Edgewater Towers
[4] Edgewater Towers was the brainchild of property developer Bruce Small, of Malvern Star Bicycles fame, and later Mayor for Gold Coast, Queensland.
"He retired as chairman and managing director of Bruce Small Industries in 1958, selling out his interests in the big Melbourne-based retail chain, then chalked up a real-estate triumph with a series of sell-out auctions and built Edgewater Towers, Melbourne's first multi-storey home-unit project".
The building is included in the City of Port Phillip's Heritage Review, which lists its significance as being "the first of St Kilda's residential high rise developments".
Originally Edgewater Towers' residents had use of two common area laundries on each floor (24 total), each fitted with automatic washing machine, clothes dryer, sink, drying cupboard, instantaneous hot water heater and incinerator chute.
The lobby is elevated[35] to capture the bay and park views and features cantilevered roof canopies above both entrances, clerestory windows above a curved wall of Castlemaine slate, terrazzo flooring[36] and columns of blue and pink mosaic glass tiles.
Facing Marine Parade, the building originally had a large illuminated fluorescent white plastic sign "Edgewater Towers" in red gothic script (Blackletter) until it was brought down by a storm in 1988.
Following an EGM in late 2019[45] it was resolved to convert to the more common Owners Corporation which completed June 2020 and Edgewater Towers is now Strata Title, regulated by Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).
The front patio, strip and pocket gardens are planted with indigenous species of the St Kilda area including: Allocasuarina littoralis (Black Sheoke), Pomaderris paniculosa ssp.
The defunct building maintenance unit was removed in 2013 and a new compliant galvanized steel balustrade reinstated inboard of the perimeter (similar in appearance and location to original) in 2015.
An accessible raised concrete paver and adjustable pedestal flooring system eliminated nuisance trip hazards and protects the Butynol rubber waterproof membrane.
This achieves Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (DDA) compliance for all abilities with wider 900mm lift door openings and most importantly flat floor access to the terrace without nuisance steps.
[57] Opperman had the pair of Edgewater Towers flats since 1961 and his main residence was in his electorate of Corio in Geelong until July 1967 when he became the Australian High Commissioner in Malta.
"When an attractive young girl is murdered, it doesn't take long for Homicide detectives to identify her killer (Adrian Fox at Edgewater Towers) but they have a tense time gathering sufficient evidence to bring him to trial, aware that before they can complete their case he may kill again".
[99] Sir Hubert Opperman was interviewed by journalist Mel Pratt at his office in Edgewater Towers on 4 March 1975 for the Oral History Programme for the National Library of Australia.
[102] Allan Zavod, pianist, composer, jazz musician and occasional conductor whose career has mainly been in America was photographed precariously on the rooftop of Edgewater Towers in 1987.
"Set in 1969 Melbourne, Dangerous Remedy tells the fascinating story of Dr Bertram Wainer who put his life at risk to expose police corruption in an effort to change the law on abortion".
[111] Edgewater Towers features in the exhibition of post-war Modernist architecture in Melbourne "Excavating Modernism" along with other buildings designed by architect Mordechai Benshemesh, together with works by Ernest Fooks, Kurt Popper and Herbert Tisher.
"Revolutionary for its time, architect and former local councillor David Brand suggests the starkly, white, Modernist-style Edgewater Towers could probably only have happened in the cosmopolitan context of St Kilda".
It is for this reason that there was consternation in the Benshemesh camp about Edgewater Towers, perhaps his most note-worthy work, on the St Kilda shoreline, when residents starting enclosing their balconies with glazing, thus revising the connection of this threshold space with their neighbours, the environment, and the context".
[119] "everything you'd find in a luxury Manhattan building is yours only minutes from Collins Street, Melbourne"[120] Philip Goad writes "this white, generously glazed slab seems more akin to 1950s Miami Beach, Florida, than New York City".
[121] Edgewater Towers developer "Bruce Small visited Miami, USA, in 1958.....he studied the great land reclamation projects in which the area (Everglades) abounded.
His imaginative mind was seized with the parallel that existed on Queensland's own Gold Coast – Land awaiting development at the hands of a bold and enterprising builder.....Bruce Small".
"Bruce Small.....had recently bought the property Questa on the corner of Robe St. and the Esplanade near Earls Court....plans are being prepared for an American-type motor-hotel (Motel) with 250 units estimated to cost £600,000.
In Melbourne ICI House's tallest status was surpassed by the CRA Building, 89–101, Collins Street, 26 storey, completed 1962 by Sir Bernard Evans (architect).
The tallest building designed by Edgewater Towers' architect Mordechai Benshemesh was Nylex House, 10, Queens Road Melbourne, 20 storey including a stunning penthouse apartment completed 1971.
[129] In May 1960 it was reported that "A great deal of interest has been created in this project, because it will obviously be the forerunner of a number of similar structures in the long-overdue redevelopment of Melbourne's inner suburban beach areas.
[130] Bruce Small's plans "for an American-type motor-hotel (Motel) with 250 units, estimated cost £600,000" and "to build to 20 storeys, in the case the lower floors would be used for car parking"[131] were never realised.
[137] 350, Beaconsfield Parade, St Kilda West, "Sunset Beach Tower", 12 storey (plus rooftop extension), 47 flats, 1969, Sol Sapir Architect and developer Nathan Beller.
[141] 225, Beaconsfield Parade, Middle Park, "Hobsons Bay Tower", 17 storey, 52 flats, 1980, Sol Sapir Architect and developer Nathan Beller.
A further tank is above the East lift roof serving only level 12 by gravity (retrofitted at the time the building opened to solve low water pressure in the penthouse flats).
