The Lodge
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Lodge is the official residence of the Prime Minister of Australia and also the residence of prime ministerial family in the national capital, Canberra. It is located on Adelaide Avenue, Deakin.
Contents |
[edit] History
The Lodge is a large, two-storey house, located in 18,000 square metres (4.4 acres) of landscaped grounds.This house was the first to be built, and was originally intended for the Treasurer. It was reallocated to the Prime Minister when work on the other residences was cancelled due to economic constraints.The Lodge was built over the period 1926-27.It was built by Sydney builder, Mr J G Taylor of Glebe, at a cost of £28,319. This figure included the development of the 2.8 hectare site from bare grazing land to lawns, flower, fruit and vegetable gardens, orchards and recreational facilities including a tennis court and croquet lawn. It further included the cost of decorating and furnishing under the supervision of Melbourne interior decorator, Mrs Ruth Lane-Poole. The Lodge was intended as one of a suite of official residences for prominent ministers in Canberra.
The first Prime Minister to live in the lodge was Stanley Melbourne Bruce, who moved in a few days before 9 May 1927, when the Old Parliament House was officially opened and the national capital changed from Melbourne to Canberra. His successor James Scullin (1929-32) preferred to live at the Hotel Canberra (now the Hyatt Hotel). However the next Prime Minister Joseph Lyons chose The Lodge, and except for Ben Chifley (1945-49) and John Howard (1996- ), all subsequent Prime Ministers have used The Lodge as their primary place of residence.
Ben Chifley preferred the Kurrajong Hotel, where many Labor politicians of the era stayed, and where he later died. John Howard, the current Prime Minister, attracted much adverse comment when he announced at the beginning of his Prime Ministership in 1996 that he would not use The Lodge as his principal home. He would stay there only when he is in Canberra for parliamentary or government business, but he would live primarily at Kirribilli House, Sydney. This is a residence maintained for the official use of Prime Ministers when they need to perform official duties and extend official hospitality when in Sydney, but is not one that was ever intended to be the Prime Minister's (or anybody's) primary place of residence.
[edit] Renovations
When Robert Menzies became Prime Minister in 1939, they moved into The Lodge in Canberra. Pattie Menzies undertook a thorough makeover of the residence. First, the makeshift children’s bedrooms on the front balcony, built for the large Lyons family, were removed. Worn carpets and furnishings were replaced and kerosene heaters installed.
The Lodge also underwent some heavy renovation in the 1960s. When Prime Minister Holt was in office,The Prime Ministers wife, Zara Holt, had a major makeover of the Lodge. All the curtains were discarded, all the carpets ripped up. The floors were recovered with a dramatic emerald green carpet. The tall arched windows of the entrance were draped with crisp white curtains. A flagpole flying the Australian flag was installed on the staircase landing, to mark most controversial of all was the extensive work needed to transform the dark varnished Tasmanian mountain ash paneling of the walls of all three rooms. Once the stripping was completed, the walls were coated with a white gloss paint. These bright walls remained the backdrop of formal photographs at The Lodge for the next five prime ministers. When Prime Minister Gorton moved in, Bettina Gorton’s practical abilities in farm repairs were soon called on to deal with maintenance issues resulting from some of Zara Holt’s more impractical decorating achievements at The Lodge. Repairs to a leaking ceiling that threatened the silk wallpaper in the ‘Swan suite’, and toning down some of the more vibrant colours in furnishings and finishes, were among the work she arranged to have done. But Bettina Gorton’s lasting imprint on The Lodge was in the grounds. During the Gorton’s term, a wall was built surrounding The Lodge, both as a security measure and to give some privacy from the encroaching traffic of Adelaide Avenue on the eastern side of the residence. Once the wall was completed, Bettina Gorton developed a garden of Australian native plants. Also the Gorton’s installed a swimming pool, courtyard installed in the north east corner of the grounds.
Major work was also carried out in 1977-78 to upgrade the kitchen and staff quarters and to extend the main dining room. The Frasers occupied The Lodge nine years after Zara Holt’s refurbishment, and they found the house drab and unwelcoming. The once-glamorous wallpaper was peeling from the guestroom ceiling, and numerous cracks had appeared in the bathroom walls. Tamie Fraser thought the layout of the house was inefficient, the service area inadequate and, like every occupant since 1927, found the dining room too small for adequate official entertaining. Among the visitors entertained at The Lodge by the Frasers were Prince Charles, and then Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip in 1977.
The first task Tamie Fraser undertook was to supplement the surviving settings of the 1927 white and gold Royal Doulton dinner service. It had a special pattern featuring the prime ministerial crest that had been designed by Ruth Lane-Poole in 1926. Interestingly, the man who handled Tamie Fraser’s order in 1977 had arranged for the manufacture of the original set fifty years earlier. Though this expensive purchase created a furore, it did not deter Tamie Fraser from battling to secure major renovations of the service wing and dining room in 1978. She chose architect Guilford Bell to oversee this remodelling and to redecorate the main rooms. Ten years after Zara Holt imposed her extravagant decorating scheme on The Lodge, Tamie Fraser returned the main reception rooms to ‘classic colours and style’, with cream painted walls and a white Berber carpet.
Substantial restoration in the 1980s when Bob Hawke was Prime Minister.The Prime Ministers wife, Hazel Hawke, most notable during her eight years at The Lodge was her work for the Australiana Fund and in her sympathetic restoration of the building’s interior. The Australiana Fund, started by Tamie Fraser, used donations to collect Australian art and furniture for the four official residences – Government House and The Lodge in Canberra, and Admiralty House and Kirribilli House in Sydney.
Among Hazel Hawke’s achievements was finding and arranging for the restoration of The Lodge’s original Australian-made Beale piano. Hazel Hawke also fitted out a room on the mezzanine landing of The Lodge as her office. She remembered this as her favourite room, where she spent most of her time.
When the Keatings moved into The Lodge in 1991, they made some changes to the furnishings, moving the massive William Rojo bookcase provided by the Australian Fund into storage, and providing the Brown Room with new sofas. Unlike many of the earlier prime ministerial families, the Keatings preferred to treat The Lodge as a family home and did not often entertain official visitors there.
[edit] Open Hours
The Lodge is not normally open to the public, except for limited access on special 'open days' once or twice a year. For dates contact Canberra Tourism, or see the Governor-General's website, which shares open days with The Lodge.
[edit] External links
