Once Grand Mansion

February 23, 1937 The Courier Mail page 18 the article's heading was "Beauty and Utility Embodied in Modern Mansion" Hugh McMaster the manager of the Brisbane branch of the building company Stuart Brothers had just built his own mansion on Hamilton Drive. McMaster a builder by trade had the architect Eric P. Trewern design the home for him. The Stuart Brothers company and Trewern had previously completed commercial projects in Brisbane. There was obviously a relationship between the entities McMaster, Trewern and Stuart Brothers. So when Hugh McMaster wanted to make a statement and build his mansion he turned to one of the leading architects of the time.  

Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Qld. : 1933 - 1954), Tuesday 23 February 1937, page 18

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Beauty and Utility Embodied in Modern Mansion

Mr. H. McMaster Builds a Hamilton Home 

A STUDY IN BRICK

Brisbane has returned to the construction of mansion homes. The new spirit in building of this description is embodied in the recently completed home of Mr. Hugh McMaster. director and manager in Queensland for Messrs. Stuart Bros., Ltd., building contractors, who are responsible for the construction of many new handsome buildings now in the course of erection in the city. In the spacious clays of the pioneering period of Queensland, mansion homes stood as landmarks in the suburbs. Because they belong to another generation in fact to another age many of these stately old homes have outlived their usefulness. The new mansion home, unlike its predecessors, is compact, possesses relatively little surrounding land, and its appointments are of the limousine age. Whereas the pioneers built with no glimpse of great economic and social changes ahead, and thus planned homes that required much upkeep, modern suburban mansions are so concisely planned that maintenance is reduced to a minimum. While beauty is incorporated in design and furnishing, utility is a paramount consideration, and thus these homes are calculated to be enduring in their usefulness.

 

Massive Proportions 

The massive proportions of the house contribute to its dignity. The exterior construction is entirely of face brick, and the roof tiles were selected to harmonise with the wall treatments. The colour scheme is restrained. In the design of the building a three storied effect in the front was created. The lower level has been treated in a series of arches, which are intended as the access to a fernery below a piazza, the arches of which harmonise. The piazza is on a level with the ground floor, on which are situated the day rooms a lounge, dining room, study, entrance hall, and staircase, which are en suite. On this floor, also, are the kitchen, maid's room, and maid's bathroom; The entrance to the house is imposing, the patterns of the brick archways themselves providing the required note of decoration. Off an entrance vestibule is the lounge, which is distinguished by a spacious bay window which houses an ingle nook with a delightful view of the river scenes At the far end of the room is a broad fireplace which has been treated in heringbone brickwork of variegated colours.. The dressings or the fireplace are in freestone. The wall paper patterns are in natural tones. These harmonise with the broad expanse of rich beige pile carpet, which continues V beneath a double-panelled doorway into the dining room. The lounge room furniture is in oak, and, by way of contrast, the dining room furniture is in maple. About both these rooms is an air of restfulness. The stairway, leading to the upper floor, is of the open stringer type, and its beauty is enhanced by a semiheaded window at a middle landing, which opens on to a balcony with a wrought iron balustrade. This balcony, together with an oriel window to the same elevation, creates a very fine artistic effect. 

Today it has been engulfed by today's modern architectural mansions and it may have lost its prominent position on the ridge overlooking the Brisbane River. Once up close to it and realising that this is almost a ninety year old design and in original state it is an impressive piece of home architecture. Once designed as grand in the then modern term with age, one can still see the beauty and grace of a grand mansion. It stands like one of those graceful wooden hull twin mastered yachts decked with polished wood and stainless fittings that when lying amongst eben the most modern of designs still has that appearance of a timeless beauty never to be reporoduced.