Alias Mae founder lists the St Kilda townhouse where it all began for the footwear brand

• Owner: Tom Kirkhope, founder of Melbourne-based footwear label Alias Mae
• Address: 17b Robe Street, St Kilda, Victoria
• Type of property: An Edwardian townhouse, once part of the Melbourne Alliance Française headquarters
• Price guide: $1.2 million-$1.3 million

Tom Kirkhope, founder of Melbourne-based footwear label Alias Mae, has relocated from St Kilda to his holiday home at Cape Schanck in response to partner Lauren Mackellar’s health issues. 

The couple made the move 12 months ago after hairdresser Mackellar was diagnosed with a brain tumour, which has required radiation and chemotherapy treatment. 

“We just needed some peace and quiet,” Kirkhope shares. “We’ve got a beautiful property on a golf course that’s just peaceful and lovely, and using the beach down there and the fresh air, fresh veggies from neighbouring farms – it just seemed to be the place for us to deal with what was going on.”

Despite the challenges, listing the St Kilda townhouse he has owned for 13 years wasn’t such an easy decision, not least because it is where Kirkhope – whose family co-founded Diana Ferrari and Rivers, and is now involved with Jo Mercer shoes – launched his own, now wildly successful, women’s footwear brand.

“In those early days, I had samples and things everywhere,” he recalls. “I filled that space with things that probably should have been in a warehouse, but I just loved creating and designing in that living room with its high ceilings and all the natural light.”

The two-bedroom pad dates to the 1920s and retains many hallmarks of the era, including an open fireplace, hand-plastered ceilings and French windows. 

Kirkhope says that a section of the original floorboards in the living room are darkened from the heat of an old photocopier, when the townhouse was part of the larger mansion that housed the original Melbourne headquarters of Alliance Française. 

“To quote the movie The Castle, it was the ‘charm’ of the place that really drew me in,” he says with a laugh. 

Upstairs, 45-degree angled windows above the bedroom face south and capture the sea breeze, cooling the house from top to bottom in summer.  

“When the rain falls on those windows it sounds absolutely lovely in bed at night,” he says. “You can see the clouds passing up above and smell the sea coming in.”

Kirkhope was also attracted to the area by the promise of year-round dips in the sea, something he continued throughout his time at the property.

“I really believe it’s a great part of health and my immunity, putting myself in that cold salty water on a regular basis,” he says. 

“There is a group of Russian ladies who go out together and they last forever out there chatting. I’m not that brave but I do the steam room at the St Kilda Baths and then brace for the cold.”

The cedar hot tub he installed in the garden during the pandemic also takes the edge off his cold-water therapy. Here, surrounded by bluestone paving and mondo grasses, and under a canopy of trees, Kirkhope says the property feels miles from the hubbub. Well, almost. 

“You can hear the roller coaster at Luna Park from the garden, so I’m aware that I’m in St Kilda,” he says. “But I feel like it’s very private. With the high fence and the hedges around the side, I feel like I’m in the action but I’m in my own tranquil little space with the trees and the birds around me, which I love.”

With Mackellar’s chemotherapy drawing to a close, the couple look forward to their next chapter, which includes a new business venture. A week after the Robe Street property goes to auction, her natural haircare brand Robe, named after the address – a concept she was working on prior to her diagnosis, but which she credits for her new hair regrowth – will hit the market too. 

“We have thrown everything at this new opportunity for Lauren, and are looking towards the future,” Kirkhope says.

SOLD - $1,261,000

17B Robe Street, St Kilda VIC 3182

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