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Lewis building
2-6 Market St, 1915, town lot 229, corner of Elder Place, formerly Bay Street
I'm calling this the Lewis building because it was built for him, and seems never to have had any other name. It has the lowest number in the street: 2-6. (If there were a number 1 it would be where Pioneer Park now is.) It currently houses a restaurant called Il Cibo - there have many similar establishments there - and thee was a didgeridoo shop in the complex.
The site is town lot 229. That lot and lot 230 (all the land between Bay Street [now Elder Place] and Cantonment Street) were first allotted to P.A. Lautour c. 1829-1830 ("The first locally-grown wheat was ground into flour in Colonel Lautour's horse flour mill, which was situated on the corner of Market Street and Bay Street, during 1831." Hitchcock: 22.) By 1855 they were both the property of the Wesleyan Trustees for the purpose of the Wesleyan chapel which fronted onto Cantonment Street, the church also owning lots 242 and 243 on that street.
Until 1915 there was a fine two-storey house on lot 229. I don't know whose it was. It was removed to be replaced by the present building.
Photo by F.A. Sharr, 1200, 12 November 1979, from the Heritage Council page.
Heritage Council description:
History
On 18 November 1915, building plans were approved and passed by Council for shops on the corner of Market and Bay streets (now Elder Place), replacing a house. The building was erected for the cost of £5,000 for Ivan G. Lewis Esq. RAIA award. Currently (2002), Da Rocha's Restaurant & café, Pigeon Restaurant and The Alchemy, a herbal shop.
Physical description
Two storey painted and highly decorative rendered brick corner building with a zero setback from the pavement. The first floor façade features a highly decorative parapet and pediment, with decorative pilasters and stucco between the windows. The ground floor has a veranda awning (probably not original) with metal framing and a corrugated iron roof.
Statement of Significance
The place is of historic significance as an example of a commercial building in the Fremantle Town Centre dating from the early decades of the twentieth century. The place is a fine example of a Federation Free Style building, with elaborate stucco decoration above the ground floor level, that makes a significant contribution to the streetscape. The place is of social significance as evidenced by its classification by the National Trust. Awning and shop fronts are not significant.
There is currently a shop of some kind at 4 Market. At one point the Golden Falcon Chinese Restaurant was the tenant:
It's said that A. Rocke had his agency at 6 Market Street in 1925.
References and Links
Heritage Council entry for the Lewis building 2-6 Market St.
Golden Falcon card courtesy of Sam Spadaro.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 19 July, 2016 and hosted at freotopia.org/buildings/lewis.html (it was last updated on 10 August, 2023), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.