 30 3698, MCC registration no 3698 [Burchett Index]. Fee 2.10.0 Letheron (sic) Hotel__________________________________________________VICTORIA HERITAGE REGISTER H2242https://vhd.heritagecouncil.vic.gov.au/places/149565FORMER LEITRIM HOTEL - History[Based on information in 'Heritage Assessment of Buildings at 116-132 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne', Graeme Butler & Associates 2010.].CONTEXTUAL HISTORY.The population boom in Melbourne following the gold rushes of the early 1850s saw increased subdivision in Melbourne's 'Little' streets and lanes for residential use, particularly in the north-east part of the town. By the early 1850s most of the sites between the ubiquitous corner hotels had been occupied by small shops, offices and homes. Over the next thirty years the gaps were filled in and existing buildings added to or face-lifted. In the lanes were an increasing number of new, small cottages and shops, sometimes of only one or two rooms.By 1861 the population of Melbourne was 125,000, and there was a boom in construction of housing, schools, churches and public buildings. By then most of the township Crown lots had been sold and specific districts with special types of occupancies began to form: the eastern end of Collins Street attracted the medical profession; the central and western parts the insurance companies, banks and building societies; the western end of Little Collins Street the legal profession. Bourke Street had its theatres and music halls and from this sprang the reputation of the nearby Little streets such as Little Bourke and Little Lonsdale. 'The theatres and dance halls were in Bourke Street, and the brothels in Exhibition Street. By the 1880s . the brothels were Stephen [Exhibition] Street and the areas opening off it, until the time of the clean-up preparatory to the 1880 Exhibition, when they were displaced to Fitzroy and elsewhere.' (Bates, Essential but unplanned, pp 93, 12.)The area around Little Lonsdale Street became a focus of reformers' attention. The various mission halls and churches located nearby served their needs, notably today the Wesleyan Church complex on Lonsdale Street (begun in 1858), the Hebrew Congregational Synagogue, later the Salvation Army Mission, at the Exhibition and Little Lonsdale Street corner, and others which have now disappeared: the Primitive Methodist Chapel in Latrobe Street and Baptist Church on the Lonsdale/Exhibition Street corner.Central Melbourne was still to a significant extent a residential area, and it was occupied largely with terraces, lodging houses and medium density accommodation, whose occupants occupied much of their leisure outside the home. The hotels, which were very numerous and mostly very small, played a much greater role in social life than they were to do in the twentieth century. (Lewis, Melbourne, chapter 4)Its early dubious reputation and the later absorption of the area into a greater Chinatown area led in part to the singling out of the district as distinct from others in the city, and the naming of it as 'Little Lon'. This was the name covering the streets running through the then notorious north-east corner of Melbourne during the 1860s, with recent emphasis on that part east of Exhibition Street. Gradually the area began to be seen as a 'world apart', known for its 'crime and debauchery'.Greater ChinatownWhile today's Chinatown is centred along Little Bourke Street between Swanston and Exhibition Streets, research has shown that during the period c1891-1907 Chinatown extended over a large area, reaching north beyond Little Lonsdale Street. By 1907 the Sands & McDougall Directory recorded what is thought to be the greatest number of Chinese-occupied buildings in the city: a total of 378, 122 of these in Little Lonsdale Street and the lanes running off it. The buildings along Little Lonsdale Street between Russell and Spring Streets were almost all occupied by people with Chinese names.The building at 132 Little Lonsdale Street was built in the Edwardian period for the furniture trade and was occupied over a long period by Chinese cabinet-makers, as were the other converted buildings in the group at 116-132 Little Lonsdale Street, into the inter-war period. Chinese cabinet-makers had been located in this part of the city since the 1880s, sometimes renting workshops from European furniture dealers, who then sold their produce.The growing numbers of Chinese Australians in turn created a feeling of trepidation nationally among some members of the European population, culminating in the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act.The