Glen Iris is one of the few Melbourne suburbs where the first settlement did not cluster round a hotel. Unlike the neighbouring suburbs of Camberwell, Hartwell and Box Hill where roadside inns formed the nucleus of the first community, early Glen Iris consisted exclusively of farms developed on the hillsides overlooking Gardiners Creek Valley and the first communal building was a Methodist Church. That may partially explain why Glen Iris had developed into one of the Garden City’s more select suburbs with home prices 80 per cent higher than the Melbourne Average.