Lorne Victoria Australia

176 Mountjoy Parade

Walton Lodge (second house built in Lorne)
Lorne Hotel

: Lorne Hotel (LHS photo 1444)

: 2009, Bay Street corner

: 2025, Lorne Hotel, Totti’s

188 Mountjoy Parade

All Saints Anglican Church

222/224 Mountjoy Parade

“Leighwood” 1916 of State and local significance

Leighwood is significant on a number of levels, not the least of which is that it may be the earliest local version of the Californian bungalow, the style that swept across Australian suburbia in the 1920s.

Laid diagonally across the block, itself unusual, the eye absorbs the dark-stained walls and the simple gable roof that announce the change from the earlier timber houses dotted along Mountjoy Parade.

Note the verandah, tucked into the roof line, with its square lattice balustrade and tapered brackets atop the posts showing some of the quirky details favoured by its designer Rodney Alsop who designed the house for the Bell family in 1915. The Bell family were connected with the Western District, and with Addiscot homestead at Bell’s Beach. The house was designed very much as a retreat from urban living.

Sitting effortlessly in a mostly native garden for more than a century, this house exudes an unmistakable presence.

[from Lorne Heritage Walk pamphlet produced by the Friends of Lorne]