Pickwick

This house was built around 1878 for John Thomas Costin, a lithograph printer.1 Costin acquired the land in June 1878. From that year members of the Costin family also owned and occupied the house at 13 Norfolk Rd on the opposite side of the road. Costin lived in the house until 1883 when the land was passed to trustees William James Hooker, a renowned real estate agent and auctioneer, and Frederick Sanderson. From that year this became a rental property. In 1911, it was passed to David Patrick Ryan, who continued to lease the property to various short-term tenants. Following Ryan’s death in November 1919, the property was placed in the hands of the Public Curator of Queensland. From October 1923 the property was held by the Commonwealth and rented to tenants for almost 30 years until 1952 when it was sold to private owners.1

This house on Norfolk Road from the late 1870s features a steeply pitched gable roof, a separate skillion verandah roof and a separate curved roof above the rooms at the rear. The verandah has a timber handrail with dowel balustrading running between four verandah posts. On the rear of the main building is a pressed metal sun hood shading its only exposed window. The external sheeting material is horizontal timber boarding. At the rear is a connected structure with separate gable roof situated perpendicularly to the main structure and having its own verandah with a separate post supported skillion roof. The external wall sheeting of this structure is also timber weatherboards and has three openings to the verandah as well as a narrow opening in the end wall. Timber finials are situated at each end of the rear gable roof. The whole of the house is located a short way off the ground on stumps. The fence surrounding the unusually shaped site extends in regularly spaced pickets from the front of the building and in solid timber fencing towards the rear. The grounds are large enough for a few well established trees.