Bayne's shops and residences, later Little Reata restaurant, 68-70 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
Butler, Graeme1985
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Bayne's shops and residences, later Little Reata restaurant, 68-70 Little Collins Street, Melbourne
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Date of work:
1985
Reference number:
BIF-CITY 105967
Level of description:
Item from Collection: Heritage Collection (HC)
Type of materials:
Graphic materialsTextual material
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Series: Central City (BIF-CITY)
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UnrestrictedOpen access.
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UnrestrictedPlease contact City of Melbourne Libraries about obtaining permission to reproduce images.
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RESEARCH ADDED BY GRAEME BUTLER 2022:__________________________________________________Period: Early VictorianDATE: 1857-58;ASSOCIATIONS: Bayne, John;DESIGNER: Unknown- Bayne?;BUILDER: Bayne, JohnNotable features: Surprising integrity for age and locationIMAGE: https://flic.kr/p/2nFWind.GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYStatement of SignificanceHistoryBuilder, John Bayne, of nearby Stephen (Exhibition) Street, owned and built these two shops and residences in the period 1857-1858. Thomas Richardson, an engraver and lithographer and R and Mrs Vippond, a nurse, were among the first occupants. Another nurse followed in c1861, a Mrs Thorn, whilst P Nelson, a tailor and Archibald Lumsden, a jeweller, occupied number 70 in the period to 1870. A wide variety of small businesses have followed.DescriptionOf two levels, walled in basalt rubble with dressed quoins and architraves, and possessing show-window openings and probable early glazing framing, these shops and residences are remarkably intact, externally. A central door, top light and matching window in the upper level appears to have served as a residential entrance, complementing the two shop entrances either side. The façade is demarcated horizontally with a plain parapet cornice, storey string-mould and chamfered plinth at ground level. Comparable early stone-faced shops and residences are few in the metropolitan area (i.e. 1-3 Chetwynd Street, West Melbourne, 1867); earlier houses, warehouses and offices faced with stone being more numerous. This is the earliest known two-storey stone shop and residence pair in the State.IntegrityThe stone has been painted, sympathetic. Light fittings, numerous signs and air units have been added. Upper window glass has been painted, the show-windows reglazed and the residential entrance blocked.StreetscapeRelates in period detail, siting and scale to the adjoining buildings.SignificanceThe earliest known stone-faced, two-storey shop and residence pair in the State..CENTRAL CITY HERITAGE STUDY REVIEW 1993,Prepared by Philip Goad, Miles Lewis, Alan Mayne, etcAppendix 4:`Statement of SignificanceBuilt between 1857 - 1858 the two shops and residences at 66-70 Little Collins Street faced in basalt rubble with dressed quoins and architraves are of state significance as the earliest known two storey stone shop and residence pair in Victoria.'`History & Description:Builder, John Bayne, owned and built the two shops and residences at 66-70 Little Collins Street between 1857 - 1858. On 20 Apnl 1857 Bayne submitted a notice of intent to build to the Melbourne City Council, for a two storey house in Little Collins Street East. near Stephen Street 1 On 5 March 1858 he submitted another notice of intent for 155 Little Collins Street, to construct a 'house' 2 It seems unlikely that Bayne ever lived in the houses himself, maintaining the buildings as an investment, renting them out to a wide variety of small businesses.Two storeys in height, the buildings are walled in basalt rubble with dressed quoins and architraves. The show-window openings have what appears to be early window joinery The entrance to the upper level residential area of the building was through a central door at street level marked by a top light and matching window The shop entrances are at street level on either side of this entrance Comparable early stone-faced shops and residences are few in the Metropolitan area (cf. Chetwynd Street, West Melbourne, 1867).3 This Little Collins Street building is the earliest known two-storey stone shop and residence pair in the State. The building is currently a restaurant and bar trading under the title of Little Reata.Footnotes:`1 MCC Notice of intent to build, no 320.2 MCC Notice of intent to build, no 2033 G Butler. Central Activities District Conservation Study - (Graeme Butler, 1984 ) Citations 