Known to generations of Melburnians as the white house on the hill, Como House is a grand colonial mansion overlooking the Yarra in South Yarra, built in stages from 1847 and now cared for by the National Trust. Its blend of Australian Regency and Italianate styling, with a two-storey verandah and a tower added during later expansions, reflects the wealth of a young Melbourne riding the boom of the gold rush years. The house took its present form through additions in the 1850s and 1870s, including a ballroom wing built for entertaining the city's elite. For ninety-five years, from the 1860s, Como was the home of the Armytage family, wealthy pastoralists who spent the social season in town and the rest of the year on their rural estates. When the National Trust acquired the property in 1959 it became the first house museum in Australia bought together with its contents, so the rooms are still furnished with the family's own furniture, ornaments and domestic technology. Guided tours move through the formal rooms and the original servants' quarters, telling the story of both the family upstairs and the staff who kept the household running. The surrounding garden, laid out in the 1850s, keeps much of its early design, with sweeping lawns, mature trees, a fern gully and a croquet lawn that step down toward the river and the adjoining public park. Entry to the garden is free, while the house is open for tours, and the estate is used for exhibitions, weddings and events through the year. As an intact picture of nineteenth-century domestic life for both the privileged and those who served them, Como gives visitors a direct sense of Melbourne's social history within a short tram ride of the city. The property is open through the week with guided house tours at set times and free access to the garden for most of the day, and it hosts a calendar of exhibitions, high teas, open-air events and seasonal markets that keep it active beyond the standard tour. Volunteers and guides draw on the surviving family records and possessions to tell stories that move between grand entertaining and the daily routines of domestic staff, giving a fuller picture than a furnished house alone would. Set in a leafy pocket of South Yarra a short walk from the South Yarra railway station and the Toorak Road tram, Como is easily reached from the city, and the adjoining Como Park offers a place to picnic. As one of Melbourne's oldest surviving grand houses, it remains a tangible link to the city's gold-rush wealth.

Type: Tourist Attraction

Address: Cnr Williams Road & Lechlade Avenue, Melbourne, Australia

Telephone: (03) 9656 9889

Website: https://www.nationaltrust.org.au/places/como-house-and-garden/

Opening Date: 01/01/1847