Capnagera

In 1904, Windsor Shire Council became the Windsor Town Council and was made up of the suburbs of Lutwyche, Wilston, Albion, Swan Hill, Eildon, O'Connell Town, the Grange and Wooloowin and portions of Kedron, Newmarket, and Eagle Junction. When Greater Brisbane was formed in 1925, the former Windsor Town mayor, William Jolly, was elected and became Brisbane’s first Lord Mayor.

The land on which the house now sits was part of the larger holdings originally purchased by Nehemiah Bartley in 1863. Notable personalities from Brisbane’s history owned, or were trustees of, the land between 1866 and 1922 including Ann Goggs from Wolston, Charles Clark from Talgai, John Henry Flower of Flower and Hart Solicitors, and Lillie Maude Jolly (wife of former Lord Mayor William Jolly) until hotelier Patrick Scanlan purchased this block of land in 1927. Flower built his home Kirkston next door (No. 23) in 1888, after he had sold this block of land – Kirkston was added to the Queensland Heritage Register in 1992.

There is a local misconception that Patrick Scanlan purchased the block from William Jolly, however James Cameron Hemsley purchased the block from Jolly, then sold it to Sarah Helen Burrows three years later. She owned the land for 2 years before selling it (still unimproved) to Julia Scanlan. The Jolly’s only owned the land for approximately six weeks in 1922 and there is a local rumour that Mrs Jolly decided she didn't want to build there for fear of one of their six sons falling to his death from the adjacent quarry face.

The Scanlans were a prominent family in the Brisbane social scene, belonging to the wealthy merchant class that had arisen in Brisbane in the late nineteenth century. Patrick Scanlan was the proprietor of the Royal Hotel on Queen Street from 1923 until 1934 and lived on-site while Capnagera was being built. Scanlan was also President of the Queensland Licenced Victuallers’ Association from 1932-1934, and prior to purchasing the Royal Hotel, he had owned 12 hotels around Brisbane metropolitan area including the Prince Alfred on Caxton Street (now Hotel LA) and Stock Exchange. He was noted in many newspaper articles as a great supporter of sport, and in 1929 was appointed a life member and Trustee of the Royal Life Saving Society in appreciation for his work with the society. Patrick was a director of the Union Trustee Company of Australia Ltd, who was Trustee for the land from 1892 until Lillie Jolly bought it in 1922.

Construction started on Capnagera in 1930 but was not completed until mid-1936. Charles Herbert Griffin was appointed as architect, and Brisbane building contracting firm A. Taylor and Sons won the tender to undertake the work. Charles Griffin was a London-trained architect who worked for the Queensland Government before starting his own architectural firm Chipps and Griffin in 1919. He was an exponent of the Old English style of architecture, with three examples designed in this manner including 81 Towers Street, Ascot. Some of this style was incorporated into Capnagera with the use of dark timbers in the drawing room, and the use of bay windows, columns and leadlight throughout. Griffin designed his own home in Ascot in 1934, using many of the same architectural styles. The gardens of Capnagera were reportedly landscaped while the building was taking place, so that when the home was finally completed, it featured in at least two articles in The Telegraph and Sunday Mail with full details of interior and lush gardens provided. Comparisons between these descriptions in 1936 and photos taken in 2013 indicate that the home has remained relatively unchanged in its 81 year history.

Capnagera remained the family home of the Scanlan family for 53 years. Patrick had died in 1959, and Julia passed away in November 1974, ten months after selling the property to Alice McKillop, wife of Dr Martin McKillop. They and the house were featured in the social pages of newspapers with guests such as Sheilagh Beirne (Ipswich) and the Windsor family from Brisbane’s elite.

Alice Mary McKillop, wife of Dr Martin Joseph McKillop, bought the property in 1974. Dr McKillop was a prominent surgeon, who in 1932 helped his brother identify the first Cretaceous sauropod bones in Richmond, Queensland. The dinosaur was named after the brothers – Austrosaurus mckillopi. The McKillops owned the property for four years until 1978 when they sold it to Ian and Diana Tam. The current owners are Nicholas and Stephanie Leon, who own and run numerous pharmacies throughout Brisbane. It remains a beautiful, landmark house in Windsor from the interwar period.

Some of the external side doors have bullnose sunhoods, and the windows all have window boxes beneath.

There are a mixture of casement, sliding and bay windows throughout the house. The sliding windows are used in the rumpus/lounge room to maximise the views of Brisbane city, while the casement and bay windows are used in the more formal parts of the house.

French doors with intricate leadlight inlays separate each public room, and the leadlight pattern is continued in the casement and bay windows.

The living rooms have internal ionic columns, however the cornicing and architraves are simple. There is moulding on the room, done in rectangles the length of the room in keeping with the 1930s style. There are hard-wood floors throughout the living areas, and the bedrooms are carpeted. The original Queensland ribbon walnut wall in the dining room has been largely kept intact

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7. Brisbane City Council. Drainage Plans.

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9. John W. East. Acclimatising a Foreign Transplant: The “Old English” House in Brisbane between the Wars. Academic Paper, 2017, p39. https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_489258 (accessed 20 March 2017).

10. Digitised newspapers and other records. http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper

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13. realestate.com.au. Information on 21 Flower Street, Windsor. Retrieved 14 March 2017

14. Judy Gale Rechner, Brisbane House Styles 1880 to 1940: a guide to the affordable house, Brisbane: Brisbane History Group Studies No. 2, 1998

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

16. Windsor Neighbourhood Walk. http://www.mustdobrisbane.com/outdoors-walks-neighbourhoods/windsor-neighbourhood-walk-brisbane (accessed 15 March 2017)