Once upon a time, a little white house was built along a potholed road in South Yarra.

The narrow street was, long ago, home to cabinet makers and undertakers and blacksmiths who made shoes for horses.

But one day the road was paved over. Soon the factories were replaced by shops and office buildings. And the little white house was eventually swallowed up by the expanding city, as apartments, stores, cinemas and car parks spread over the land.

It sounds like the tale from the 1942 picture book The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton, where a little cottage in the countryside is gradually engulfed by skyscrapers.