Julius Street Flats is a heritage-listed group of seven apartment blocks at 15 Julius Street, New Farm, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. They were built from 1934 to early 1950s. The apartment blocks are called Ardrossan, Green Gables, Julius Lodge (formerly Nanmara), Syncarpia, Ainslie, Pine Lodge (formerly Aloha Court) and Evelyn Court. They were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 4 August 1997.
History Julius Street Flats, consisting of seven properties comprising Ardrossan, Green Gables, 5 Julius Street, Syncarpia, Ainslie, Pine Lodge, and Evelyn Court, are located fronting Julius Street, a short cul-de-sac off Moray Street, New Farm. Two of the properties, Evelyn Court and Pine Lodge, have frontage to the Brisbane River. The seven properties were constructed between 1934 and 1938 on a parcel of land subdivided in 1933 by Julius Rosenfeld, who had operated Rosenfeld's Sawmill on the site from c. 1924.
The land on which the properties are located was originally part of a larger parcel for which a Deed of Grant was issued to John McConnel in January 1845. Part of this land, eastern suburban allotments 14 and 15, was later transferred to his brother (1818–1885), an early Queensland pastoralist who in 1841 had established Cressbrook in the Brisbane River Valley, the second run in the Moreton Bay district of New South Wales.
In 1876, the land on which the Julius Street properties are located was transferred to William Henry Barker and Frederick Hamilton Hart, and a Certificate of Title was issued in February of that year.
From June 1876 to December 1878, businessman James Campbell acquired subs 48, 49 and 50 of ESA 15 and sub 51 of ESA 15A. The firm of James Campbell and Sons specialised in building materials including lime, cement, plaster and timber, and operated timber mills, plantations, lime works and pottery kilns in a number of locations in south east Queensland, as well as Campbell's wharf and warehouse at Creek Street, Brisbane. The firm also established a thriving shipping trade with a substantial fleet of freight vessels.
The area surrounding subs 48–51 of ESA 15 and 15A was still largely undeveloped when James Campbell applied to the Brisbane Municipal Council for permission to establish a lime kiln on Bowen Terrace, below Langshaw Street, in 1878. In addition to the kiln, Campbell built a wharf and transported limestone, and later timber, to the site. In 1882 Campbell opened the Langshaw Planing Mills and Joinery Works on the property, and later a second lime kiln was constructed. The remains of lime kilns are located near the river bank below Pine Lodge.
In July 1897 the property was transferred to Thomas Hanmer, who retained it until August 1914, when it was transferred to James Green. A plan titled Campbell's Wharf New Farm, thought to date from 1904, shows lime kilns in ruins with an adjoining iron shed, a retaining wall at the high water mark with a short wharf, and the location of remnants of Campbell's Sawmill.
In January 1924, the property was acquired by Julius Rosenfeld who resumed timber milling on the site. Julius Rosenfeld operated Rosenfeld & Sons saw and planning mills, a subsidiary of Rosenfeld & Company Ltd which was based in Sydney.
A disastrous fire in February 1931 destroyed the mill, and in 1933 Rosenfeld subdivided the land into seven residential allotments surrounding a short cul-de-sac, and two allotments fronting Moray Street. This cul-de-sac was named Julius Street, and was dedicated by the Brisbane City Council in February 1934.
The seven properties fronting Julius Street, and two fronting Moray Street, were transferred as follows: November 1933, resub 4 of sub 50 to Edmund Christian Hay Dixon and Ernestine Gertrude Mary Symons Dixon (site adjacent to Green Gables) February 1934, resub 6 of subs 47 and 48 to Fred and Ethel Havill (Ainslie site) February 1934, resub 5 of subs 47 and 48 to Geraldine Letitia Walsh (Syncarpia site) March 1934, resub 2 of subs 47 and 48 to Mary and Maud Molloy (Ardrossan site) July 1934, resub 9 of subs 49 and 50 to Jack Massie Garnett-Botfield (5 Julius Street site) May 1935, resub 1 of sub 47 (site adjacent to Ardrossan), resub 3 of subs 49 and 50 (Green Gables site), resub 7 of subs 47 and 48 (Pine Lodge site), and resub 8 of subs 49 and 50 (Evelyn Court site) to Ernest William Mazlin.
Seven blocks of flats surrounding Julius Street were constructed between 1934 and 1938. This group of 1930s flat buildings is quite rare in Brisbane. This may be due to changes in Brisbane City Council ordinances regulating flat development which effectively precluded this type of development occurring after 1936–37.
Development of the flat or apartment building in Brisbane during the interwar period The purpose designed flat/apartment building emerged as a new form of residential accommodation in Brisbane during the 1920s. Brisbane, in comparison to Sydney and Melbourne, was slow to adopt this form of flat development, but the practice of converting old houses to flats was well established.
