Summary

Brochure for John Canavan & Sons, located at 203 Elgar Road, Box Hill South. Brochure advertises 'The Kentucky Colonial' home design.

Physical Description

Brochure for John Canavan & Sons, located at 203 Elgar Road, Box Hill South. Brochure is comprised of white paper with green and black lettering. Front states 'Designed to Please, The "Kentucky Colonial", and a sketch drawing of the home in brown. Inside is a floor plan of the home, a brief about the design and its features, the Managing Agents: John Canavan & Sons 203 Elgar Road Box Hill South. On the back is a list of features included in the home.

Significance

These collections of about 40 housing brochures, issued by project builders and developers in the early 1960s in Melbourne, were collected by the donor and his wife while looking for an appropriate house to buy or build in the early 1960s. The donor ultimately built a small house in East Keilor in 1964, struggling financially to build it. The house design on which his own house was finally based is in this collection.

This collection of housing brochures is a great addition to the domestic life collection. It provides an overview of the surveying process that many young couples went through whilst seeking their own home in the post war period, and provides an excellent representation of the types of house designs available to build yourself or buy from an architect, builder or developer. The brochures show the floor plan spaces and arrangement, design aesthetic, materials and finishes, sizes, and costs of housing in the early 1960s, and reveal how architects, builders and developers promoted the idea of the home to Melburnians.

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