St. Briavels

The Toowong area during the interwar period saw a number of smaller subdivisions created from the sale of land attached to the earlier residences, which were usually set upon larger allotments

Richard Gailey Jnr was the architect engaged to design and supervise construction. The owner of the house obviously required completion as soon as possible, as tenders were called in the July 10 issue of The Architect and Builder Journal of Queensland for a ‘wood residence at Toowong: closing July 18.’

The application submitted to the Brisbane City Council in September of 1930, was for a wood residence with a tiled roof. The contractor is given as W.J Boland of Park Road, Woolloongabba. The cost of work is listed as £1,821. Comparatively, this was approximately three times the cost of an average wood residence at the time. It should also be noted that this residence was erected during the early stages of the disastrous economic depression of the 1930s. 

Gailey was the son of the important and influential Queensland Architect Richard Gailey who designed such local (Toowong) State-listed buildings as the ‘Regatta Hotel’ and ‘Moorlands’. Gailey (Snr) through his investments and work became an important Brisbane businessman and philanthropist.

 

Richard Gailey Jnr was articled to his father's firm in 1890 and was admitted as a partner in 1896. Gailey practised with his father until his father’s death in 1924. He maintained the Gailey practice until the 1950s. Although Gailey (Jnr) is best known for his design 

of the ‘Brisbane Arcade’ he would have been involved and influential in many of the important Gailey firm’s architectural commissions.   

The house is an existing example of where a residence is situated on an allotment which takes full advantage of the exposure to the Brisbane River. This follows a pattern of Brisbane development which was established in the mid c19th where elite houses were located upon elevated positions, adjacent or near the Brisbane River, which allowed them to take advantage of not only the views but the cooling breezes as well. Following the development of the higher ground, the lower topographic areas of Brisbane became developed for the lower socio-economic groups providing a unique mixture, within suburbs of the various socio-economic strata which comprised Brisbane.

This residence was given the name ‘St Briavel’s’ and is an excellent example of the domestic work of Richard Gailey (Jnr) which demonstrates one of the styles of architect designed houses in the interwar period.

The riverside of the house is graced by a colonnade, utilising rustic classical columns, reinforcing the stylistic ties with traditional East Coast American residences.

Windows are multi-pane double-hung (most) with shutters.  A substantial brick chimney visually anchors one end of the house, running externally full height.  The upper reaches of the main gables, and the entirety of the minor gables are subtly differentiated from the lower walls with bell-curved closely spaced weatherboards.  The roofs are lower pitched over the eaves, giving the roof a picturesque profile.

The overall effect is of a well researched, carefully and richly detailed architectural composition.  It might also be argued this house was designed to stand out from, but be related to, the popular and prolific Californian Bungalow of the Interwar Period.

1. Brisbane City Council Water Supply & Sewerage Detail Plans

2. Cuffley, Peter. Australian Houses of the Twenties & Thirties. (Oxford, Victoria; Five Mile Press. 1993)

3. Apperly, Richard et al. A pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture Sydney: Angus and Robertson, 1989

4. Department of Natural Resources, Queensland Certificates of title and other records.

5. JOL Estate Map Collection and photographic collection

6. McKellar's Map of Brisbane and Suburbs. Brisbane: Surveyor-General’s Office, 1895

7. Post Office Directories

8. Donald Watson and Judith McKay, Queensland Architects of the Nineteenth Century, South Brisbane: Queensland Museum, 1994