Windsor Hall

The house known as ‘Windsor Hall’ was designed by architect Henry James Prockter (1863–1941) and built on a piece of land in the Mount Lawley No. 1 Estate in 1903. Built in a period when large residences were generally designed in the Queen Anne style, Windsor Hall is a rare residential example of Prockter’s expressive interpretation of the Federation Free Style. 

The original owner, Richard Septimus Haynes (1857–1922) was born in New South Wales where he practised as a solicitor and was soon appointed a Queen’s Counsel. Haynes moved to Perth in 1885 and immediately became involved in WA politics, and, according to historian Tom Stannage, was later viewed as a radical politician.

He was elected to the Perth City Council from 1886 to 1894; MLC for Geraldton from 1896 to 1902; Mayor of North Perth from 1901 to 1904; served as a member of the Perth Road Board; and was Consul for Norway from 1906 to 1914. Haynes was an organiser and chair of the Central Reform League, and the first chair of the local Board of Health where he used his legal skills to draft legislation. Apart from politics, Haynes was also vice-president of several football and cricket clubs and appeared frequently in amateur theatricals.

After Haynes died in 1922, the house changed hands several times. In 1928, Windsor Hall was purchased by Norman Stanley Craven, who was known in the community as a wealthy businessman with horse racing interests. Craven adapted the ground floor to suit his needs and divided the upper floor rooms into two separate flats, which were rented from 1928 until the early 1950s.

In 1942, the Kellow family, who were residing in Windsor Hall at the time, relocated to Kalgoorlie to make the house available to the Australian Army. The Army occupied the house until the end of World War II, in 1945. The house was used as an Officers’ Club, and the small room adjacent to the lower-level bedroom was temporarily converted into a bar. The names of Captain R. L. Rankine and Captain K. D. J. Coventry are still evident in the wardrobe shelves of the bedroom on the ground floor level.

Once the rent restrictions, which were introduced after the war, were lifted the Kellow family were able to remove the sitting tenants and return to Windsor Hall. 

In the 1990s, ownership of the house passed to Margaret Summers and she did important conservation works on the house. In 2020 the City of Stirling awarded her the Barrie Baker Special Recognition Award for the care she and her family had given the house. On her death in 2021, ownership passed to her daughters. Diane Summers, one of the daughters, together with her husband, embarked on a restoration project for the house. In 2024, this house won the City of Stirling's Heritage Awards in the conservation and restoration category.

The house stands as a rare example of Federation Free Style architecture in the Mount Lawley Estate. The home has a large hipped and gabled roof with a shaped gable at its eastern end. It is a two-storey house made of brick with an iron roof, as well as cast iron, pressed tin, and wooden friezes to decorate the frontage.