Lees House & Road Patrol Depot (Site)
Known as Lees House.
Located at the Benambra-Corryong Rd, Gibbo Junction. (AHD 1964) Zone 55 567000, 5936100.
History courtesy of Graeme Butler and Associates 2005 Pp 650.
This site was occupied by a miner, Rod Urquhart, c1916 or c1924 to 1941 {Crisp; Lee says 1916-42}.
The first part of the former hut was shifted here and rebuilt in 1946 by John D Knight after the permissive occupancy was granted to Knight (then of Keon St., Thornbury) in November 1945 for one pound per annum. {DCNR file HO17412}.
Knight was a miner and market gardener who had reputedly lived on the site during the Depression. Knight built some of the other Gibbo River huts using Seymour’s Omeo Sawmill timber. Laurence R Lee obtained the permissive occupancy February 1953 and is thought to have acquired the hut in 1952. He lived there 1957-1981 when the site was the Omeo Shire Depot for the Gibbo road patrol and Lee was a Shire employee.
During his tenure, Lee moved two huts here from Mt Murphy. In 1977 the 10.5 square house was described as weather board with an iron roof and and extra machinery shed. Under the new State wide policy, Lee was told his occupancy would cease in 1990 but that he could stay, howver, he and his wife moved to Benambra around 1989. Son, Brett Lee was not employed by the shire as his father had been but sought to remain there for a further 2-3 years while they built a home on freehold land elsewhere.
DCNR Historic Places branch noted that the building was partly demolished by May 1991 and was finally removed by the time of the first Butler inspection in 1995.
References
Victorian Alpine Huts Heritage Study 2004-2005: Graeme Butler and Associates.