Alfredson's Joinery is a heritage-listed workshop at 28 King Street, Cooran, Shire of Noosa, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1930s to 1950s. It is also known as Alfredson's Pre-Cut House Workshop and Alfredson's Sawmill. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 27 November 2008.
History The former Alfredson's joinery, pre-cut house workshop and sawmill complex at 28 King Street Cooran is evidence of the long history of timber-based industry in the Noosa Shire and North Coast region. The business was also involved in efforts to address the post-World War II housing shortage. The multi-level timber building, built on a sloping site with a combination of gabled, saw tooth and skillion rooflines, provides intact evidence of a timber-based family business premises that was operated, expanded and adapted between 1933 and 1990.
Timber was the stimulus for the development of Noosa Shire. Development of the area was underway by the mid-1860s with timber getters active along the Noosa River and Kin Kin Creek. Around 1870 the township of Cooran began as a coach stop on the road from Tewantin to Gympie. This road was formed after a sawmill was established c.1870 at Mill Point, Lake Cootharaba, to supply the Gympie goldfield with timber. Logs from the mill, owned by McGhie, Luya and Co, were towed down the Noosa River to a depot at Tewantin. The railway arrived at Cooran from Gympie in June 1889, which helped the district to develop as an agricultural and timber centre. Shops were built along King Street in Cooran opposite the railway line, and the town became an important centre for loading local goods, freight, timber and produce onto the train. However, after the North Coast Railway between Gympie and Brisbane was completed in July 1891 the town of Cooroy, further south, became the main rail centre for access to Tewantin.
Timber continued to be important to the economy of Cooran. Albert Doyle was sawmilling at Cooran by 1907, and other sawmillers operating in the town prior to World War II included Renshaw and Loseby, George Renshaw, and Straker and Company. Dairy farming also grew as an industry in the Noosa Shire, and butter factories were opened at Kin Kin (1914), Cooroy (1915), Pomona (1919) and Eumundi (1920). During the 1920s the Shire boomed, and a 1926 newspaper report on a typical load of goods dispatched from Cooran by train included: bananas, beans, gooseberries, pigs, butter, case timber and log timber, cream, and opossums.
Mervyn William Henry Alfredson, born in Nambour in 1912, started his apprenticeship as a cabinetmaker with Page Furnishers in Pomona, and completed it in Gympie. He then returned to Cooran, where his father, Thorvald P Alfredson, was the Cooran railway station master. In May 1933 Mervyn Alfredson purchased of land opposite the railway station from Alice McIlwraith and set up a woodworking shop. In 1937 he married Mavis Miller, and for about six months they lived under the woodworking shop, placing timber from glass packing cases around the stumps to enclose the area. No evidence of this habitation remains under the present joinery. They then moved into a house at number 7 Henry Street, which has been occupied by the Alfredson family from to the present day, except for a period in the 1950s.
Alfredson is first listed in the Queensland Country Post Office Directory of 1939, as a "Joinery & Cabinet Maker". As he was in a reserved industry, he was rejected for defence service during World War II, but his workshop supplied the Australian Army with tent floors, tent pegs and other items. In September 1942 Alfredson purchased an additional of land from Alice McIlwraith, to the south and west of his original workshop. In July 1944 the Widgee sawmill near Gympie was purchased to supply timber to Alfredson's operation, and M.W. Alfredson & Company was also formed that year. In October 1944 title for a one quarter share in the total landholding of and went to Robert R. Brown, with the other three quarter shares being held by Mervyn Alfredson.
Alfredson's joinery complex appears to have been extended to the south and west, and given a skylight, in the late 1930s; and it was extended again to the south by the 1960s. By the mid-1960s the front (north) elevation of the joinery was truncated at an angle on the eastern side, as earlier photographs of this elevation do not display the current angle. The pre-cut house workshop and sawmill to the south of the joinery seem to post-date 1946. According to archived Queensland Forestry Department correspondence, in November 1946 Alfredson was seeking advice on the design of a timber seasoning yard, and was intending to erect a drying kiln and a boric acid treatment plant "in conjunction with his furniture factory and sawmill". A sketch from this time appears to show the joinery and a sawmill to its south and west. Apparently Alfredson's did have a sawmill on the western side of the joinery during the 1940s and 1950s, but they then lost the forestry license for this sawmill, and had to rely on the Widgee sawmill thereafter. However, there is still a sawmilling section at the south end of the pre-cut house workshop.
By the early 1950s Alfredson had devised a system, based on ideas he had read about in journals, of pre-cutting morticed and tenoned house frames. In partnership with Queensland Pastoral Supplies (QPS), a company which sent mail order catalogues to country customers and with whom Alfredson had worked previously, he started manufacturing pre-cut houses. The houses, their timber bundled together and stencilled for ease of assembly, were despatched on rail cars from Cooran railway station. They were delivered with all their components from the stump caps up, with quantity lists and plans, mouldings, doors and windows, hardware and roofing.
