With seven bedrooms and two kitchens, this heritage-listed home has an unexpected history
With seven bedrooms and space for 14 cars, an upscale Townsville property has hit the market, but anyone moving will also call Australia’s first medical institution home.
There are currently two modern kitchens and five bathrooms – one with a spa bath – but the property was originally built to study tropical diseases such as malaria and dengue fever in the early 1900s.
James Cook University professor of public health and tropical medicine, Peter Leggat, spent 20 years working at the property known as the Australian Institute of Tropical Medicine.
“It was the first medical institute in Australia, beating all the others in the whole of Australia … it was the first robbery … and it was amazing to set up in Townsville,” he said.
Professor Leggat says the building’s constant need for improvement is far removed from modern medical laboratories.
“It was a bit like quaint old Queenslander and had a lovely veranda. It was modified but not changed much,” he said.
“But many parasitic diseases are being studied. In fact, research on lymphatic filariasis has been recognized by the World Health Organization.”
Austrian-born doctor Anton Breinl was the institute’s first director and is said to be one of Britain’s most promising medical scientists after discovering a cure for sleeping sickness in 1904.
“Dr Anton Breinl has published a lot of papers and done a lot of field work which is really building a database of tropical disease research in the world. He’s been a real major player,” Professor Leggat said.
Dr Breinl’s work took him across Queensland, to the Northern Territory and even to remote communities in Papua New Guinea before he finally stepped down in 1920 after post-World War I racial intolerance made it increasingly difficult to maintain his position.
“His original citizenship as Austrian was not something that was well received … he got a lot of criticism,” Professor Leggat said.
Buyers are ready to face the challenge
Melbourne-based architectural firm director Daniel Xuereb said he had seen a growing demand for heritage renovations and more clients looking to push the boundaries of design.
“Perhaps in the past people were happier living in warehouses that were converted with [minimal] suitable, but now people want to create a high-quality living environment in converted heritage buildings,” he said.
The location of the building also plays a role.
One of the company’s projects involves converting a 1980s brick warehouse into a residential home and although the building is relatively new, Xuereb says the reused structure has its challenges.
“It’s a challenge to bring in light and, within a larger-volume building, to create residential-scale intimacy and living space where people will feel comfortable,” he said.
“We improved all the functional elements of the building while maintaining the character of the old industrial building.”
He said the reuse of old buildings for public use can also enhance the character of the city.
“It compares old buildings to new buildings and old and new uses, and I think there’s a lot richer character if you can give a new contemporary use to a building.”
Riding the slump in property values
Last month the Australian property market recorded its first decline since August 2020, indicating, along with rising interest rates, a turning point.
Tim Lawless, head of research at property group CoreLogic, said heritage-listed properties, which are often at the high end of the market, are often the first to be affected by value trends.
“So I wouldn’t be surprised if Townsville showed a fairly similar profile where the higher end, the less affordable end of the market, did show some additional weakness,” he said.
“But it comes after that top end has already shown a stronger growth trend through the recent growth cycle,” he said.
Data from CoreLogic shows north Queensland property values are still outperforming markets in the state’s southeast.
Townsville posted 0.3 percent growth last month, while Brisbane’s inner-city market fell 0.4 percent.
As to when Australian housing prices will rise again, Lawless said it would depend on interest rates.
“Townsville is a bit different. You have to expect with the strength of commodity prices, a fairly strong port sector and tourism to start picking up and some increase in military spending, [market conditions] might benefit Townsville.”
#bedrooms #kitchens #heritagelisted #home #unexpected #history
Comments
Post a Comment