Koombalah - 27 Grey Street

Koombalah at 27 Grey Street St Kilda on the corner of Jackson Street, is a significant Federation Queen Anne end terrace which is currently in a severely neglected state. The building bears a bronzed art noveau plaque with its name “Koombalah” and features two prominent tudor style gables, an imposing chimney and faceted bay window.

While one part of this duplex is the home to a Salvation Army Crisis Centre, the other half has been derelict for many years. In recent months, the whole building was boarded up (with security cameras in place obviously to deter drug users and squatters) and the corner balcony and window frames have rapidly decayed to a point nearly beyond repair and the chimney has been simply propped up by wire.

Rubble and Weeds

The building, deep in the area of the corner of Fitzroy and Grey Streets is classified as as a “significant place” in 2007 the City of Port Phillip’s heritage overlay strategy. But its owners, the state government (Department of Human Services) appears to have a different definition of significant place, as according to council records, they have apparently not maintained it since 2003 when they did some minor roof repair when they requested permission to install a sunlight only to remove one of the chimneys altogether ….

One can only hope that they do this beautiful building justice before this it falls down completely.

I have created a couple of new label categories for this kind of thing, “neglected buildings” and “derelict buildings”.

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