Villa Maria Hostel is a heritage-listed nursing home at 167–173 Saint Paul's Terrace, Fortitude Valley, City of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.

Villa Maria was established by the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious order which has cared for the poor, aged and needy in Queensland since 1874.

[1] James Duhig, Archbishop of Brisbane, took a great interest in the work of the Sisters and encouraged them to build a new facility on their Spring Hill (now Fortitude Valley) site.

Villa Maria was also part of Duhig's larger urban design and town planning initiatives, which included the grand scheme for the Holy Name Cathedral.

He saw Villa Maria as an integral component of a vision of Brisbane as a city of grand buildings and boulevards, with Leichhardt Street (now St Paul's Terrace) as a tree lined boulevard with tall government buildings and stately mansions on one side and to the other, Victoria Park, plunging into a valley and climbing to the Herston slopes which was to be a future University of Queensland site.

Cullen and Egan prepared the working drawings and supervised the construction of the later stages continuing the original concept of the Hennessy scheme with the same architectural form, expression and detailing with some variation in the internal planning.

In 1940 the second section of Villa Maria, the convent wing which included facilities for bread making, ironing and laundry work, was completed.

Opened on 7 April 1968 by Archbishop O'Donnell, the new wing was designed by architects Frank L Cullen, Fagg, Hargraves and Moony and built by J O'Leary.

[1] In 2008, the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration continue to care for elderly women and the Villa Maria complex remains the centre of their work in Brisbane.

The planning remains largely as designed in the 1920s with double loaded corridors internally accommodating rooms for residents opening onto verandahs and the provision of communal living and workings spaces.

[1] The three-, four- and five-storeyed, polychromatic facebrick building designed in a Romanesque idiom, has its principal elevations to St Paul's Terrace and Warren Street.

This entrance is approached by a set of brick stairs from street level and is sheltered by a projecting, white-painted concrete porch with a vaulted ceiling and a gable roof surmounted by a Celtic cross and supported by four columns with decorative composite capitals.

The chapel is a three-storey volume characterised by a blind, semi-circular apse and tall narrow arched window openings between flat buttresses to the sides.

The fine polychromatic brickwork includes light brick banding defining the arches and bases of the long windows and eaves decorated with corbelling in a machicolation motif.

The planning remains largely as designed in the 1920s - with double loaded corridors internally accommodating rooms for residents opening onto verandahs and provision of communal living and working spaces in various parts of the building.

These areas are notable for the fine timber panelled doors surmounted by semi-circular lights or painted tympanum murals, decorative architraves and coloured glass windows matching those in the chapel.

South of the chapel, the handsome terrazzo stair with elegant turned timber posts and austere decorative iron balustrading remains.

[1] A splendid three-storey rectangular volume with a towering vaulted ceiling, the chapel has a projecting apse to the east, a mezzanine gallery to the west and holds a congregation of over 350 persons.

A number of recent extensions and a freestanding rectangular building, none of which are considered to be of cultural heritage significance, intrude into the courtyard space and along the northeast side of the chapel.

A handsome white-painted concrete gateway embellished to match the front entrance porch houses a decorative solid metal double gate opening to the corner of St Paul's Terrace and Warren Street.

Opened in 1928, Villa Maria is significant as the first permanent home of the Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Queensland and has remained a focal point for their activities until the present day.

Known for his particular interest in urban design and town planning, Villa Maria is an important component of Duhig's vision for Brisbane as a city of boulevards and fine buildings.

[1] With its picturesque massing and finely crafted polychromatic brickwork, distinctive round arches, arcading, prominent tower, restrained ornamentation, geometric patterning in the brickwork and use of corbelling in a machicolation motif, Villa Maria is a fine example of a building in the Romanesque idiom, a style commonly employed in the design of religious places during the inter-war period.

[1] The principal architectural component of the Villa Maria complex, the chapel, incorporates defining elements of the Romanesque most notably masonry construction, round arched windows, patterned brickwork, brick detailing including the machicolation motif; and within a towering vaulted ceiling, restrained embellishment and narrow coloured glass windows.

It comprises the essential elements of a typical 20th century Catholic church including a collection of religious furniture and icons, in particular altars, statues and stations of the cross.

A prominent landmark on the elevated ridge of St Paul's Terrace, Spring Hill and visible from many parts of the immediate neighbourhoods of Fortitude Valley and the Brisbane CBD, Villa Maria is distinguished by its distinctive picturesque massing and fine polychromatic brickwork.