Mrs Mountain held a number of garden parties or fetes in the grounds of the property in order to raise money for the eye & ear hospital & the girl guides. On different occasions Lady Forster, wife of the Governor General, Lady Stradbroke and Lady Somers, wives of successive Governors of Victoria were present & each planted a tree in the gardens. These survived a fire and became part of the grounds surrounding Marybrooke. Further tragedy struck Grendon when a kitchen fire quickly took hold of the timber building & completely destroyed Sherbrooke’s popular guest house. As the newspaper reported at the time, “Fire breaking out in the kitchen at Midnight on Sunday quickly destroyed Grendon, Kallista, a two-story guest house which with it’s furnishings was valued at 6,000 pounds. Situated on the road which connects Kallista with Sherbrooke, the house was owned by Mrs Mountain. In response to a telephone message the fire brigade arrived from Belgrave after a three-mile journey at 12.30am. Lack of water handicapped the firemen. Because the fire spread swiftly through the wooden building few of the 20 guests were able to save any of their belongings. The presence of mind of “Bud” Astaire, a houseboy, aged 18 years resulted in the saving of the lives of Donald Price, a younger boy, who was sleeping in an out-house and an elderly woman who had re-entered the house to save some belongings. Astaire followed her and carried her to safety. Price, an orphan, had been working at the guest house only a few days. Among the guests were the government statist (Mr O. Gawler) and his wife and Dr. Constance Ellis of Collins Street, all of whom have returned to Melbourne”. James Eric Dowdle, more commonly known as Eric Dowdle, was born of English parentage in Richmond, Victoria in 1892 and died in 1964 at the age of 72. Eric trained as a carpenter & joiner before turning his hand to building. After the 1914-1918 war he built many war service homes in the Hampton area.