Delcotta

The two-storey Old English style home was built on land which was part of the large gentleman’s estate of Stanley Hall  (now St Rita’s College). This land was subdivided in the early 1920s by pastoralist, Edward Blume. In 1926, the remainder of the estate, including the 1885-86 mansion, was sold to the Order of the Sisters of the Presentation in Queensland. The Sisters established a convent school on the site – now St Rita’s College. The houses built in Enderley Road, Craven Street and Alexandra Road during this period were often on large allotments and architect designed for Brisbane’s professional and merchant classes. 

The McNaughts engaged Brisbane architect, EP Trewern, to design a new home for their large corner block. Trewern who established his Brisbane practice in 1920 after working for the Queensland Government, was known for his commercial and domestic buildings designed in the latest architectural styles.  He was also active in the development of professional bodies for architects in Queensland. Two of the best known examples of his domestic work are the homes El Nido (1928) on Kingsford Smith Drive, Hamilton and Santa Barbara (1929-30) at New Farm. Both houses were designed in the Spanish Mission style which Trewern is attributed with introducing  to Brisbane. Trewern also designed homes influenced by the Californian Bungalow style, such as the 1924 home of Mrs Raff at 77 Enderley Road. 

The McNaught’s new home, which they named Delcotta, was constructed by builder, B Hollingsworth, in another of the Interwar period’s  popular styles, Old English or Mock Tudor. As the names suggest, these houses imitated the white rendered walls and half timbering of 16th century English architecture. Other characteristics of this style which appear in Delcotta include a tiled gabled roof, asymetrical massing, tall chimney, oriel and bay windows with leadlight glazing, herringbone brickwork, catslide roof and the jettying of the upper storey. A rear wing connected the house to a garage and a small verandah facing south. Trewern designed several houses in this style which was particularly popular in Clayfield and the nearby suburbs of Ascot and Hamilton.

Like other attractive homes built in Enderley Road in this period, Delcotta featured in the newspapers of the day as the epitome of style. It was pictured in the Truth on 19 October 1930 along with the neighbouring house in Craven Street, also in the Old English style:

Set in spacious grounds at the corner of Enderley-road and Craven-street, Clayfield, the home of Mr and Mrs A. Ure McNaught has a stateliness and dignity only too rarely seen in Brisbane…..The house is buit in the real English Tudor style, with walls of cream rough-cast on a red-brick base. The timbering of the walls is brown and the roof red-tiled. Striped awnings over the casements and porches add a note of the tropics which blends harmoniously with this typically English architecture.

Delcotta was sold in 1954 after the death of Mrs McNaught.. In 1974, the property was purchased by the Sisters of the Presentation, becoming once again part of the grounds surrounding  Stanley Hall, now a school rather than a private residence. The house is now in private hands again.

Delcotta has been extended on the southern side with an addition which has been designed in a similar style. This does not detract from the significance of the house as an excellent example of the Interwar Old English style in Brisbane.

The house features leadlight windows including an oriel window in the main body of the upper storey with a bay window underneath on the ground level. The brickwork beneath the bay window is constructed in a herringbone pattern. 

A large extension in the same style has been added on the southern side of the house. The house is set amongst manicured gardens and lawns with a more recently added swimming pool near the northern boundary. 

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

2. A&B Journal. Brisbane. March 1930

3. Brisbane City Council sewerage detail plans and building cards

4. Certificates of Title, Department of Environment and Resource Management

5. Environmental Protection Agency. Queensland Heritage Register 602390 El Nido. Viewed 22 August 2009

6. Kennedy, Michael Owen, Domestic Architecture in Queensland Between the Wars, (UNSW. Master of Built Environment graduate report, January 1989)

7. Queensland Post Office Directories

8. Truth 19 Oct 1930