Chinese had numbered some 25,000 in Victoria at the beginning of the 1870s, declining with the decrease of alluvial gold in the Colony to about 5,000 in the early 1880s. In 1891 there were about 2,500 in Melbourne, or about 30% of the colony's Chinese population, showing that they had retired to an urban environment to serve the boom time prosperity in such occupations as cabinet making and laundries.In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Little Lon was an area of great diversity, with cramped housing for dozens of families of the multi-cultural poor community mixed with brothels, pubs, workshops and small warehouses. Following the passing of the Immigration Restriction Act in 1901 there was a gradual shift of Chinese businesses and residents out of the city. By the 1930s the Chinese population had declined and what had been the greater Chinatown was occupied by later waves of immigrants of differing nationalities in search of cheap housing. The area evolved into a patchwork of different communities and activities in the inter-war period.The architect: Henry Edmeades TolhurstHenry Tolhurst was for eighteen years the Town Clerk, Surveyor, Valuer etc for the Eaglehawk Borough, where he designed the old Eaglehawk Town Hall (1865, replaced in 1901) and the adjacent Mechanics Institute, but resigned in 1884 and became Surveyor of the Collingwood municipality. He was also acting as an architect and private surveyor in the late 1880s and laid out the Yarra View Estate in Alphington in 1888. He was involved with a number of works for brewery companies, including a new brewery for Shamrock Brewing and Malting Co Ltd at Collingwood in 1890, and a bottling department with boiler and bottle washing houses for Foster Brewing Co, Collingwood, in 1894-5. He also designed alterations to the Forester's Hall at 64-6 Smith Street; the drying rooms and other buildings at the Convent of the Good Shepherd, Abbotsford; the Convent of the Good Shepherd and Magdalen Asylum complex at South Melbourne in 1891-2; the South Yarra Fire Station in 1894; a factory at Abbotsford in 1896; and two shops in Johnston Street, Collingwood in 1899. He died in 1902.HISTORY OF PLACEThe original Crown grantee of the site of the later numbers 124-6 Little Lonsdale Street, was Douglas Kilburn, the crown grantee of Allotments 14 and 15, Section 16. Kilburn subdivided these two blocks and created Bennett's Lane.Thomas Payne sold the 19 ft by 60 ft block to Frederick Mason in 1850 for £25, Mason sold to Benjamin Constable in 1851 for £41, but with in two years Pat Casey had purchased it for £200, reflecting the inflation brought on by the gold rushes. Casey applied to build a house in Little Lonsdale Street in 1852. By 1855 Martin Rooney had acquired the site with a building on it for £835, described in the rate-books as a brick house of four rooms and a stable, which was later referred as a shop.The first Leitrim Hotel was built here in the mid-1860s, and was licensed in 1865 to Martin Rooney (who died in 1875). The name derived from a hotel of the same name in Dublin where a historic meeting was held in 1850 to express sympathy with the dismissed Orange magistrates in Ireland. In 1878 Little Lonsdale Street's Leitrim Hotel was the organisational centre of the Hibernian Society's Sports, but by 1882 the hotel's license was in doubt, being described as 'dilapidated and dirty' along with many others in the Little Lon area.The architect H E Tolhurst designed a new nine-room brick Leitrim Hotel on the site for the Victoria Brewing Co Ltd in late 1888, the peak of Melbourne's boom period. Jason Fraser of West Melbourne was the builder. A fourteen year lease of the hotel began in 1889 with an advance of £1400 by James and Alfred Nation to the estate of Rooney. The licensee in 1896, Pat Barnes, was accused of breach of the license and dubious conduct for sheltering criminals and delaying admission to the police. In 1906 the leaseholder, Emil Resch, released it to the Carlton & Victoria Breweries, who closed the hotel in December 1907. Resch had just purchased the mansion Belmont and 4 acres in Studley Park Road, Kew.Like the nearby Exploration Hotel the former Leitrim Hotel was used as a factory. The Chinese cabinet maker Lim Wing War & Co occupied the old hotel from early in the twentieth century into the 1920s, joining other Chinese who pursued similar occupations in the north-eastern parts of the city.The last of the Rooney family, Martin Jnr, died in 1949 and the old hotel was sold to George W Campbell for £3700.A new concrete stair was added in 1952, but in the 1980s the building was converted into offices, the timber stair was rebuilt, and the facade was restored. Since then the building has been converted into a residence and all of the original interior features, including the staircases, have been removed.