Mv019 : Semi-detached Cottages

Item details


Name of item:	Mv019 : Semi-detached Cottages
Other name/s:	Larsen's Cottages, Kanimbla Cottage
Primary address:	28-30 Montgomery Street, Mount Victoria, NSW 2786
Parish:	Hartley
County:	Cook
Local govt. area:	Blue Mountains

All addresses

Street Address	Suburb/town	LGA	Parish	County	Type
28-30 Montgomery Street	Mount Victoria	Blue Mountains	Hartley	Cook	Primary Address

Statement of significance:


	The semi-detached pair of cottages built as an income-earning investment through leasing to visitors to the Mountains in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century is a significant representative example. The significance of the owner, however, is unusually high. Berghofer was a prominent entrepreneur and politician, well known in Kanimbla, Mount Victoria and Little Hartley, who left his mark through, in particular, the construction of Berghofer’s Pass to allow early cars a better route down the mountains to the west than Victoria Pass then offered. They are a pair of semi-detached cottages with intact Victorian features such as the original dormer windows and ogee form verandah. The semi-detached and terraced cottage form is unusual in the Blue Mountains and these cottages are a fine example of the type.
	Date significance updated: 23 Dec 99
	Note: The State Heritage Inventory provides information about heritage items listed by local and State government agencies. The State Heritage Inventory is continually being updated by local and State agencies as new information becomes available. Read the OEH copyright and disclaimer.

Description


Construction years:	1880-1890
Physical description:	A pair of hipped roof semi-detached Victorian Georgian style cottages facing north to Montgomery Street with an ogee roofed verandah on the north side. The cottages have a corrugated steel roof with dormer windows and a central rendered chimney with a rendered moulded corbel. The verandah has stop chamfered columns, a boarded screen dividing the cottages and a boarded screen to the west end. A 4 pane door is at the centre of each house with 2 over 2 pane double hung windows either side. The cottages have a rear skillion wing A brick outhouse with a corrugated steel vaulted roof is in the rear yard of each cottage
Physical condition and/or Archaeological potential:	Fair
	Date condition updated:23 Dec 99
Modifications and dates:	Door opening formed in dividing verandah screen Rear skillion extended on east house, both skillions infilled Cast iron brackets and timber balustrade to verandah Windows in side walls


Current use:	Residence
Former use:	Letting House

History

Historical notes:

John William Berghofer (1840 - 1927) was born in the German state of Hesse and came to Australia in 1855 with his mother and younger siblings to join his father in the Sydney area. John William worked as a farm labourer and road overseer around Sydney. In 1867 he married a young German woman, Katherine Spring (1850 - 1945) and became a dedicated Anglican. He first encountered the Blue Mountains around 1870 when he left his family in Kogarah and went gold-seeking at Hill End and Gulgong. He returned to Kogarah but in 1875-6 he moved to Kanimbla Valley as manager of the old Norton sheep station recently acquired by Ebenezer Vickery, the industrialist and grazier. The Berghofer family lived there in the new homestead built by Berghofer himself in 1876. After thirteen years in Kanimbla, the Berghofers moved back to Kogarah in 1889, when Vickery leased the sheep-station, but in 1892 they returned to the Blue Mountains, buying the old Victoria Inn at the foot of Mitchell’s Pass , renaming it Rosenthal, later, because of anti-German sentiment, Rosedale (Bergman 2-7).

Berghofer and his friend H.G. Rienitz, a school-teacher, shared an enthusiasm for education and for the mountain climate. They both bought investment property in Mount Victoria around the same time in the 1880s and wished to capitalise on the growing tourist trade and its attendant services (Bergman 7). Berghofer, like Rienets, built cottages for leasing in Montgomery Street: the semi-detached cottages (MV 019), known locally as Larsen’s Cottages, were built for Berghofer and probably constructed by Larsen. Neils (Peter) Larsen was Henry Lawson's father and it is said that Henry Lawson himself did some of the painting. (Silvey; Roderick)

At the same time Berghofer built a characteristic general store with living accommodation on the corner of Selsdon Street and the highway (MV 041) and this facility was leased to store-keepers, most notably John Wilson from at least 1912 to 1923 (MV Progress Association Directory 1912, 16; Country Trades Register 1923, 160).

