Notable homes

Gipps Street is known for notable homes. Nepean Terrace was the home to actor Frederick Baker in 1888. He died on stage at the Princess Theatre and his ghost Federici is said to haunt the theatre.

No. 179 was the townhouse of Constance Stone, who became Australia’s first woman doctor in 1890. Little Parndon at No. 159 was home to Eugene von Guerard, prominent artist and teacher in the late 1800s. No.155 Gipps Street housed artist-author Norman Lindsay with his first wife Kate Parkinson in the 1890s. Behind the white wall, No.107 Powlett is the former home of Picnic at Hanging Rock author Joan Lindsay and husband Daryl Lindsay, once director of the National Gallery of Victoria.

Tiny Magnolia Place is well-hidden with a canopied back entrance of a mews house. The terrace house at No.85 was home to Peter Lalor, who led miners in the Eureka Stockade uprising at Ballarat in 1854.

At Hotham Street, stood a 1861 bluestone home dubbed the Gothic House. It was designed by architect Joseph Reed (who designed Melbourne Town Hall, State Library and Royal Exhibition Building) for deputy surveyor-general Clement Hodgkinson (who designed Fitzroy and Treasury Gardens).

Opposite is Fairhall, an elegant 1860 townhouse. Cyprus Terrace was designed to look like two grand houses, but it actually four homes.