1991 City of Melbourne, p 125'.BRYCE RAWORTH PTY LTD, 2002 REVIEW OF HERITAGE OVERLAY LISTINGS IN THE CBDStatement of SignificanceHistory and DescriptionBuilder, J Berm [Butler] owned and built the two shops and residences at 66-70 Little Collins Street between 1857-1858 [Lewis]. On 20 April 1857 Bayne submitted a notice of intent to build to the Melbourne City Council, for a two storey house in Little Collins Street East, near Stephen Street (near Exhibition Street) [BPA]. On 5 March 1858 he submitted another notice of intent for 155 Little Collins Street, to construct a 'house' [BPA}. It seems unlikely that Bayne ever lived in the houses himself, maintaining the buildings as an investment, renting them out to a wide variety of small businesses.Two storeys in height, the buildings are walled in basalt rubble with dressed quoins and architraves. The show-window openings have what appears to be remnants of original or early window joinery. The entrance to the upper level residential area of the building was through a central door at street level marked by a top light and matching window. The shop entrances are at street level on either side of this entrance. Comparable early stone-faced shops and residences are few in the Metropolitan area (cf. Chetwynd Street, West Melbourne, 1867) [Butler]. This Little Collins Street building is the earliest known two-storey stone shop and residence pair in the State. The building is currently used as a restaurant and bar. The building has recently been stripped of its exterior paint which has gone some way towards reinstating the original appearance of the building. New glazing and joinery is in evidence in some locations but the building retains a high degree of integrity to its original state. The building is generally in good condition.Statement of SignificanceBuilt between 1857 - 1858, the two shops and residences at 66-70 Little Collins Street faced in basalt rubble with dressed quoins and architraves are of state significance as an early two storey stone shop and residence pair in Victoria.Footnotes:Butler, 1985. CAD Conservation Study: 66-70 Little Collins Street.Lewis Vines, 1976, CAD Study, p28.MCC Notice of intent to build,(Building Permit Application) no.320.MCC Notice of intent to build, no.203..GRAEME BUTLER & ASSOCIATES 2011, CENTRAL CITY (HODDLE GRID) HERITAGE REVIEWStatement of SignificanceWhat is significant?Builder, John Bayne, of nearby Stephen (Exhibition) Street, owned and built these two shops and residences in the period 1857-1858. Bayne & Merrifield were also the contractors for the early Pentridge or Coburg Church of England in the 1850s. Bayne was a wealthy man when he died in the 1880s. This was the decade when Melbourne's population had increased five times with a consequent need for infrastructure and commercial outlets.Mrs Bayne, milliner and dressmaker, was among the first occupants of one of the shops, with Thomas Richardson, an engraver and lithographer and R and Mrs Vippond, a nurse in later years. Another nurse followed in c1861, a Mrs Thorn, whilst P Nelson, a tailor and Archibald Lumsden, a jeweller, occupied number 70 in the period to 1870.A wide variety of small businesses have followed. One of the more recent was Tom Lazar's Little Reata Mexican restaurant started there in the 1960s, achieving some prominence for Lazar as an eating place and, briefly, an early Melbourne folk club where acts such as the Seekers and Paul Marks launched careers; Lazar went on to set up other distinctive restaurants in old City buildings.This is a two level shop and dwelling in a Colonial Georgian style, walled in coursed basalt rubble with dressed freestone quoins and architraves, and a dressed stone plinth. The former shops and dwellings possess display-windows, with probable early glazing frame remnants, and are relatively well-preserved externally for their age. A central door, top light and matching window in the upper level (sheeted over) appears to have served as a residential entrance, complementing the two shop entrances either side. The façade is demarcated horizontally with a plain parapet cornice, first storey string-mould and the chamfered stone plinth at ground level.Comparable early stone-faced shops and residences are few in the metropolitan area (i.e. 1-3 Chetwynd Street, West Melbourne, 1867); earlier houses, warehouses and offices faced with stone being more numerous. This is one of the earliest group of two-storey stone shop and residence pairs in the State. The shop pair relates in period detail, siting and scale to adjoining buildings.Light fittings and signs have been added. Openings sheeted over and the show-windows reglazed and rebuilt in part.How is it significant?Bayne's shops and residences