Waterfront Cottesloe is surrounded by history.
Due to its proximity to the “embracing ocean air”, the site was first identified as an ideal location for health and wellbeing by the Ministering Convalescent League (MCL) in the late 1800’s. The League constructed several buildings between 1897 and 1915 that are considered to have state significance. The buildings were included in the State Register of Heritage Places on a permanent basis in 2000.
The Curtin Heritage Living site, previously called the M.C.L. Convalescent Home and later as the M.L.C. Home, was one of Western Australia’s largest and most successful philanthropic institutions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It provided convalescent services to the people of the State between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Of note, the home cared for people from the Goldfields who required treatment for typhoid disease. It provided services also to women, for whom there were few medical facilities available prior to the construction of King Edward Memorial Hospital in 1916.
The site was requisitioned by use by the military between 1942 and 1945. A regiment took up temporary occupation of the site until it was handed back to MCL.
In 1955, the Department of Health took possession of the site. As the Fremantle Hospital Mosman Park Annexe, the site provided health care services and became a site for training doctors and nurses.
In 1984, during the mining boom of the 1980s, major alterations and additions were made to convert the earlier buildings and to develop Wearne Hostel for the Frail Aged. Further development took place in 2004.
In 2020, construction commenced on Marine Views Cottesloe, a world-leading residential care facility, and Waterfront Cottesloe, an integrated independent living village.
Each Marine Views Cottesloe household is named after a prominent Western Australian that has influenced the site. You can read more about significant figures at the entrance of each household.
