Drumoyne

In the late 1920s to cater for the housing shortage as well as to generate income many home owners in the inner-city suburbs converted houses into tenements, where tenants would share bathrooms, toilets and kitchens. This led to community concerns of overcrowding and increased hygiene problems. A fashionable and more sophisticated alternative to this form of accommodation was the purpose built block of self-contained flats. Marketed mainly at single people and childless couples, the earliest self-contained flats in Brisbane were generally conveniently situated close to trams, trains and shopping facilities in inner-city suburbs such as Spring Hill, New Farm and Fortitude Valley. 

The Brisbane City Council, in 1930, defined the flat as “a fully self-contained dwelling, with private kitchen, bathroom and water closet”. The flat was designed to be an independently functioning dwelling. Although seen as a sophisticated lifestyle, flat living was fairly uncommon in Brisbane in this period, with only 8.4% of Brisbane residents living in flats. This low percentage may be due to the economic constraints of the time as well as the perceived novelty of this style of living. Most interwar flats in Brisbane were architecturally designed and constructed from good quality brick and timber. 

There was much debate in Council Chambers and the press about the merits of flats.  Some Aldermen argued that since Brisbane had the luxury of space, the ideal of the detached house on a large suburban block should be maintained. Flats were therefore a menace that “deprived children of the fresh air and recreation areas to which they were entitled.”  The Daily Standard reported a city planner as saying that flats were “not conducive to the rearing of families and were a cause of the falling birth rate” There was a perceived danger that localities, like some parts of Clayfield, might become slum areas. 

In 1935 Jane Drummond purchased the one rood block on subdivision 1 of re-subdivision 2 of subdivision 91 of portion 92. Between 1935 and 1937 a set of four flats were constructed on the site. It is unclear who designed the flats as the complete Building Registers for 1935 no longer exist and there is no clear evidence in the A & B Journal or Tender Notices. The set of flats were constructed on the rise of Lapraik Street affording the tenants views and breezes. At the base of the hill, Sandgate Road provided efficient public transport into and out of the city on the trams. In 1937 the Drumoyne Flats were first recorded in Lapraik Street. Jane Drummond was listed as residing in flat No. 2. This suggests that the flats were constructed between 1935 and 1937.

As a set of 1930s flats, the design was influenced by the then fashionable ‘Old English’ style. The set of masonry flats were designed with a portion of the ground floor wall as face brick and the rest of the building rendered with a terracotta tiled roof and a tall brick chimney. The north facing side, with imitation half-timbering, textured rendered exterior walls and sets of casement windows replaced banks of louvres in 1993. The street front was designed with a first floor bay window and several separate casements windows. 

As the first set of masonry flats constructed on Lapraik Street, Drumoyne pre-dates the two Art Deco sets of flats at the base of the hill close to Sandgate Road, ‘Meerawa’ and ‘Yearinga’, that were constructed in 1938. Drumoyne also pre-dates other sets of brick interwar flats in the proximity including ‘Bellevue Court’ on Bonney Avenue, ‘Hampton Court’ and ‘Coraki Court’ on Sandgate Road that were all constructed between 1937 and 1938. Drumoyne, therefore, is important as the first of a number of interwar masonry flats constructed in the Albion area close to Sandgate Road and is a reflection of the rise in popularity in the multi-unit dwelling in the interwar period. 

The building has not been used or classified as a block of flats since 1991 when it was noted that the four kitchens had been removed as well as the internal masonry walls which defined the flats. The individual entrances to three flats are now openings with one blocked up and rendered. Two rear exits were closed and have casement windows, with the other two exits being opened up as double doors. Modifications include the verandah, a garage and under house rooms.

1. Architectural and Building Journal of Queensland, March 1936 and editorial, 1938

2. Brisbane City Council Minutes, 1935-36, p.764 & 918 and 1938, p.605

3. Brisbane City Council, 1946 aerial photographs.

4. Daily Standard, 4 September 1935 & 2 April 1936

5. The Courier Mail, 4 September, 1935

6. The Sunday Mail, 19 May, 1991

7. The Sunday Sun, 21 April, 1991

8. Brisbane City Council Metropolitan Water Supply and Sewerage Board, Detail Plans

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

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

11. Queensland Post Office Directories

12. Queensland Electoral Rolls

13. Bennett, Helen, “Being Modern: Living in Flats in Interwar Brisbane”, Queensland Review, v.13, no.2, 2006, p35-48