In the 1920s, Fitzroy Street transformed itself from a boulevard of stately mansions to a densely packed rental residential and retail strip. Summerland Mansions were the flagship of that sea change.
The old mansion, “Summerland”, was demolished and the entire site was developed as spacious, cosmopolitan flats, with shops and restaurants along its new retail frontage. (Main block 1920, rear block 1921, architect/developer Christopher Cowper.)
Though each flat was large, it was equipped with only a small kitchen — the thought being that residents would generally take their main meals in the dining room / restaurant below, or have them sent up. Grand central staircases (still existing) led directly down to the dining room (now the ‘Pyramid’ tenancy space).
Council withheld the permit for the rear block, saying not enough useful open space had been left on the site. Cowper scrapped a large portion of the rear roof structure and built a useful roof deck there instead. Hiding behind Summerland’s gracious Arts and Crafts roofline is an early moment of functional flat-roofed Modernism.
