Making perfumes for a living, Samantha Schrader sensed she would fit right in working in Melbourne’s Nicholas Building.
Schrader loved the idea of being among a community of independent creators, whether they be jewellers, shoemakers or fashion designers.
And so two years ago, she rented a fourth-floor room. “It felt like the right place to be,” said the owner of the brand Perfume Playground. “I wanted to be part of a bigger community, of people who are either creating things with their hands or at least designing something from the heart.”
As the city changed, the Nicholas Building – designed by architect Harry Norris and built for the Nicholas pharmaceuticals family – has remained a hub for artists and small traders. On Friday, current and former tenants gathered to toast its centenary.
In the Flinders Lane Gallery on the first floor, partygoers sipped Bee’s Knees cocktails, dressed in 1920s-style clothing or modern nods to it, and listened to jazz-era tunes.
In the 1920s, the Nicholas Building was the cat’s meow, a Chicago-style skyscraper boasting a neoclassical-style ground floor arcade and a G.J. Coles variety store.
“Modern skyscraper for Swanston Street” trumpeted The Herald newspaper on the building’s opening day, March 12, 1926, detailing its Queensland maple timber fittings and tiled corridors.
Gallery owner Stephen McLaughlan says we are lucky that this “lovely building” is still here when so many others have been razed.
McLaughlan, who has rented an eighth-floor studio since 1994, said former tenant Mark Ferrie, a former member of The Models rock band, was a graphic designer who moved in next door and designed McLaughlan’s gallery invitations for decades.
Other famous tenants have included artist Vali Myers and ex-criminal Gregory David Roberts, who worked on his novel Shantaram here.
Milliner Louise Macdonald, a tenant since 1996, says anyone can drop in, including billionaire Gina Rinehart, who once tried on a few hats but didn’t buy.
In the 1990s, Macdonald remembers, there was an elocutionist next door, and podiatrist Verna Synan, who was based down the corridor from Macdonald’s eighth-floor studio, had a constant stream of elderly clients.
In recent years, rents in the building have increased, and Macdonald considered leaving, but she likes the high ceilings, windows that open and having a cuppa with friends.
She didn’t want to work in a conventional office.
The 10-storey building, which has been owned by a group of families since 1973, went up for sale in 2021, at an expected price of $80 million.
But a prospective investor’s proposed rejuvenation, including opening up spaces for public events, came to nothing after governments declined to help fund it.
Artist and gallery owner Anna Prifti, who suggested the centenary party, has been a tenant for a year, having visited friends and attended exhibitions there for years.
Prifti said the building was surprisingly quiet and felt like a step back in time. “It’s got a beautiful energy,” Prifti said. “You are surrounded by like-minded people.”
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