Hester Villa

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Hester Villa is a heritage-listed, single-storey timber and corrugated iron house at 58 Stafford Street, East Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. It was built about 1901 for Captain Robert Pearn, a master mariner who helped recruit Pacific Islanders; a penny nailed above the front doorway marks the date. The house replaced the original family home that had burned down. After Pearn’s death in 1910, his wife Louisa inherited it, and it stayed in the family until 1968. By the late 1970s the house was in very poor condition, but conservation architect Ray Oliver and his wife acquired it and refurbished it.

Hester Villa sits on three blocks in a medium-density suburban area. It is raised on timber stumps with the back sub-floor enclosed. There is a stepped verandah on three sides, a short tin roof with twin eaves brackets and a ventilator gable. The front features a bay window, ornate cast-iron balustrading, timber columns with capitals and brackets, and twin posts supporting a fretwork pediment. The four-panel front door, with ruby-flashed glass sidelights, opens to a central corridor. Inside, walls are lined with tongue-and-groove boards, and sash windows allow access to the verandah.

The house and garden have been sensitively rehabilitated. Hester Villa was listed on the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992 for reflecting middle-class suburban housing in Brisbane and as a fine example of a Federation-era timber and iron house with aesthetic significance.