A LANDMARK heritage-listed building in East Fremantle’s George Street precinct has been gutted by a developer — and it’s all completely legal.
Little remains of the 114-year-old brush factory on Duke Street — for many years home to Lauder & Howard antiques — but an incomplete facade.
Local heritage advocates are shocked while local town councillors who’d signed off on the planning application say they had no idea of the extent of what was to be lost.
Fremantle Society president Henty Farrar told the Herald he was “shocked and amazed” when he noticed the shell from Stirling Highway.
“As a member of the East Fremantle planning advisory panel that advised the council on the application for the development I am dumbfounded,” he says.
“Who got it so wrong as to permit this wanton act of facadomy? The council must explain how it came to happen.”
Local ward councillor Cliff Collinson, who’d voted to approve the development, was none the wiser.
“I was not expecting to lose the cellar, the floors and the interior of the building,” he conceded when questioned.
“We probably did get it a bit wrong.”
He says he and his colleagues may have been distracted by debates about the proposed development’s impact on the streetscape, as there was concern it might dominate the old Royal George Hotel across the road.
The original application was approved in 2011 and there have been three amendments since, including for a glass-clad penthouse to sit above the old building. That was approved by councillors against the advice of staff.
When finished the building, being developed by Manotel Pty Ltd, will include a jazz club/performance space where the now-demolished basement was, two storeys of commercial office and then the penthouse.
The Fremantle History Society’s Ron Davidson was horrified to learn of the gutting. He says the old brush factory had been an important landmark.
“It was a major link between working class East Fremantle’s small cottages and the fairly lush, expensive East Fremantle on the other side,” he says.
The brush factory was opened in 1901 by former WA premier John Forrest, who told owners H Albrecht & Co he’d organise for some local timber to be sent there after hearing their brush handles were mostly imported.
Mr Davidson says antiques dealer Les Lauder — for many years one of Fremantle’s most active heritage stalwarts — had gone to a great deal of trouble to save the building from demolition.
“There was a lot of detail left in the building and the character of the building was retained,” he says.
Mr Lauder and his partner Mark Howard sold the building some years ago and moved to the Blinco Street precinct. The factory is listed as category A on East Fremantle’s municipal heritage inventory, which says it should be afforded a “high level of protection”.
East Fremantle council CEO Gary Clark told the Herald he’d checked and the developer had complied with approval conditions.
by STEVE GRANT
Shame on you councillors , this can never be restored!we came especially to live in East Freo for the beautiful buildings and history….
I was shocked to read this article of the Lauder & Howard building in Duke St, especially after we went through so many hoops and loops recently to get our application approved with the town of East Fremantle. Although the front part of our house is heritage noted the existing extension at the back was done in the 70/80s and all we doing is a slight alteration to this which toke us 4 months of back and forth with applications to have it finally approved. Even in his own statement it said the extension has no heritage impact but the amount of paperwork and surveys we had to go through is ridiculous, not to mention the large amount of wasted money and than to see that this building in Duke street being totally gutted is a total scandal to other (home)builders and rate payers who are doing the right thing. It’s listed as a cat. A heritage inventory and than getting away with this is not the so called “high level of protection” I can think of.