Location: Merriwa

Story

After returning to Brisbane from Charleville in 1920, Calile and Ada Malouf wanted a new family home. For more than two decades, Merriwa, a house in Edmonstone Street South Brisbane, was Walter Pike’s family home. With his brother, Edwin, Walter founded the extremely successful firm, Messrs Pike Bros., Gentlemen’s outfitters in 1885. Calile and Ada purchased Merriwa when it was advertised for sale in August 1923. Calile’s daughter, Minnie, described Merriwa as ‘beautiful’, a ‘very big glorious home’ with grounds that stretched ‘from one street to the other’. The Malouf home, generally referred to as the ‘big house’ became a gathering point for Lebanese. As Minnie who was born in 1901 recalled:

In the early days…all the Lebanese families got together…they used to meet at our place. And at night…my father, he was a very good orator and they would sit around. Like going to a movie and he would give them all a story of the Arabian nights…there would be about 20 or 30 people. We had a big room and Dad would start on with his story for about two and a half hours and say ‘ To be continued tomorrow night’.

References

Telegraph (Brisbane), 25 August 1923, p. 16,viewed 23 June 2014, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article182490972

Minnie Jacobson, interview with Anne Monsour, Brisbane, 1991.

Calile Malouf  interview with Anne Monsour, Brisbane, 2019.

Paul Ganim, interview with Anne Monsour, Brisbane, 2019.

Residents of this location