Originally built in 1890 for John Wagner, a partner in Cobb & Co Coaches, Stonington was named after the Connecticut, USA city in which Wagner’s wife, Mary, was born. Stonington gave its name to one of Marshall White’s six current Melbourne municipalities, Stonnington.
The imposing Glenferrie Road mansion, nestled amongst spectacular landscaped gardens, was designed in the Italianate Victorian style by architect Charles D’Ebro and was inhabited by the Wagner family until John’s death in 1901.
Coincidentally, in the same year, Melbourne became the location of government and Stonington was leased by the State Government as a home for the Governor of Victoria. The house was eventually purchased by the state, along with its contents, in 1928 for $35,000. The mansion was maintained as Victoria’s Government House until 1931. From 1901 to 1931, seven Governors of Victoria lived at Stonington, and it was during this time that the spelling changed to Stonnington.
Throughout those years, the house hosted a plethora of notable guests, including Dame Nellie Melba, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), the Duke and Duchess of York (later King George VI and Queen Elizabeth), Lord Kitchener, Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, Sir John Monash, Sir Keith Murdoch, and Ernest Shackleton.
