‘Unicorn’ Carlton house built from tombstone offcuts seeks new owner

896-898 Swanston St, Carlton, is seeking buyer interest from $3.2m-$3.5m after a planned auction did not come to fruition. A Carlton home built in part from tombstone and funerary monument offcuts by the stone mason who first owned it is looking for its next custodian after an auction came up short. The 896-898 Swanston St home dates back to 1868, when it was originally created by the head stone mason at the Melbourne General Cemetery, John W. Brown. Brothers Hugh and Ed Lane are selling the home after their father, Terence, spent 17 years restoring it as he worked on the biography of the home’s original owner. RELATED: Melb hotspots tipped for five-figure spring boom Melbourne’s ultimate spring real estate guide Carroll enacts new Vic landlord’s law with $26k sting “He would use the offcuts around the house as he was building it, and that’s why it has all the grand elements to it,” Hugh said. “It’s cut off pieces of tomb stones and graves that they have used to build the house.” He and his brother are still hoping their father’s tale of Mr Brown’s life will be finished, and Hugh added that Mr Lane senior, a historian and curator at the National Gallery of Victoria for 40 years, ha...