Murder, suicide and ghosts in Manuka's The Pines landmark

This column by Canberra architect Tony Trobe is based on a book produced by Tim Reeves and Alan Roberts titled 100 Canberra Houses: A Century of Capital Architecture.

TT: The curious Spanish-looking building on the corner of Furneaux and Bougainville streets in Manuka is a familiar landmark to many Canberrans. How did it come about?

TR & AR: In I929, Dr Rolland Fraser leased a block on the corner of Furneaux and Bougainville Streets, Manuka. He was a ‘surgeon dentist’ who had trained at the Universities of Melbourne and Pennsylvania. He commissioned Kenneth Oliphant to design a building which would function as both surgery and residence for himself and his wife, Florance. It would be home eventually to two dentists, an optometrist and a doctor.

To be honest it’s not really my cup of tea but how would it be described in architectural terms.

It was built by Chapman and Eggleston in the Spanish Mission style, and later named The Pines because of th two pencil pines either side of the front path. The entrance to the surgery was on the east wall and that to the residence at the front corner, through an arch of ‘barley sugar’ columns. Each of the three upstairs bedrooms had its own balcony. The stucco walls were painted light apple green and the woodwork salmon pink, with black wrought iron balcony railings, window boxes and grilles.

Was Oliphant borrowing from a style seen more commonly elsewhere?

The roof was of tiles in red, purple and green. The house was one of three by Oliphant featured in Australian Home Beautiful. It has been claimed (though not confirmed) that the design closely followed a house in Beverly Hills by Irving Gill that was publicised in an American architectural magazine.

In addition to the exuberant roof tiles, the house apparently has some very colourful history.

It had a fairly prosaic early history. Fraser set up business, advertising his proximity to the recently completed Capitol Theatre on Manuka Circle, Canberra’s first cinema. Suffering the effects of the Great Depression, he soon tried to sell the house, even offering it to the government for conversion to flats. It was let and then sold to another dentist, Eric Harvie, and his wife, Joy. In 1947. The Harvies engaged in an ugly divorce case, culminating in Eric being caught in flagrante delicto with his lover at the Hotel Kurrajong. On the day the judge ruled against him, he committed suicide in the dentist’s chair at Canberra Hospital. Less than six weeks later, Marjorie Lambert, who was lodging at The Pines with her husband and infant son, was found dead in the upstairs bathroom. The following morning, in a murder-suicide, the bodies of John and Warren Lambert were found on a vacant allotment nearby. The coroner ruled that Marjorie’s death was accidental, and that John had acted while deranged with grief.

…and the ghost story?

Frank Arnold, who became its fifth owner in 1998, grew up in Canberra admiring the house and set up his design business there. Alone one evening soon after, he came downstairs upon hearing voices and walked into icy conditions with an unpleasant smell and ‘a strong, disquieting female presence’. The unexplained incidents persisted, noticed also by Frank’s staff. And he engaged a Buddhist priest to conduct a blessing ceremony. The house has been quiet ever since.

What is happening to the property currently?

Earlier this year The Canberra Times reported that ‘neighbours have backed plans for the extension and redevelopment of a historic $2 million Manuka home by owner Peter Axiom, with one saying the run-down property had long been an eyesore. Calls from the National Trust ACT to delay the proposed $418,000 redevelopment of The Pines have also been rejected by the Heritage Council, who said an individual heritage nomination was not a priority. The Planning and Land Authority received five submissions on the extension plans for 21 Furneaux Street in Forrest by Wednesday’s deadline. Three were in favour. One neighbour complimented the new owners, who purchased the property in December, for their plans to retain the external heritage significance of the home and historic internal features. “This building has been an eyesore on the community for decades and I applaud the owners for improving the streetscape immensely with their proposal”, the neighbour said.

• Tony Trobe is Director of TT Architecture specialising in the design of sustainable residential architecture. If there is a design issue you would like to discuss, email tonytrobe@ttarchitecture.com.au