Community
8 May, 2025
Rejuvenating historic storefront
ONE of Mortlake’s newest storefronts is enjoying a makeover, but the history behind the property won’t be lost.
Knot Just Hair owner Emily Thorne opened the door to her hair and beauty salon earlier this year and has been hard at work restoring the premises at 93 Dunlop Street – which most recently had been the Mortlake Newsagency.
The work has entailed removing the carpet to restore the old flooring – with sanding and polishing to add heightened vibrancy – in addition to peeling back the paint to reveal the original redbrick interior.
Ms Thorne said she was determined to maintain the history of the establishment, including a concrete patch at the rear of the building which once served as the foundations for the press which printed the Mortlake Dispatch from 1946 through to 1971.
“I want to keep all the original floor intact, and keep the concrete flooring where I can – and cap it off to make it safe,” she said.
“I’ve renovated the floor with a polish so it won’t get damaged because we did find a little water damage when we removed the carpet.
“We’re stripping the paint off the walls back to the original red brick, but that takes time and puts dust everywhere so we’ve been doing it bit by bit.
“When I pulled down the signage, we uncovered all the old, original signs for the newsagency which I think that would have been back when Janet Gray owned it.”
Ms Thorne said it was important to her to maintain and honour the history of the building as she had grown up in Mortlake and shared cherished memories not only of the store, but the people who had once owned it.
“My ties to the old owners, Janice and Peter Palmer, was a driving motivation as I’d lived in Mortlake around their family for a little while,” she said.
“I really appreciated what they did with the newsagency, and when I moved back from Melbourne to see they had sold I was a little bit devastated.
“Getting this shop was, for me, a little bit sentimental.
“The fact I’ve made it in to the Mortlake Dispatch twice also makes it a little bit more sentimental as I now have the shop where it was once created.
“I viewed this sort of as a way to give back to the community.”
Ms Thorne said there had been no shortage of residents sharing their excitement for the new establishment as empty storefronts in small towns often signal concern for the viability of local business.
“Everyone was saying this side of the street was dying,” she said.
“I like to think this helps bring a bit more life back to Dunlop Street, and hopefully more people will come too.
“It’s been two months since I opened – I’m booked out a week in advance.
“I have someone on work experience who is coming in as a school-based apprentice next year and I’ve got a rent-a-chair beauty therapist and hair dresser, and I’m in the process of trying to get a barber.”
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