The character-filled Fitzroy North home for sale that was converted from a horse stable

• Owner: Elda Colagrande
• Type of property: A character-filled home converted from a horse stable.
• Address: 35 Egremont Street, Fitzroy North, Victoria
• Price guide: $2.8 million-$3 million
• Auction: 12:30pm, May 25

If you visit Fitzroy North today, you’re likely to see food delivery workers zipping around on electric bikes. But a closer look at the suburb’s historic buildings reveals hints of a bygone era.

The three-storey home at 35 Egremont Street can be traced back to a time when freshly baked bread was delivered to customers’ doors by horse and cart each day.

“It was built as a stable for the bakery across the road,” says owner Elda Colagrande. “They had the horses at my place, and they would deliver [bread] every morning to people around Fitzroy and Carlton.”

After being damaged in a fire in the 1940s, the building went on to serve as a storage facility, a carpet market and an automotive parts warehouse. When Colagrande bought it in 1987, it had been partially converted into a residence.

“It was halfway through a renovation,” she says. “There was a kitchen and that was pretty much all there was.”

While she concedes it was “unusual to be living in an unrenovated warehouse back then”, she lived in the unfinished space for several years before completing a renovation that turned it into what it is today.

If you know where to look, you can still find traces of its origins as a stable. The remains of a loft once used to store hay are incorporated into the floor of the open-plan living, dining and kitchen space on the home’s second level. 

“There are two different types of floors, so you can still see where the opening for the hay loft used to be,” says Colagrande. 

“The steel girders are still visible from the outside and the opening at the front was where the sliding door used to be.” 

Rather than mimicking what the building once was, Colagrande wanted the home to stand alone and reflect her personality while subtly nodding to the site’s history. 

“I wear a lot of colour, so I wanted my house to be expressive of me. I don’t want bland beige, I wanted happiness,” she says.

This approach can be seen in the kitchen, which features bright orange and yellow cabinetry and benches, and in the main bathroom, where orange tiles encase a free-standing bath and part of the adjoining wall.

Local artist Stephen Hennessy was commissioned to create several pieces for the home, including a stained-glass skylight inspired by The Capitol theatre and a series of wooden lights, one of which hangs above the dining table.

The artist also added stained-glass panes to a curved window frame to create an installation for the dining area. This frame was one of three salvaged from the old Foy & Gibson department store on Smith Street in nearby Collingwood.

Another of the frames was incorporated into the main bedroom on the home’s third level, which was added to the building in the renovation. The large room includes a study nook, an en suite, plenty of wardrobe space for Colagrande’s vintage clothing collection, and a balcony that faces Melbourne’s CBD. 

“I can lie in bed and see the city skyline,” she says. “Even though there’s technically no garden, each level has an outside area, so you still feel connected to the outside world.”

The home, which Colagrande shared with her son Robbie until a few years ago, has hosted “some fantastic parties over the years”. The sliding glass doors to the walled balcony off the living room are often left open to expand the space.

While she’s seen the suburb change in the almost four decades she’s lived there, Colagrande says it’s retained its strong sense of community. She’s become close friends with her neighbours and is part of a WhatsApp group for people who live on the street.

Many of these connections have been forged in local cafes, including Greensleeves Coffee House next door, where the signage for the original Ennistymon Bakery – which her home was built to cater for – is still visible from Scotchmer Street. 

“People sit together and end up becoming friends,” she says. “They are central to bringing the community together.”

In what she describes as an “interesting twist of history”, a locally based micro-bakery, Hatcher Baker, began delivering fresh bread and other baked goods to customers’ doors by bicycle in December last year.

“It feels like it’s going back to the old days, which is fantastic,” Colagrande says.

Having retired from her job in the public service, she has decided to sell her long-time home but says there is “no way” she’s leaving the inner north.

“I’m just hopeful that someone can come in and love living in the area as much I have.”

Private Sale $2,950,000

35 Egremont Street, Fitzroy North VIC 3068

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