Pre-cut houses are sometimes referred to as "prefabricated", but more advanced forms of prefabrication involve whole walls, sections, or the complete house being manufactured off the building site, before transportation and assembly on site. Although prefabricated houses represent an attempt to bring the time and cost efficiencies of the factory assembly line to the building sector, they have never been popular, other than in times of absolute necessity.
However, pre-cut (or kit) houses have been commercially successful in Australia since at least the early 20th century, perhaps because they provided an answer to labour shortages in rural areas without carrying the stigma of being fully prefabricated. One of the most successful Queensland firms supplying pre-cut houses (to country districts only) in the early 20th century was Brisbane's James Campbell & Sons Ltd; Campbell Redicut Homes was established in 1903. A Campbell's catalogue c.1920 announced that all frame timber was cut, shaped and finished to set plans. The frame was erected at Campbell & Sons' Albion mill yards to test the fit, and the timbers were marked before disassembly. All materials, including cladding and joinery (doors, window sashes, railings, steps, and mouldings) were then despatched to their destination by steamer or train.
Brown and Broad Ltd also operated in the pre-cut house market in Queensland prior to World War I, under the trade name of "Newstead Ready-to-Erect Homes", while Rooney and Co of Townsville provided pre- cut houses to North Queensland rural areas. However, the do-it- yourself trend grew after World War II, and pre-cut houses provided one answer to the high demand and high labour costs of the 1945 to 1960 period. For example, by 1952, there were about 15 local companies manufacturing pre-cut houses in Sydney. Although pre-cut houses increased in popularity, they were still only a small fraction of total Australian housing starts, and demand peaked in the early 1950s, before falling away in the late 1950s.
Queensland Pastoral Supplies does not appear to have entered the pre-cut house market until after World War II. In October 1935 the QPS catalogue had advertised building material, tools, furniture, house wares, and joinery, but no complete houses. By August 1940 houses were being advertised at prices of and , but the timber was supplied in random lengths rather than being pre-cut. However, the 1954 QPS catalogue advertised Cooran Pre-Cut Homes, and included two articles from the 9 August 1953 edition of the Truth newspaper.
The first Truth article noted rising housing costs, and claimed that after months of planning, QPS had tackled the problem, offering a 740 square foot house for just over . The article also claimed that the QPS had only been manufacturing the "Cooran" home for a short period, and that a display house had been built at Dell Street in St Lucia for Exhibition Week. The materials were entirely pre-cut, so that an amateur could build the house. The "Cooran", priced at in August 1953, had six rooms (including two bedrooms), and could easily be extended. The framework consisted of hardwood, the floorboards were hardwood, and the exterior was clad with hardwood weatherboards. The interior walls were clad with V-jointed pine, the ceilings with Durabestos, and the roof with English corrugated iron. The same house design clad externally with Durabestos was offered for . Two smaller pre-cut houses were priced at and , and a larger "Hibiscus" home was offered for . The second article in the Truth noted that every part of a Cooran home was marked, making it impossible to make a mistake during erection, and that every part of framework was morticed and tenoned where necessary.
The 1954 QPS advertisement went on to add that since Cooran homes had been introduced over 800 had been supplied. Specifications on the Cooran homes noted that the wall studs were tenoned to fit into the morticed top and bottom plates and interior sheeting could be either four and a half inch tongue and grove V-jointed pine (hoop pine), or fibro cement. The floor was made with tongue and groove seasoned hardwood, and mouldings were Queensland pine (hoop pine). Joinery could be made with cedar, oak, or maple timber. The price of a Cooran No.3 home (timber clad, either seven inch weatherboard or four inch chamferboard) was now ; a Cooran No. 4 (Durabestos clad) was ; and the frame alone could be purchased for . The two smaller one- bedroom models still sold for (), and ( including verandah) respectively. A "Lazy Dayser" skillion-roofed weekend cottage was also advertised.
A number of models of house were produced over the years, the known ones including: Hibiscus models number 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10; Cooran models 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 15 and 17 (model No.3 being the most popular); Tropical 1 and 2; plus garages, the one bedroom models, and the Lazy Dayser weekend cottage. There were also variants within the models – for example, models 3a to 3e.
The marketing of Alfredson's pre-cut houses through QPS catalogues reflected the housing shortage and concurrent building price increases that occurred in Australia after World War II. Thanks to a lull in house building during the Great Depression of the 1930s, there was an undersupply of houses even before World War II. National Security Regulations issued in February 1942 limited private building to projects linked to the war effort. The undersupply of houses was exacerbated after the war by returned servicemen starting families, and also by strong post-war immigration.
Prices were also driven upwards by a shortage of skilled labour, and the legislation of the 40-hour week in 1948. Another inflationary pressure was the lack of a ready stockpile of building materials. In 1939 the average five room brick house cost . By 1946 this had risen to ; by 1951 it was over . Although wages were rising, the price of an average house also increased, from three times the average pre-war income, to five times the average income by 1950.