are significant historically and aesthetically to the Melbourne Capital City Zone and Victoria.Why is it significant?Bayne's shops and residences are significant historically as among the earliest group of stone-faced, two-storey shop and residence pairs in the State. Constructed in the aftermath of the gold rush to serve a growing metropolis, the shops are reminders of this significant period in the City's development history and were more recently the setting for the revival of folk music in the City in the 1960s.Aesthetically, the successful use of the combination of rubble, dressed basalt and freestone in a classical revival façade is rare in a building of this scale, as is the high integrity..GRAEME BUTLER 1985 MELBOURNE CENTRAL ACTIVITIES DISTRICT CONSERVATION STUDYBUILDING IDENTIFICATION FORM cites Lewis, Nigel 1976 Historic and Architectural Survey of the Central City of Melbourne Bourke Street, east, Area 8 of the survey commissioned by the Historic Buildings Preservation Council, p28, 85 - not Recommended for Historic Buildings Register.__________________________________________________CITY OF MELBOURNE BUILDING PERMIT APPLICATIONSBurchett Index: MCC BPA 320, BPA203: 20 April 1857 Bayne submitted a notice of intent to build to the Melbourne City Council, for a two storey house in Little Collins Street East, near Stephen Street (near Exhibition Street) 5 March 1858 he submitted another notice of intent for 155 Little Collins Street, to construct a 'house' ;.VPRO MCC Building Permit Application register 1912-: March 1912 3229 alterations for Grace Bayne (inheritor of John) ₤3/3/- cnr Exhibition, Lt Collins St by A Clissold.__________________________________________________City of Melbourne i-Heritage:Central Activities District Conservation Study - Graeme Butler, 1984 Building Identification Form (BIF): Alterations / Recommendations: Upper illuminated sign , air units added, windows reglazed, signs extensive ( all inappropriate - remove or reinstate sympathetic alternative) Windows blocked ( inappropriate - reinstate original design or sympathetic alternative) Stone painted ( inappropriate - remove by approved method) Notable features include a shop front.__________________________________________________DeGruchy & Leigh 1866: shows a pair of 2 storey houses east from Exhibition StAC Cooke Melbourne panorama 1871: obscured__________________________________________________Mahlstedt Fire Insurance Plan Series:Mahlstedt & Gee 1888: 2 storey but not identical pair (supports sequence), 151 Weinreuter, E Upholsterer155 vacant__________________________________________________LEWIS, M- AUSTRALIAN ARCHITECTURE INDEX:Foundation stone laid of TrinityChurch, Pentridge. Architect, Charles Vickers, Builders - Merryfield and Bayne. To accommodate 800 persons. Melb. C. of E. Messenger New Series, I, 1 Nov. 1854 p 350__________________________________________________Probate records (PROV):Series number: VPRS 28Consignment number: P0002Unit number: 1081888 Will of John Bayne, builder, 21 Victoria Pde, Fitzroy (died 6 Sep 1880): bequest to widow Grace who died 1885. property includes (66) Stephen St part CA19/9 with a 3 storey house value ₤2800 ; (151-153) Little Collins St East, 30'3' ' 52'4' with two stone cottages, valued ₤1300; part CA17/9 wit brick cottage, value ₤300; part CP55 Jika Jika, (117) Hoddle st East Collinwood wit brick cottage ₤350; etc. The estate valued at ₤11935.__________________________________________________NEWSPAPERS (TROVE)`The Argus':Thursday 11 June 1885: Mrs Bayne's death `at her late residence, No. 21 Victoria-parade, Fitzroy, Mrs. Bayne, relict of the late Mr. John Bayne, builder, after a very short illness.__________________________________________________WEBVirgin Hills web site`Virgin Hills was the creation of the eccentric Hungarian-born sculptor and restaurateur Tom Lazar. Arriving from Paris in the mid-1960's, he found a country and a wine industry, very different to the one we know today.Lazar was determined to change all that. He established the acclaimed Little Reata restaurant in Melbourne. Then in 1968, came his grand vision of Virgin Hills…'.Warren Fahey web site:Malcolm J. Turnbull THE EARLY YEARS OF THE FOLK REVIVAL IN MELBOURNE`Still, if a single event can be said to have heralded the advent of a popular folk music scene in Australia, it was the decision of restaurateur Tom Lazar to introduce live music at his cafe, the Reata, in High Street, Malvern. A post-war European migrant, Lazar toyed briefly with the notion of presenting a German folk-dance floorshow, complete with lederhosen, feathered caps and beer steins. Fortunately, his wife Veronica was more farsighted; she suggested instead that the restaurant emulate American trends and engage a self-accompanied folksinger to entertain the patrons. “It’s the coming thing”, she predicted. Accordingly, the Reata was decked out in Greenwich Village chic: fishnets on the celling, candles in VAT 69 bottles, red and white gingham tablecloths. A heavy wooden door, separating the entry from the street, reinforced the cafe’s sense of “interiority’. The folksinger in question was a specialist in traditional blues, already well-known on the Melbourne jazz circuit.'