__________________________________________________Graeme Butler & Associates 2010. HERITAGE ASSESSMENT OF BUILDINGS AT 116-132 LITTLE LONSDALE ST, MELBOURNEHotel (Former), 128 -130 Little Lonsdale Street Melbourne 3000HistoryThis building is part of a building group located on Allotments 13-14 of Section 26, Parish of North Melbourne, adjoining allotment 12. John Wollaston was the crown grantee of two blocks 12 & 13 sold in 1848-9, allotment 12 for ₤167 and allotment 13 for ₤164. Douglas Thomas Kilburn was the crown grantee of land surrounding this site in 1848-9: Allotments 14 & 15, Section 26. Kilburn subdivided these two blocks, creating Bennetts Lane.Thomas Payne sold the 19 feet by 60 feet block to Frederick Mason in 1850 for ₤25 Mason resold to Benjamin Constable in 1851 for ₤41 but within two years Pat Casey had purchased the land for ₤200, indicative of the inflation brought on by the gold rush from 1851. By 1855 Martin Rooney has acquired the site for ₤835 with potentially a building in place (a 4.1/2 inch or one brick width margin was allowed for on the east boundary); Casey signed the transmittal with his mark.This was the site of an earlier Leitrim Hotel dating back to the 1860s. There was also a legendry Leitrim Hotel in Dublin where, in 1850, one of two key meetings was held to express sympathy with the dismissed Orange magistrates in Ireland. The meeting at the Leitrim Hotel had Viscount Lorton in the chair, with the principal speakers being the Earls of Ennis-killen and Mays, the Lords Downes, Castlemaine and Dunsany among other notables. This historic event was well publicised in the Melbourne press at the time.The Melbourne Leitrim Hotel was licensed to Martin Rooney in 1865 with one of the first mentions in the local press of the hotel being a 5s reward offered for a lost back and white speckled goat with a crumpled horn in 1866. In the following year Martin Rooney of the Leitrim Hotel offered another reward for a missing greyhound.Martin Rooney had in fact been rated for a brick house of 4 rooms and a stable as far back as 1855 (then 119 Little Lonsdale St) but in subsequent valuations it had been a brick shop and only named as a hotel by the mid 1860s. Martin Rooney’s funeral was announced in 1875, the procession leaving from the Leitrim Hotel. His widow, Elizabeth, remarried to Michael Clarke but was dead by 1878, leaving Martin junior.The Irish flavour at the Leitrim Hotel had not waned by 1878 when the hotel was the organisational centre of the Hibernian Society’s Sports , with advertisement -WANTED, VIOLINISTS for Reel and Jig Dancing, However by 1882 the hotel’s license was in doubt when Patrick Dimeny’s Leitrim Hotel was described as `dilapidated and dirty’ along with many others in the `Little Lon’ district.Architect, H E Tolhurst designed a new nine-room brick Leitrim Hotel on the site for the Victoria Brewing Co. Ltd in late 1888. Jason Fraser of West Melbourne was the builder. A 14 year lease of the hotel commenced in 1889 with an advance of ₤1400 by James and Alfred Nation to the estate of Rooney.The hotel was created in a development boom period only outdone in the city by the gold rush era of the 1850s:In the City of Melbourne nine or ten new buildings per week were put up in the period 1885-90 …In the same year as the hotel reconstruction, Mrs Annie Edwards, wife of the hotel licensee William and daughter of William Devine, died at the hotel. Another death connected with the hotel was publicised in the Melbourne Argus.SUICIDE IN A SHOOTING GALLERY.The young man Lawrence Faber, who shot himself in the shooting gallery at the Eastern Market on Friday night, was 30 years of age, and a barman by occupation. He had latterly been drinking heavily, and had several times told his brother, Richard Faber, licensee of the Leitrim Hotel, Little Lonsdale-street, that he would shoot himself. On Friday he visited his brother, and said "Good-bye; I am going to shoot myself," but as he was drunk at the time his words were not seriously interpreted. Later in the evening he went to the Eastern Market, and having had 11 shots at a target, shot himself dead with the twelfth and Iast bullet his payment entitled him to. At an inquest held by Dr. Youl yesterday concerning the circumstances of his death, a verdict was returned of suicide whilst in a state of intoxication.Another incident linked with the hotel saw a breach of the license and dubious conduct by the licensee, Pat Barnes, accused of sheltering criminals in 1896.