7 Bent Street, Brunswick West, VIC, Australia

Sigh. This lot had potential, you know? Once upon a time, a nice old house sat here. By the time I came to Melbourne, it was more of an “abandoned old house”. Here it is, as seen on Google Streetview:

Now, the garage was pretty ugly and needed to go, but the house itself had so much potential. If somebody had the will to do it up and restore it to its former glory, it could have been lovely. I often looked in and wondered how it appeared in its heyday. But no. Some developer evidently just found it easier to knock the place over. I took some photos of the demolition in May 2009:

So what was built in its place? Nothing aesthetically pleasing, I assure you. A couple of boxy, unattractive townhouses have arisen where a beautiful old house once sat, complete with inexplicable decorative poles as a token gesture to “character”. Honestly, it's not the worst example of modern architecture in the area, but seriously, can you explain those poles? And build a bloody roof:

Turned out our old friends at Walshe & Whitelock were the real estate agents for this. It took months to sell, not that I was tremendously surprised. About half a year passed before the completed building was actually occupied; we just kept walking past a forlorn "for sale" sign and big, uncurtained windows showing off empty space.  Given the place has been stained by the hand of Walshe & Whitelock, I imagine we'll be back in a decade to chronicle how much it has fallen into disrepair.

Rating (dereliction and destruction of abandoned old house): Condemnable
Rating (new occupied property): Damnable