.`Tom Lazar, at the Reata, had grown increasingly restive as diners complained about having to listen to folksingers when all they wanted was a convivial evening out with friends. Nor, of course, was such an environment likely to bring out the best in the performer. Garry Kinnane was once tossed a pound note with a curt request to “take your banjo up the other end of the restaurant”. Alarmed at declining patronage, Lazar had cut back the entertainment in Malvern and established the Little Reata in the city, hoping to redirect most of the folk trade there. As it was, the new venue encountered similar problems; by now Lazar had lost interest. (The two cafes had ceased to operate as folk venues by the end of 1964).'`THE EARLY YEARS OF THE FOLK REVIVAL IN MELBOURNE 'Peter Dickie, then still a teenager, remembers first being exposed to his first “real live folk music” when he heard (Paul) Marks play there one night in 1959. …Marks dates the start of his solo career at the Reata to Easter 1960.'`During the same period (from late 1962) she (Judith Durham) began performing folksongs, initially one evening a week, in up-market South Yarra, with Bruce Woodley and two of Woodley’s old school friends, Athol Guy and Keith Potger. Woodley, in turn, combined a day job in advertising with the folk quartet and occasional solo gigs at Traynors and the Little Reata, and still found time to play the banjo and sing at Downbeat with a jazz ensemble called Morris Plonk’s Moonshine Five…'Meanwhile, Paul Marks led the field at the Reata. Best remembered for his skilled interpretations of American blues, he would also deliver programs of traditional English folksongs, spirituals or sea shanties on occasion. Peter Mann, proprietor of the Discurio record store, recorded him live and issued the LP on Score Records as Paul Marks at the Reata…Something of a minor legend among his successors by virtue of having been the first coffee lounge folksinger in the country, he sadly found it impossible to maintain the momentum of his career. In a review of one of his last Melbourne appearances (at the Little Reata), Adrian Rawlins conceded that Marks was an inconsistent performer and that overwork with the MNOJB had affected his singing for a while. Even so (Rawlins assessed), he was far from being (as some “knockers” claimed) “a depleted talent”: '.Folkstream web sitehttp://folkstream.com/reviews/glen/Glen Tomasetti 1929 - 2003`Glen was a fine singer, an assured and authoritative performer with considerable understanding of the cultural and historical aspects of Folk Music. She always acknowledged the strong influence of Manning Clark on this area of her work. In the early sixties she hosted concerts at Emerald Hill Theatre started by Tom Lazar who also owned the Reata and Little Reata restaurants, which were other venues for folk music…'.DIRECTORIES OF VICTORIA, MELBOURNE-SANDS AND KENNY, SANDS & MCDOUGALL_________________________________________________1974 62-70 Little Reata restaurant.1961 66-70 McLaren Picture Framing Co. picture framers(62-64 Clemens Musical services)1904: 68 Vacant70 Ostendorf, Theo., bam and beef shop1893: (Westwood pl- Way Lee, cabinetmaker; Nichamin, T., tailor)70 Shan, Thomas H, butcher(Stephen St)1885(Exhibition)151 Weinreuter, E Upholsterer155 Freeman, Charles bootmaker.1880 (Stephen St(149 Allan and Langley , pawnbrokers and salesmen151 Flinn , Mrs, dining rooms155 Nelson, P, tailor1875151 Cumings, R produce store;153 Poole & Whittaker, painters1870151, 153 vacant1858(Stephen)149 Youlden, John butcher;- Bayne, Mrs milliner and dressmaker.(157 Newell, Mrs).Lewis, Nigel 1976 Historic and Architectural Survey of the Central City of Melbourne Bourke Street, east, Area 8 of the survey commissioned by the Historic Buildings Preservation Council, p28, 85__________________________________________________cites City of Melbourne rate books1854, 151, 153,155;1858, 155 stone house 4 rooms;1859, stone house 4 rooms, shop and 4 rooms owner `J Berm' (later Bayne); etc.
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Research and reports
Record number:
1254556
| Type | Reference No. | Extent | Status/Desc |
|---|---|---|---|
| Original | 105967 | 1 PDF : 697 KB ; A4 | Group of Items (May not be issued, may not be reproduced) |