Copolov's Furniture & Carpet Centre, Swanston Street, looking north to Bourke Street, C.1966
This building was actually constructed as part of the Tivoli development, and to which the upper floor offices connect over Rainbow Alley at the rear. The ground floor fabric at the rear is however original, so it is somewhat unclear how much fabric from the earlier buildings was incorporated here.
Copolov's occupied the building from around the end of WW2, in the unusual structure with angled frontage to Swanston street. That was evidently remodeled in a more moderne style around 1950
Copolov's were a famous furniture chain involved in both manufacturing and retail. Maurice Copolov founded the business originally at 132 Russell St in 1928, moving to this Swanston St site in 1937.
The establishment was (self-)described as "the most beautiful furniture showrooms in Melbourne". The 3rd floor, uniquely for the time featured a series of model display rooms - "just as you would live in them". Copolov's later opened other stores in Hampton St, Hampton and 56 Puckle St, Moonee Ponds.
In 1946 Maurice wedded Pearl Goldman, a former Norman Lindsay model and they had two sons together, David and Mark. Unfortunately Maurice passed away just after the first photo was taken in 1967, and all trace of Copolov's disappears from the corporate record at the same time.
The ground floor retail here was evidently subdivided at around the same time, and wasn't reinstated as a contiguous showroom until Levi's occupied the building, in the 1990s
The elaborately facaded Victorian building at number 158 was host to a Baccarat school "Paizas" in the 1940s, but the game was outlawed in 1944. Business evidently continued on the sly, and the building was raided in July that year, with 24 men and 17 women arrested.