Rediscovering The New Mystic Lake Estate 40 years gone.
In June and
July 2022, I wrote about a failed housing estate near where I lived and was
fascinated enough to explore the area. This led to the introduction of Gary
Pope, a local whose family built a holiday house that was occupied by his
grandmother, an amazing woman, Steea Patrone.
I traveled
up the abandoned roads (now tracks) and found a whole new history I was unaware
of.
I'm proud
to say that this story won the BEST HISTORY STORY in the Community Newspapers
Association of Victoria 2023
Read about
it here:
Then in July and August 2023, I returned to
the area, and I blogged about the reclaimed homes in the Dandenongs, thanks to
Gary Pope, whose Grandmother was a resident there and whom he spent many a
happy holiday exploring and enjoying whilst growing up.
The house and the whole estate were reclaimed
by the State Government and returned to their natural state as a National Park.
You can read about Gary's memories and my
attempt to find traces of the old residence.
You can check out and catch up via these links
Mystic Mountain Memories
I returned in 2025 because it was the area
that kept giving up secrets, not only by my own research and exploring but
thanks to the diligent record keeping of Gary Pope, who, like me, had rekindled
a sense of wonder and started to search for those people he once knew in that
sparsely populated area.
First, I wanted to learn more about the
Meisels House, the grand home of Anfew Meisel, a tailor who built his weekender
there and had many parties. He hired Stella Patrone to be his housekeeper,
cleaning the property for the next weekend's gathering.
What follows in the next three blogs is the
story of the Meisel House and my search for any trace that might exist, and
from what I found, a desire to seek out more of the reclaimed properties for
more history and more artifacts.
