Avoca Flats

In the early 1930s 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. 

In 1935 Walter Maskrey, a Brisbane builder, purchased 32 perches of land, overlooking Breakfast Creek Road. The property was ideal for flats as it was close to the tram route along Breakfast Creek Road and situated high on the hill which would ensure breezes for each of the flats. It is unclear whether Maskrey commissioned an architect to design the flats. They had almost been completed by May 1935 and were advertised in the Telegraph:

“Inspect the beautiful Avoca Flats … Now nearing completion. The first and last word in Furnished Brick Flats. Glorious high healthy position, Glorious views, Glorious flats”.1  

The benefits of the high position, overlooking Breakfast Creek Road and out to Newstead and the Brisbane River, was one of the benefits advertised. Each flat consisted of one bedroom and a study and although not advertised as such, according to Bennett’s thesis on interwar flats, could be described as Bachelor flats, that “usually comprised little more than a single bed-sitting room with kitchenette, plus bathroom and water closet” (Bennett, Interpreting the Modern: Flatland in Brisbane 1920-1941, Phd Thesis, Griffith University, 2010).  By 1937, all but two of the flats had been tenanted. 

Avoca Flats are a good example of a set of Spanish Mission interwar flats that continue to hold a prominence high above Breakfast Creek Road, overlooking the Newstead area. 

1. Telegraph, 29 May 1935

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

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

4. Brisbane City Council, 1946 aerial photographs.

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

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

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

8. Queensland Post Office Directories

9. Queensland Electoral Rolls

10. Brisbane City Council, Register of New Buildings, August

11. Bennett, Interpreting the Modern: Flatland in Brisbane 1920-1941, Phd Thesis, Griffith University, 2010