By at least the 1910s, Brisbane was following an Australia wide trend of converting larger houses to flats. The incidence of house conversions to flats grew dramatically during the 1920s and 1930s, a period of severe housing shortage in Brisbane. It was not unusual for a single-family dwelling to be converted to a two-family residence, or for a flat to be created underneath a high-set house by filling in between the stumps. Some of these conversions were architect planned, and had Brisbane City Council approval, but many were not, and provided a constant source of concern for the authorities who feared the creation of slum suburbs. The interwar growth of flats of all types in Brisbane posed a major dilemma for local government and for the construction industry.
The severe housing shortage was due mainly to an increasingly buoyant Queensland economy and substantial population growth, as a result of both natural increase and immigration. A rising Brisbane population combined with a substantial fall in the numbers of workers cottages being constructed, created a severe housing shortage. Also, rising rates, maintenance and related costs forced many owners to convert larger houses in flats and to subdivide large parcels of land.
The second form of flat development in the interwar years was the purpose-designed flat or apartment building. Such structures varied considerably in quality and amenity. There were three main types: moderate-rental blocks; more prestigious and luxury flats or apartments; and the bachelor flat. Sometimes these were combined with professional chambers or shops.
The most prominent of the interwar flat building were the substantial, architect-designed blocks aimed at the higher and more long-term rental market. In general, these flats were erected in single blocks usually two or three stories, masonry or a combination of masonry, timber and fibrous cement, and on average comprised six to eight flats. Up to date facilities, including built-ins in the kitchen and bathroom, a refrigerator, hot water system, and telephone, were important selling features. By the 1930s, some were providing facilities such as garbage chutes to a basement incinerator, and garage accommodation. In the most prestigious blocks, a maids bedroom was included with each self-contained apartment. Mostly, the blocks presented handsome street facades, predominantly in the fashionable Old English, Spanish Mission or Mediterranean architectural styles favoured by architects of much of the more prestigious domestic housing in Brisbane during the interwar period. Flats designed in the modernist, Art Deco and Functionalist schools were much rarer.
The single bedroom-cum-sitting room was the precursor to the bachelor flat. The construction of single-sex bachelor flats was a reflection of contemporary Brisbane attitudes which considered flats inappropriate places in which to raise a family, and the mixing of single persons of both sexes in flat buildings was viewed as undesirable and conducive to immoral behaviour. Flats were largely thought of as catering to a floating population and, along with the lifestyle changes necessitated when living beyond the detached house and garden, were yet to be accepted as permanent homes.
In August 1933, a contributor to the Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland envisaged Brisbane developing "a district largely composed of flat dwellings, similar to Darlinghurst in Sydney or St Kilda in Melbourne", which many had thought unlikely. In September 1933, the Courier Mail approached a "prominent Brisbane architect" to comment on the sudden boom in flat construction in Brisbane. A strong trend toward preferences for flat life over suburban housing was identified, the reduction in the size of the average family being considered an important contributing factor. Another rationale may have been economic reasons accounting for the popularity in flat buildings; many working people found that the costs of land, finance, utilities etc. were too expensive and they were turning to rented accommodation in the new well appointed flat and apartment buildings, which in turn created a strong environment for further investment in flat buildings.
Few blocks of flats appear to have been constructed in Brisbane prior to the early to mid-1920s. Suburbs like New Farm were scarcely touched by flat development until the 1930s when substantial numbers of new apartment buildings were constructed. The construction of flat buildings in Brisbane peaked in 1936–37, with a decline in 1938–39 partly due to the uncertain investment climate generated by threats of war in Europe, and partly due to the refusal of banking and financial institutions to lend on flat constructions.
The up-turn in flat construction in the mid-1930s echoed a strong improvement in the Brisbane building industry as a whole, which in 1935 had seen a 67.2% increase in expenditure. The most substantial growth was in the residential sector, with a boom in house building and "phenomenal activity" in flat construction; the number in 1935 exceeding the combined totals of the previous two years. In 1935, 121 flat projects including house conversions were approved by the BCC. Brisbane's housing shortage was acute, and flat buildings were filling a gap in the rental market. Housing shortages continued into 1937, with rents increasing 10% on the previous year. Surprisingly, flat construction declined around this period due to the "stringency of finance" for flat construction.
Ownership laws also contributed to the type of flats which were constructed during the interwar period. In Brisbane, terrace houses were usually intended as rental investments rather than for resale, and the flat buildings of the 1920s and 1930s appear to have been constructed under similar laws relating to tenement buildings. Strata Title was not available in Queensland until 1965, with the introduction of the Building Units Titles Act.
Company Title, in which the land and the building are owned by shareholders who have rights to exclusive use of flats within the building, and areas not allocated for exclusive use (common areas) is understood to have been first employed in Brisbane with the construction of Torbreck Home Units 1958–59. Lease schemes, whereby a developer owns the land and building and leases individual flats to the "owners" may have been in operation much earlier. The leases are long term (e.g. 99 years) and contain covenants to regulate the management of the scheme. Tenancy in common schemes, a form of cooperative ownership in which a group of people own the land and building as tenants in common in agreed shares, may have been employed in Brisbane in the 1930s, when the cooperative housing model based on American systems of cooperative apartment houses first was being promoted in Australia.