…before Mr. Buzolich, J.P., and Mr Thomas Learmonth, J P, the licensee of the Leitrim Hotel, Little Lonsdale street, Patrick Barnes, was summoned for permitting improper characters on his premises, and for wilfully delaying admission to the police on the 19th ult. On the first charge a fine of ₤2 was imposed. The second charge was withdrawn.Other licensees included Richard Faber in the 1890s until 1906 when the leaseholder, Emil Resch, released it to the Carlton and Victoria Breweries who closed the hotel in December 1907. Resch had just purchased the mansion, Belmont and 4 acres in Studley Park Road, Kew.Figure 36 MMBW Detail Plan (part) 1896 showing hotel and dotted cellar with adjoining vacant lotsLike the Exploration Hotel (qv) the former Leitrim Hotel had been absorbed by factories. Chinese cabinet maker, Lim Wing War & Co occupied the old hotel from early this century into the 1920s, joining other Chinese who pursued similar occupations in the north eastern parts of Melbourne City.The last of the Rooneys, Martin junior, died in 1949 and the old hotel was sold to George W Campbell for ₤3700.A new concrete stair was added in 1952 by Carlton builder E Goette and Sons for George W Campbell. However it was in the 1980s that the most positive changes occurred with the building’s conversion to offices, removing the concrete stair, rebuilding a timber stair, and restoration of the façade to designs by Graham H Jasper P/L, architect for Garan Properties. This was after plans by PDA Projects to convert it into a residence earlier in the 1980s.Figure 37 Rear elevation in 1986 with proposed new rear wing (MCC BA60692)Figure 38 proposed façade restoration works in 1987 (MCC BA62970)Figure 39 Section through former hotel showing rebuilt stair (MCC BA60692)Henry Edmeades TolhurstThe hotel’s designer, Henry Tolhurst, enjoyed a private practice limited to the late 1880s until his death, given his 18 year long position as Town Clerk, Surveyor, Valuer, etc. at the Eaglehawk Borough. He resigned in 1884 and became the Surveyor of the Collingwood municipality (1880s). He was also acting as an architect and private surveyor by the late 1880s laying out the Yarra View Estate in Alphington, sold 1888. One of his cases as municipal building surveyor was indicative of the extent of intervention in building by local government in the Victorian-era.Mr Tolhurst, city surveyor and building inspector of Collingwood, prosecuted 3 persons for breaches of the building regulations. The most serious case was for erecting a cornice of greater width than the supporting wall. Tolhurst stated that the cornice might topple. Mr Pitt, architect, corroborated this evidence.His link with the Leitrim Hotel coincides with involvement with other related brewery works: he called for prices for erection of new brewery for Shamrock Brewing and Malting Co. Ltd., at Collingwood (VIC) in 1890, a bottling department with boiler and bottle washing houses for Foster Brewing Co., Collingwood, Melbourne in 1894-5. This was the era when Foster's Lager was supplied to Australian soldiers who fought in the Boer War in South Africa from 1899. By 1907 Foster's joined with a number of small Melbourne breweries to become Carlton & United Breweries Proprietary Limited (CUB) and within 3-4 years Foster's Lager sales had increased by some 83.8 per cent.There was also alterations to the 'Hall', in Smith Street Collingwood in 1891 (assumed the notable Foresters Hall- Court Perseverance 2727 at 64-66 Smith Street), the drying rooms and other buildings at the Victorian Heritage Register listed Convent of the Good Shepherd, Abbotsford 1891, the Convent of the Good Shepherd and Magdalen Asylum complex at South Melbourne in 1891-2; the South Yarra Fire Station design in 1894, villa, Clarke Street, Abbotsford in 1895, the factory for Messrs. Davies and Pearce at Abbotsford in 1896, a factory and dwelling in Nicholson Street, North Fitzroy, and 2 shops in Johnston Street, Collingwood in 1899.Henry Edmeades Tolhurst was approved by the Council to the status of Fellow of the Royal Victorian Institute of Architect in the 1890s. He designed the layout of the new cemetery at Springvale and designed a church at Tooradin, Victoria c1900 but was dead by 1902..Figure 40 Leitrim Hotel as part of a building group: Karl Halla` 1960 - 1970. Little Lonsdale Street between Russell Street and Exhibition Street (North Melbourne Library)__________________________________________________
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