The Queensland Heritage Council has listed a Robin Dods-designed Federation-style house on its register.

Originally known as “Feniton” and built in 1906-07, the house is sited on a 1,292-square-metre block at 388 Bowen Terrace in the inner-Brisbane suburb of New Farm. The site has a second frontage on Oxley Lane at the rear. From 1916 to 1927, it was the home of Edward Granville Theodore, Queensland’s premier from 1919 to 1925.

According to its heritage statement, “Feniton is important in demonstrating the lifestyle of Brisbane’s prosperous elite in the inner suburbs of Brisbane during the early 20th century.”

The house is set back 25 metres from Bowen Terrace and is surrounded by large gardens at the front and rear. The highset timber house has verandahs on three sides and a steeply pitched roof with projecting brick chimneys.

View gallery Image: Queensland Heritage Register

“Feniton forms part of a group of major works or ‘first quality houses’ of the middle period of the Hall and Dods practice (1901-09), a group described as comprising ‘most of the interesting houses designed by Dods,’” its heritage statement notes.

“Feniton is important for its Federation aesthetic, successfully combining Arts and Crafts and Classical elements in a pleasingly proportioned asymmetrical highset house with dominant roof, wide verandahs, piazza with a northeast aspect, and visually firm connection to the ground. Largely intact, it demonstrates, internally and externally, fine architectural quality and skilful arrangement of generous and refined formal and informal spaces that evoke a sense of an earlier, gracious lifestyle.”

Dods, who trained as an architect in Scotland and England, was known for combining the British Arts and Crafts style with the building traditions of Queensland to meet the climatic requirements of a subtropical environment.

“The practice of Hall and Dods produced a wide range of accomplished buildings and was credited with achieving an ‘architectural revolution’ in Brisbane,” the heritage statement reads.

View gallery Image: Queensland Heritage Register

In 2016, the property was the subject of a development proposal that would have seen the house relocated further toward Bowen Terrace, reducing its setback from 25 metres to 6 metres, in order to make way for three townhouses at the rear fronting Oxley Lane, under plans drafted by Tonic Design.

Brisbane City Council rejected the application, which then led to an appeal in the Queensland Planning and Environment Court. Three prominent Queensland architects and historians – Louise Noble, Don Watson and Robert Riddel, voluntarily acted as co-respondents with Brisbane City Council to defend the house against the proposal.

The appeal was dismissed in August 2017. The court found that “the proposed re-siting of the house creates real and significant conflict with the relevant provisions of the planning scheme introduced to protect, as far as is practicable in the circumstances of each particular case, cultural heritage values.”

Feniton was added to Brisbane City Council’s heritage register in 2010. It has also been known as Almaden and Fenton.