Not Just a Move But a Lifestyle Change—We’re “townies” now
(Last updated Feb. 20, 2011)
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The View of the city across the beautiful Carlton Gardens. I recently went for a walk from our house and almost without knowing it I was soon in the center of the city. |
The shops on Rathdowne Street, around the corner from us |
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Canning Street, around the corner from our house, looking south toward the central city business district in background |
Our local pub, the Brandon Hotel, three blocks from our house. Lisa, Jacob, Tilly and Eleanor occasionally join us here for an pub dinner, or we join them at their local pub |
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Davis Street, looking west toward our house at the far end |
53 Davis St., North Carlton, just after we planted some new bushes at the right side. That’s our Subaru in the front. |
After all, we had only made 18 moves (most interstate and international) in the almost 50 years we’ve been married, so it obviously was time to make another move 4 years after we moved to Australia and bought a house. What’s so crazy about that?
On Aug. 1, 2005, we sold our house in Kew just two days after the first open house inspections. Then we bought a new house much closer into the city and with far less suburban ambience, which is what we were seeking. If that sounds precipitous it wasn’t. Because we had been looking at houses closer to the city centre since April and Alma had kept a detailed list of 80 houses we inspected! She’s an expert in this moving game, you have to understand.
Our new
home is a Federation-style house, or as some call them, an Edwardian house,
built at the turn of the Century. The "federation" to which 
it refers was, of course, the 1901 federation of Australia as it (mostly) shed its British colonial shackles.
The house is in the very desirable and much sought-after Rathdowne Village section of Carlton, one of the older neighborhoods of Melbourne (they call them "suburbs" here even though they are distinctly urban neighborhoods). Our house is two doors off Rathdowne Street, a wide, tree-lined boulevard, and we’re within walking distance to the city centre, whose skyscrapers loom in the near background. This is more than just a move—it is a lifestyle change from suburban living, of which we have been tiring for some time now, to a more lively and diverse style of living. The house’s greatest feature is its location right in the heart of a restaurant district that also has within a short walk almost every kind of shop that we could we could want. The result is we walk more than we ever have, and we’re less car-dependent than ever.
There’s a bit of irony ironic symmetry to our move. Nearly 15 years ago, when Lisa studied a semester at Melbourne University, which is a short walk from our house, she often rhapsodized in emails about the Victorian flavor of Carlton and about its famous Lygon Street cafes and restaurants. Little did we kinow then that one day we would live there.
Carlton North has a colorful history, some of which can be viewed in short form at a website at:
http://localhero.biz/article/permatitle/history_of_carlton,_victoria/
Our new house has three bedrooms, three fireplaces, living room, kitchen-dining area and a patio in the back with almost NO GARDENING required (which was a big motive for moving). We’ve downsized a bit, which is fine with us. Two people didn’t really need the three bathrooms in the Kew house. This was an opportunity to get rid of some stuff, which turned out to be liberating in a way. But the 12-foot-high ceilings in the old house provide a feeling of spaciousness that doesn’t otherwise make us feel we’ve downsized all that much. The house is also very light, thanks to the double-glazed glass doors across the back and the three skylights in the living/dining area and master bedroom.
We made a
handsome little profit in the sale of our Kew house, part of which we’re
putting to good use doing a few renovations and customizations on the Carlton house. Major renovations are hardly needed since the house was extensively
renovated only three years ago by the previous owner, including rewiring, new
roof, extension in the back part of the house with a new kitchen, and extensive
interior remodeling. But 
there are things we want to do to adapt the house to
our lifestyle. The first thing we (a contractor, actually) did was to knock out
an interior brick wall between the living room and kitchen/dining area to make
a more open plan, which we like. We also remodeled the kitchen and did some
rewiring, construction of a wooden shed off the back patio and painting
throughout the house. We recently had the bathroom renovated. Hopefully, we
are finished.
Rathdowne Street, besides being a short stroll to Lygon Street’s shops, restaurants, theater etc., also has its own shops, cafes, restaurants, a couple of parks, a couple of book shops and other amenities. It has a distinctly Victorian flavor with ornate ironwork on the covered sidewalks (footpaths), lots of heritage-protected terrace houses and other period touches. Lisa and Jacob will be even closer to us and Lisa is already talking about walking to our house.
It’s nice to be
able to literally walk out our front door and just around the corner are
outdoor cafes, bistros with sidewalk tables, shops, the Carlton library and a
great park and playground to which we take Tilly and Eleanor when they visit.
It’s also nice to walk two blocks in either direction east or west and be at
two different tram lines that take you into the center of the central business
district downtown in about 5 minutes.
The terrain in this neighborhood is flat and bicycle paths abound. It’s 10 blocks to a main bike path that runs to Princess Park and to Lisa and Jacob’s Brunswick house along the way.
As we take new pictures of the house and our great neighborhood I’ll continue to update this web page. Meanwhile, here are some photos:
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Google Map view of where we live in Melbourne. “Home” pinpoints our house, midway between Jacob and Lisa’s house and the central business district, which is about a 20 minute walk (or 4-minute tram ride) from where we live |
The playground down the
street from our house
….where Tilly, Eleanor and
Edith love to swim with Papa and Grandma (More photos of their visits to our
neighborhood pool are at “The Girls” web page). Our pool, owned by the City
of Melbourne and managed by the “Y,” also has gym facilities where Alma and I
work out in an effort to stay reasonably fit. Take a look at the map and
satellite photo above to see how close we live to this great swimming pool.
More often than not we walk to wherever we want to go, or take a tram on one
of the two tram lines just two blocks from our house in either direction. As
a result, we have become a lot less car-dependent than we were in our
previous house.
