How St Kilda went from an elite suburb to Skid Row

Long before the grinning face of Luna Park lit up St Kilda’s Esplanade, the bayside suburb was once a glitzy hub for Melbourne’s wealthy elite — not the mecca for tourists and hangovers we know it as today. So how did it all go so wrong?

Awash with mansions and packed to the rafters with Melbourne’s wealthy elite, it was the most densely populated and exclusive suburb in Melbourne.

Richer than Toorak and Brighton, and a playground for business titans and politicians, everybody who was anybody wanted to live in St Kilda.

Long before the grinning face of Luna Park lit up the foreshore at dusk, St Kilda was a very different place to the bohemian Mecca it later became.

But a calamity in the tail end of the 1800s set the suburb on a very different course to its silver spoon roots.

A sketch of The Lady of St Kilda, the ship that brought James Ross Lawrence to the Port Phillip District. Picture: State Library of Victoria

THE ORIGINAL LADY OF ST KILDA

On a grazing licence in the young Port Phillip District, James Ross Lawrence fenced off a piece of foreshore in 1842.

The misshapen triangle had three tracks running its perimeter, which Lawrence named Fitzroy St, The Esplanade and Acland St.

Acland St was named for a close friend, the owner of the ship on which Lawrence had been master, had brought Lawrence to the colony and moored in the bay close to this very spot.

The ship was the Lady of St Kilda.

The St Kilda foreshore in the mid 1800s was a playground for Melbourne’s wealthy. Picture: State Library of Victoria

When Lawrence subdivided his block in 1845, St Kilda real estate was hotly sought.

By the late 1850s, tramways were running down the Esplanade and some of the colony’s most palatial seaside homes were built.

As money flowed from the goldfields St Kilda became a fashionable suburb for the rich and by the late 1800s, with a population of almost 20,000, it was the city’s most densely populated area with more than a dozen hotels.

Sea baths and amusements adorned the beachfront.

The economy was booming.

Land and property prices went through the roof, especially in central Melbourne.

British banks poured loans freely into the colony expecting huge returns.

The economy, built of speculation, grew to breaking point.

Meanwhile politicians and businessmen became ever more corrupt.

St Kilda became known for other reasons in the early to mid 20th Century. A sign advertising services on the George Hotel. Picture: St Kilda Historical Society

AFTER THE CRASH OF 1890

When the bubble burst in 1890, thousands faced destitution in Melbourne.

Land prices plummeted and would not climb back to the same value in real terms for 60 years.

St Kilda’s famous Esplanade.

The sprawling mansions of St Kilda were mothballed or sold, demolished and the land subdivided.

Many were converted to accommodation for travellers.

Many of the once wealthy residents moved away, some further down the bay to Brighton.

By 1894, the depression showed signs of turning and St Kilda was coming to life again.

In the early 20th century, the funfair Luna Park and the neighbouring Palais de Danse sprang up, bringing affordable entertainment to Melbourne’s growing population.

During WWII, American soldiers flocked to the area for seaside fun — and to meet the new ladies of St Kilda — as the suburb became known for loose bars and brothels.

The evolution to a carnival ground for Melbourne’s working class came with an unsettling string of fires and arson attacks that continued throughout the 20th century.

In 1968, the Palais de Danse was destroyed by fire and later replaced with the Twister nightclub, which itself went up in 2007.

Fire destroyed the St Kilda Pier Kiosk in 2003 and it was subsequently rebuilt, as was the famous Stokehouse restaurant when it burned down in 2014.

In late 2014, a fire above the kitchen at Donovan’s was extinguished before it could destroy the popular restaurant.

A plaque marks the spot of James Ross Lawrence’s original plot.

JAMES’ PLACE

The corner of Acland St and Fitzroy St in the early 20th Century, and how it appears now. The corner marks the spot of the original St Kilda land block. Pictures: State Library if Victoria, Google.

A few of the old St Kilda mansions remain, long divided into apartments or sold off as rooming houses.

Now lined with palm trees, The Esplanade and its surrounds are still a popular meeting place for carnival fun.

The St Kilda convenience store on the corner of Fitzroy St and Acland St is open until 10pm every night of the week.

During the day beach goers wander in for soft drinks and ice creams and at night, late drinkers looking for a sausage roll are disappointed to find it closed at midnight.

On the brick wall at the side of the store is a plaque.

This corner once marked one end of James Ross Lawrence’s land — the original St Kilda.

Back then it was freshly cleared, open grazing land.

St Kilda is still a mecca for summer fun.

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He never could have imagined the mansions and tramways that would shoot up, still carrying the name of the ship that brought him here.

Acland, who himself never visited the Port Phillip District, could never imagine the unmade road named for him would evolve to a hub of cake chefs, tourists and hangovers.

And neither Lawrence nor the upper class residents of the old St Kilda in the 1850s could ever imagine what the area would grow to become.