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Sun 27 Apr, 2008 04:08 pm
Up until Thursday, two houses down, at the corner of my (very small) block, there was a very unusual house.
It went up in the seventies sometime....I'm not sure exactly when...it was in between when the building (much execrated) that I now live in went up...(and I remember that very well, because my then boyfriend lived at the back of my then emergent building, and we did a lot of execrating), and the late seventies, because I got to know the man who lived in it then, and, since he lived in it, it must have been built. Got it?
There was, for some reason, a lot of concrete in the seventies. My building is of concrete, and so was Derrance's (the man who owned the house that was so close to me until Thursday).
I find it hard to describe the house. (It was also an era of the odd odd house. There was actually a flying saucer that went up in North Adelaide around the same time....really!!! A completely flying saucer shaped house! On little legs! With round windows! It appears to have simply taken off one day, because suddenly it wasn't there.)
If you think of the silhouette of a bird's wings, on the upstroke.....
\ . /
only with the wings much less acutely angled up.....
you kind of have it.
It was all cement, with a cement roof on top shaped, as I said, kind of like birds' wings.
The front door, looking rather Hobbitty, was where the bird's body would be, and was part hidden by the angle where the roof was at its lowest.
It didn't have round windows, but they were kind of oddly shaped.
It was, and is, a strange little block......sort of shaped like a very acute triangle.
Anyway, it was a most unusual and flamboyant house, especially set, as it is, I mean was, in a heritage area.
Derrance was very flamboyant, too.
He was a lawyer, come up just before a Labor government opened universities up to the working class big-time, so it was unusual to have many lawyers around whose families were dirt poor. For all the flamboyance and extremity of display he enjoyed, he was a damn fine lawyer, taking on lots of pro bono work and known to be good.
He was VERY gay, before it was generally acceptable to be so, and had (what turned out to be a fatal) attraction for rough trade. He was lots of fun.
I never met these young men.....because I tended to see Derrance at "naice" dinner parties, I presume?.....I don't really know.
Anyway, one of them up and murdered him for some reason, stole his car and fled to Coober Pedy or some damn place, from where he was quickly fetched back and tried and convicted. (Though he still says he didn't do it, and I think there is currently some move from him to question the forensic evidence again, or somesuch).
Thing is, he put poor Derrance's body in the FREEZER for heaven's sake. I presume hoping to escape detection for longer?
That touch sort of made the whole thing so bizarre that it has stayed in public consciousness longer than usual. I mean, taxi drivers keep telling me the story when they dropp me home and stuff like that.
I don't know that I especially LIKED living so close to where the poor man was killed......but it was a familiar place, and it was always THERE. A place for reflection and such. It was, until very recently, occupied by a firm of lawyers, ironically enough. I don't know that anybody actually wanted to LIVE there.
Anyway, as I said, I came home on Thursday night, and there it wasn't.
Well, the debris was still there, (although now gone, leaving just a bare patch of earth)....but no longer a house.
I dunno....I think people ought to tell you when they're about to demolish a strange piece of your own, and your city's, history....perhaps a little note on the fence for a couple of days, or something?
I think it was a little rude not to, don't you?
if i ever get to australia, i'll have to look you up, i'll just ask everyone i meet, "hey, do you know a rabbit named deb, she lives near where the bird house isn't anymore"
I hate to see old buildings go down, even when they no longer serve a useful purpose. The history, the fact that so many homeless folks can't have one, the death of an almost living relic. Very sad.
There have been a lot of houses disappearing here lately - with kinda ugly infills appearing shortly thereafter.
Three houses between my house and the subway have disappeared in the last month. I'm glad I got pictures of some of them while Penny was visiting.
ehBeth wrote:There have been a lot of houses disappearing here lately - with kinda ugly infills appearing shortly thereafter.
Three houses between my house and the subway have disappeared in the last month. I'm glad I got pictures of some of them while Penny was visiting.
God only knows what they're gonna put there...it is the weirdest block.
Didj...dunno as you'll find me!
Edgar...yeah....it was just a bit young for anyone to think sensibly about heritage. The uniqueness might have been worth a thought?
It's funny you mention Penny, ehBeth......I was thinking of photographing her with it....and then I was thinking of telling the story on her thread when it disappeared.....but I don't think it's a Penny sort of thing. :wink:
One infill house is in the spot that used to be a shared driveway.
Another uses part of what was a parking alley behind some houses.
Weird spots with occasionally weird houses have been appearing.
(good reminder to me to take the camera out more)
Yeah...I think it's Derrance I'm missing, in a weird sort of way...not the house. Not that I hardly knew him....I could imagine him kind of winking about still being notorious.
Gossip had his penis cut off and in his mouth in that freezer before it was well out of the starting gates.....but it wasn't.
I think the house was always sort of doomed.....
I have had the opposite experience. One morning there was a house coming down the street, a tallish victorian moved from east LA to Venice, which is not a small feat, being way across town, a town then full of telephone wires and traffic signal armatures, etc. And it was jacked onto some stacked ties prior to the building of a foundation. I've a picture somewhere. I saved it because in the photo it looked like the guys were just simply lifting the house in their hands. It got all new salvaged maple flooring and a salmon pink paint job. Made the Magazine section of the LA Times that year... An interesting woman lived there later; she had been involved in a famoust biosphere project in Arizona.
At the opposite end of the block, there was a small little house and a big boat that the owner spent a lot of years building...