The house known as Berghofer’s House (MV 022) is likely to have been leased to tenants for much of the sixty years that Berghofer and later his widow owned it. Berghofer’s primary residence after 1892 was Rosedale, except for the period 1898 to 1903 when he returned to Kanimbla homestead as Vickery’s manager. When Blaxland Shire (which included Rosedale but not Mount Victoria) was formed in 1906, Berghofer bacame its first President and became famous because of the building of Berghofer’s Pass in 1907-12. For the next two decades Berghofer’s Pass superseded Victoria Pass, until Victoria Pass was improved for motor transport in 1934 (Wilson 14).

Although Berghofer was a naturalised Australian citizen, he was obliged by war-time legislation to resign from his public office in Blaxland Shire Council in 1916 because he had been born in Germany, just as Rienitz was obliged to close his Mount Victoria school (MV 020) at the same time (Bergman 15). Berghofer continued to live at Rosedale but retained close links with Mount Victoria. When he was presented to the future George VI and the present Queen Mother at Mount York in 1927, a journalist described him as ‘Father of Mount Victoria’ (Bergman 16): this is excessive, but it is a useful reminder that the complex of store and three houses which Berghofer built there were a significant stage in the village’s development.

Berghofer was buried in Mount Victoria cemetery in 1927. In the 1930s and up to 1941 Miss Hood and then Miss Pratley ran Rosedale as a boarding-house (Moore 1930, 193; Silvey 117), so it is likely that the widowed Katherine Berghofer came to live in the Mount Victoria house (MV 022) until her death in 1945.

Historic themes

Australian theme (abbrev)	New South Wales theme	Local theme
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Accommodation-Activities associated with the provision of accommodation, and particular types of accommodation – does not include architectural styles – use the theme of Creative Endeavour for such activities.	(none)-
4. Settlement-Building settlements, towns and cities	Land tenure-Activities and processes for identifying forms of ownership and occupancy of land and water, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal	(none)-

Assessment of significance


SHR Criteria a) [Historical significance]	The semi-detached pair of cottages built as an income-earning investment through leasing to visitors to the Mountains in the later nineteenth and early twentieth century is a significant representative example. The significance of the owner, however, is unusually high. Berghofer was a prominent entrepreneur and politician, well known in Kanimbla, Mount Victoria and Little Hartley, who left his mark through, in particular, the construction of Berghofer’s Pass to allow early cars a better route down the mountains to the west than Victoria Pass then offered.
SHR Criteria c) [Aesthetic significance]	The cottages at 28-30 Montgomery Street, Mount Victoria are a pair of semi-detached cottages with intact Victorian features such as the original dormer windows and ogee form verandah. The semi-detached and terraced cottage form is unusual in the Blue Mountains and these cottages are a fine example of the type.
Integrity/Intactness:	Fair
Assessment criteria:	Items are assessed against the State Heritage Register (SHR) Criteria to determine the level of significance. Refer to the Listings below for the level of statutory protection.

Listings

Heritage Listing	Listing Title	Listing Number	Gazette Date	Gazette Number	Gazette Page
Local Environmental Plan	Local Environmental Plan2005	MV019	07 Oct 05	122
Heritage study		MV019

Study details

Title	Year	Number	Author	Inspected by	Guidelines used
Blue Mountains Heritage Study	1983	MV019	Croft & Associates Pty Ltd & Meredith Walker		Yes
Heritage Study Review, Blue Mountains	1992	MV019	Tropman and Tropman		Yes
Blue Mountains Heritage Register Review	1999	MV019	Jack, R. I. for University of Sydney	RIJ & PH	Yes
Technical Audit BM Heritage Register	2008	MV019	Blue Mountains City Council	City Planning Branch	No

References, internet links & images

Type	Author	Year	Title
Written		1939	Moore's Australian Almanac and New South Wales Country Directory, 1930-
Written		1923	Country Trades Register
Written		1912	Mount Victoria Directory
Written	Bergmann, G. F. J.,	1954	John William Berghofer
Written	Roderick, Colin	1982	The Real Henry Lawson
Written	Silvey, Gwen	1996	Happy Days: Blue Mountains Guesthouses Remembered
Written	Wilson, A.	1949	The Great Western Highway in Main Roads, 15, pt. 1 September

Note: internet links may be to web pages, documents or images.

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Data source


The information for this entry comes from the following source:
Name:	Local Government
Database number:	1170209

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