Anthony JJ Lucas - Prosperity

Prosperity

Initially residing on the top floor of the cafe, Lucas purchased the Toorak mansion Whernside in 1918. This property was subsequently owned by Jewish immigrant and business tycoon Solomon Lew . In 1928 Lucas moved to the large property Yamala on the Mornington Peninsula. Here he retained the services of noted American architect Walter Burley Griffin to redesign the house and gardens.

Lucas subsequently opened two more restaurants, the Paris Café, in Collins Street and the Vienna Café, (which later became the Café Australia on the site of what is now the Hotel Australia in Collins Street). These ventures prospered under Lucas' keen entrepreneurial skills. Again for these projects, AJ Lucas utilised the services of Walter Burley Griffin.

With reference to the journal The 200 years History of Australian Cooking, Tess Malos claims that Lucas also ran an open-air restaurant in the public gardens of the inner Melbourne suburb of Kew.

An even grander collaboration with the architect was the construction, in a partnership with the Phillips brothers, of the Capitol Theater in Melbourne. Housed within the ten-storey office building Capitol House the theatre was opened on 7 November 1924 and both are now registered with the Australian Heritage Commission, the National Trust and Heritage Victoria.

The 1916 'Life In Australia' publication by John Comino had a significant section devoted to AJ Lucas, some of which follows:

24 years have flowed (since his arrival in Australia) and, properly used by a great, capable and audacious man, such as Mr. Antonios Lekatsas is, have resulted in the acquisition of substantial wealth. Three splendid, smart and exquisite buildings, of a commercial nature and part of the property owned by him, together with another building of twelve storeys, the tallest in Australia, standing by Sydney Central Railway Station and bearing the name “Australian Buildings”, sing the praises of the splendid abilities of Mr. Antonios Lekatsas, who is the richest of the Greeks settled in the State of Victoria.