The Maison de Luxe Dance Palais, on the corner of Glenhuntly Road and Broadway, Elwood, C.1955
Maison de Luxe held dances and private parties from the late 1920s until the mid 50s.
The building was occupied by the army from 1942 to 1945. By the late 40s and early 50s it had become a Sunday afternoon hotspot for jazz, featuring some of Australia’s top players of the era including Tony Newstead, Frank Johnson, Warwick Dyer, Nick Polites, Len Barnard, Bob Barnard, Ade Monsbourgh, John Sangster, Billy Hyde, and Geoff Kitchen.
In an interview with Athena Frank in 1979, Kitchen recalled his days with the Frank Johnson band in the early 50s at the Maison de Luxe: “We started our own Sunday afternoon jazz dances which were tremendously successful. We used to get an enormous crowd there…It doesn’t exist any more, it’s now a service station.” The service station has gone too – it’s currently a bakery and café.