I get a horrible feeling each time I walk past the Mansions on Queens Road near St Kilda Junction that I just can’t let go of and have to get off my chest.

This magnificent italianate National Trust listed mansion, neglected for many years – sadly remains so in fact arguably worse – despite a “restoration”.

The Buchan Group, who developed a tower behind the old building not only boasts that “Nothing less than exceptional design will do”,  but their website proudly proclaims:

This 19-storey residential tower of 161 apartments is situated on a prime site in Queens Road, with sweeping views of parkland, Port Phillip Bay and the city.

The highly sculptural tower has a graceful, curving glazed façade. An historic Victorian mansion on the site was retained and restored to be integrated into the development. The project was completed in 2005.

In fact in the project profile they go on to claim that the mansion has been:

retained, restored and integrated into the development, giving the project great individuality and character.

Roll on 2009 and the heritage building is still in a state of horrific limbo.

If this is restoration, then I’m completely shocked.  And if this is their idea of complete work, then I’d hate to see incomplete.  I fail to see how this sort of workmanship can contribute anything to the project.

The mansion has been left in a shocking half finished state.

The sad fact is that, determined to build an underground carpark, the developers blew their budget on engineering works for the tower.  After well publicised basement leaking, the victim of it was the heritage building and landscaping which was one of the key selling points of the tower.  Now the body corporate is probably left with a massive completion bill and it is obvious that it is low on their priority list.

In fact the exterior of the 1898 mansion built for Melbourne financier Lawrence Benjamin with its magnificent wrap around loggia today is quite possibly in worse condition than before the “restoration” began.

The building has been left with an undercoat in eastern bloc grey – one of the dodgiest, careless spray paint jobs I have ever seen.   Spray has been left on the windows and surround, on the doors and even on the ground.  An entire level has been left in its pre-restoration cream and orange colour.

Exposed electrical wiring dangles in the elements.

Render has been bashed off to facilitate the construction of the tower leaving the brick exposed.

Details have been carelessly knocked off the facade.

Sections are so patchy that the patchwork is more noticeable than the windows.

Seriously, I used to admire how well this building had stood the test of time.  Now I can’t believe how many years have been taken off its life in the guise of restoration.

Who is to blame ?  Well ultimately the council and government  rubber stamped the development.  They should have some responsibility for approving it and not holding the developers to account for such a poor quality restoration of a cultural asset. That developers can still get away with this sort of thing in this day and age is completely beyond me.

With the impending demolition of Avalon, the Mansions is one of the last remaining grand mansions which once graced Queens Road.  But you wouldn’t know it the way it has been treated.

This “restoration” must simply be seen to be believed. Some pics below taken this week as evidence.

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