29/08/2026
The Peet Family Portrait
The portrait of the Peet family is another new addition to the Kalamunda History Village which currently occupies the same station waiting room as the previously featured portray of Eliza Mason! The Peet name is one of great significance to the Kalamunda area for its presence in the land agency business.
James Thomas Peet first arrived in Perth in 1895 during the height of the gold rushes. This was a time of great movement for many families in Western Australia, James noticing these trends, immediately established his land agency: Peet & Co Ltd, which quickly became very successful.
In 1896, James Peet met a young lady named Mabel Urch, the beautiful daughter of successful Kalamunda strawberry grower, Richard Urch. The couple would soon marry and start a family together, and although they lived in West Perth at the time, the young family would come to spend a lot of time at the Urch family property “Boonooloo” in Kalamunda. James and Mabel Peet were always drawn to the Kalamunda area and the scenic views that accompanied many of its landscapes.
By 1912, Peet & Co Ltd was thriving, marketing 96 surveyed estates of land across the metropolitan area including Mt Lawley, Dalkeith, South Perth and Kalamunda. James Peet in particular, had surveyed and marketed much of the land near the escarpment in Kalamunda such as Headingly Estate and Brie Brie Estate to name a few. At this time the prices of a block was generally a 2 pound deposit with an additional payment of 1 pound per month following.
James and Mabel loved Kalamunda so much, that in 1924 they built "The Chalet", a modest weekender on the corner of what is now Peet Road and Recreation Road, they called the property their "little plaything", often inviting guests to bring weird and wonderful souvenirs such as none other than a huge whalebone which later acted as an archway, a most memorable landmark at the property.
The Peet children: Eric, Cyril, Percy, Vi and Lillie, attended boarding schools, the girls in the city and the boys at the Seventh Day Adventist College in Bickley. While James Peet continued to find success as a business man who was also attuned to the less fortunate, proposing a number of schemes that would enable everyday people to afford property and a tent on new land proclaiming in a 1910 advertisement "If you're on a building bent and you haven't got a cent, we'll start you with a tent. Go to Peet!"
This portrait is one quite unique to the Kalamunda History Village, showing off the faces of a family that helped settle so many other families to the Kalamunda area, some of which still have descendants in the city today.
