Rare East Melbourne mansion has locked-down buyers lined up in waiting

For some moneyed homebuyers in search of the rare and vintage – and who can’t conceive of travelling all the way to Toorak or down to Middle Park to buy top-shelf housing – the end of locked-down Melbourne’s interruptions to on-site inspections can’t come soon enough.

In the case of an early freestanding East Melbourne mansion on what is a very large landholding for the city’s second-priciest suburb, a bevy of interested parties has been attracted despite its being hoist onto the market two months ago.

Yet even if the hopeful families, ambitious apartment developers, or those wondering if rezoning could see historic Merton converted into a medical consulting facility did manage to get in one on0site visit, they haven’t been allowed to return for another.

“We’ve had people ready for their second inspections but they haven’t been able to come back with their interior designers, builders or soil testers,” says Kay & Burton South Yarra agent Monique Depierre.

“We do have people waiting in the wings … but if you’re spending multi-millions on the prestige market [you need to be careful].”

So the 1858 double-storey home with a gorgeous later-addition wraparound lace veranda, a freestanding two-bedroom rear apartment and the capacity to park six cars within the boundaries, is on standby.

In late July it was put up for sale via an expression-of-interest campaign which initially did have an end date. “But we kept extending until we realised it was ridiculous,” says Ms Depierre. “So we’ve removed a date until lockdown ends.”

Because a property like this is exceptional even in the outstanding Victoriana preservation area of East Melbourne, it’s hard to accurately gauge what it could sell for. Monique talks of “an indicative selling range of $6.5 million to $7.1 million”.

Yet she will also hazard that the sheer land value of the 811-square-metre Powlett Street block, a stone’s throw from the MCG, could be $6.3 million.

What is there to compare it to in one of the tightest-held residential precincts in Melbourne? The closest recent comparison the agent can offer is a November 2020 transaction of a terrace house further down Powlett Street that sits on 212 square metres. It sold for $4.5 million.

That values at all but negligible the detached Gold Rush-era building that early Melbourne architects Crouch and Wilson designed for Collins Street draper Raphael Alexander when the suburb Robert Hoddle had laid out with wide streets and green squares in 1837 was still in development.

On the surface, and with a later addition to its rear portion, today’s Merton is tired and in dire need of updating: “The buyers are taking that need for renovation into consideration.”

But the proportions of the largely original front rooms with their marble mantles and bay windows and the grand scale of the entry foyer is the stuff – the irreplaceable grace – of Melbourne’s built heritage.

As classy as that beautifully proportioned facade is, Ms Depierre says, it’s the only heritage-listed portion of the building. That’s why developers are in the likely bidder mix.

“It’s like a manor house,” she says. “It’s a magnificent house. And the apartment at the back is generous. It’s got a great kitchen and two good bedrooms and anyone [who buys] could move straight into it while they’re renovating.”

Otherwise, the rear domicile has obvious tenancy potential.

“Look down the streets of East Melbourne,” Depierre says. “There isn’t another house in the suburb like this. There just isn’t.”