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Fascinating Historical Facts - Mornington Peninsula
Yamala - Daveys Bay

William Woolley was granted 104 acres of country land after the Frankston land sales on 13 October, 1854 and after some time built the mansion Yamala on the land. Some years later, Sir John Madden, a lawyer and later Chief Justice of Victoria, purchased Yamala from William Woolley. Madden and his family owned Yamala until Madden's death in 1918. The Maddens also had “Cloyne”, a residence in St. Kilda from 1887 until 1913 and used Yamala as their country property. After Madden's death, in 1918, Yamala was sold for £16,100. The property was described as being a fourteen-room early English-style mansion, with electricity, on 32 acres with its own beach front and magnificent lawns and gardens.

A.J. Lucas was the next owner of Yamala, using the property as a beach house from 1918 until 1928 when he and his wife moved there permanently. Lucas came to Melbourne from Ithaca, a Greek Island in 1886. On 28 February 1893 Lucas married Margaret Wilson. She worked for the large Melbourne department store Foy and Gibson as head of the fur department. They opened their first cafe, the Town Hall Café in Swanston Street, Melbourne, in 1894. It occupied two floors and accommodated 650 diners. They employed 70 staff members. Encouraged by the success of the Town Hall Café, Lucas opened two more restaurants. One, the Paris Café, a two-storey building in Collins Street Melbourne that was remodeled at a cost of £6000 and accommodated 350 diners and employed a staff of 30. The other restaurant, again in Collins Street , was the Vienna Café, later the Café Australia opening in May 1916.

Lucas commissioned the American architect, Walter Burley Griffin, to renovate The Vienna into the sumptuous Café Australia. Lucas was so pleased with the result that he commissioned Griffin to remodel his bayside mansion, Yamala . A year later Lucas engaged Griffin to landscape the whole Yamala property including the surviving driveway, pergola and the distinctive Yamala gateposts, which now form the entrance to Yamala Drive.

 
Lucas was one of the founders of the Greek Orthodox community in Melbourne and furthered its influence across Australia . He donated large sums to both Greek and Australian charities and supported the war effort generously. Said to be the richest Greek in Australia , he was the inspiration for the character Yianni in Jean Campbell's novel `Greek Key Pattern' (1935).

Another part of the Yamala complex is the gatehouse (now on separate title) which was constructed in an ornamental Gothic revival manner with diagonal boarding to the walls, steeply gabled roof and ornamental carved barges to the pointed box windows.

The gate house facing the Nepean Highway is still near original except for the large rear addition.

Reputedly a three-acre garden was designed by Walter Burly Griffin which included a system of ponds and agricultural pipes draining into a fern gulley. This is said to have remained intact until the early 1960's . The pine trees lining Yamala Drive are thought to date from the 1880s.

Yamala is a privately owned property and not open to the public. Please respect the privacy of the occupants and do not enter the grounds.