And kitty corner to that corner lot, was another big one, empty all the years I lived around there and earlier, so at least 25 years. That was purchased by Frank Gehry for his own new house. Dunno if that has happened.
Not a dull neighborhood. Oh, at the corner of the block to the east was a motel then used for prostitution, across from a McDonald's and the Catholic Church...
But on the saving houses thing, there is a big effort to save the quickly diminishing numbers of old california craftsman houses, many of which have disappeared to the kingdom of "Lot Maximization", not always prototypical McMansions, but always greatly bigger than what they replaced.
Venice has been a playground for architects - several world famous ones - in part because of its one time low end real estate value in a really beautiful location. For that and other reasons, there are fewer and fewer houses in original form.
Oh, and yes, a note on the fence would have been nice.
What a story!
The house-demolishing was going on at an alarming pace in Naperville when we left. Across-the-street neighbors sold their house to a guy they knew was a developer, but who said he'd keep their house intact 'cause it was so nice (it was). Neighbors weren't moving far (~20 miles) and asked to be notified if plans changed and the owner decided to demolish, because there were things they wanted to salvage. (They had done a lot of work on the place, finished the basement, lots of built-ins, etc.)
After less than a year they got a call from their erstwhile next-door neighbors -- did they know the house was being demolished? My friend hopped in his car and drove straight there -- too late. Rubble and nothing but.
He was furious.
The erstwhile next-door neighbors couldn't stand all the demolishing and general change from small old (~1900-1920's) family homes with lots of mature trees to giant McMansions taking up whole lots (leaving no room for those pesky trees) and skedaddled, too.
Sad.
I'd bring up the story of the guy on our street in Venice who planted masses of bamboo in his small front yard - something bad happened to hi along the lines of Dlowan's story, but I forget the details and don't won't to hurl rumor.
I don't always mind infill housing - I read some article about that going on in Portland, Oregon, with some apparently nifty solutions. But I can see minding it on a case by case basis.
Another type of housing it was killing us to lose in Venice was "courtyard" housing, much of it with inherent charm. Small places attached, often in a U-shape around, um, a fountain, or tree, or, anyway, something interesting. The units were great for a single person, or, say, mother and child. What was dooming them as a building mode was a combination of land value increase, and the rules for amount of parking on site per unit.
I remember trying to get that kind of housing over in Westwood when I was looking for my first apartment, and was told they didn't rent to single women (I was no longer a student). I was non-plussed, but too busy to investigate that. Ah well. That site now is part of the land for a massive six story monsteroso. 'Course the land I walked on isn't there either, given the underground parking involved.
dj...
there'll be no problem finding her....everyone knows her.
She comes from the south, ya know!!!!!
There is a building around here somewhere {50 mile radius} that somewhat fits your description....looks like someone jabbed some prefab concrete slabs into the roof....I'm thinking it's a church....I can't pinpoint it from memory, but I'll keep it in mind, next time I see it, I'll snap a pic.
dlowan I saw the report in the Advertiser of its demolition and I thought good riddence at long last! I don't think it really fitted in with the surrounding homes at the time it was built. Had a fair bit to do with the original owner and must agree with what you are saying.
Dutchy wrote:dlowan I saw the report in the Advertiser of its demolition and I thought good riddence at long last! I don't think it really fitted in with the surrounding homes at the time it was built. Had a fair bit to do with the original owner and must agree with what you are saying.
You knew Derrance?
The place always had a sadness about it after, didn't it?
When I saw the demolition the first time I couldn't help wondering where he was killed.
I never read the reports of how it was done.
I've had to read a lot of murder court files, and I never want to read about how someone died violently unless I have to.
Oh...here's the house...and I remembered it all wrong! Doh. The local kids used the roof for skateboarding on weekends.
And the story:
Body-in-freezer murder house demolishedArticle from:
April 25, 2008 12:30am
ADELAIDE'S most recognised murder house and the home of the infamous body-in-the-freezer case was demolished yesterday, almost 30 years after it dominated headlines.
The house at ....X.... was the site of one the state's most bizarre and shocking murders.
The partly clothed body of lawyer Derrance Stevenson was found wrapped in two garbage bags hidden inside his freezer on June 4, 1979.
Mr Stevenson, 44, had been shot through the back of the head with a .22 calibre rifle.
The highly regarded lawyer was living in the house with his homosexual lover, David Szach, then 19, who was convicted of the killing and sentenced to a non-parole period of 18 years and three months. He was released on parole 14 years later but has maintained his innocence.
The Parkside house has been one of the city's most recognised murder sites because of its distinctive architecture and the bizarre circumstances of the killing.
Until last month, the infamous property was owned by lawyer and former friend of Mr Stevenson, Diane Myers. She sold it to the Transcendental Meditation Movement for $1 million.
It has been reported the new owners plan to build a $3.5 million, 12-storey tower on the site but they have remained tight-lipped about the plans. An Unley Council spokeswoman said an application for demolition was approved on April 8 but no building development applications had been lodged.
One neighbour, who did not want to be named, said he was sad to see the property go.
"That house holds a lot of secrets, that's for sure," he said. "At the time, we as neighbours didn't hear anything about it really and we were kept in the dark a lot. I think it has a lot of historical significance to Adelaide and it is an amazing design.
"It is a shame it is being knocked down."
Was looking for info about the flying saucer in North Adelaide and found this. Found the address online (simple) and looked up the location in Google-Street View.
It's still there. Looks like now, thanks to google, places bulldozed still have a life after they,re gone
@MN,
The flying saucer house in north Adelaide is not the house discussed in this thread
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