At approximately twenty three square kilometres, Mt Eliza occupies a significant portion at the top of the Mornington Peninsula.
Our town is bordered by Kackeraboite Creek, Humphries Road, the Moorooduc Highway, Wooralla Drive, Oakbank Road, Manmangur Creek and Port Phillip Bay.
Mount Eliza was named the year following the founding of Melbourne in 1836 after Eliza Elliott, the wife of Captain William Hobson, a Royal Navy Officer based in Melbourne, who was to later become the first Governor of New Zealand (1839-41).
In the 19th Century Mt Eliza was a location for mainly holiday homes and many people from Melbourne and its more affluent suburbs of Toorak, South Yarra and Camberwell came here for their summer holidays.
The Post Office opened on 15 November 1920.
While there had always been a number of permanent residents and local farms, early in the 20th Century a larger number of people started to make Mt Eliza their permanent home.
A major housing boost occurred in 1924 with the opening of the Ranelagh Estate subdivision, designed by American architect Walter Burley Griffin and his wife Marion Mahony Griffin, in conjunction with the surveyors Tuxen and Moore.
The Griffins had originally come to Australia to work on the design and layout of the Nation's new capital, Canberra.
Daveys Bay was named after James Davey who constructed a jetty in the 1840s to ship his local produce to Melbourne.
Canadian Bay was named after three Canadians, Hodgins, McCurley and Jones, who owned and operated a local sawmill in the middle of the 19th Century.
The Daveys Bay Yacht Club was established in 1909 and Toorak College commenced offering educational opportunities for girls as an independent school in 1928.
The Canadian Bay Club was formed in 1958. One of the founding members was Sir Laurence Hartnett, the then Managing Director of General Motors Holden and the designer and developer of the first Holden car.
By the late 1950s the village shopping precinct was well established, although it has changed significantly over the years.
In 1958/59 the movie On the Beach, based on the Nevil Shute novel, was filmed in Mt Eliza and nearby Frankston.
It is suggested that Ava Gardner, Gregory Peck, Fred Astaire and Anthony Perkins all stayed in Mt Eliza for several weeks while the Stanley Kramer directed film was made in Melbourne and at local bayside locales.
Today Mt Eliza has a population of 17,886 people (June 2016 Census) and is a thriving part of the greater Melbourne Metropolitan area. At the same time it still retains its seaside and local village charm.
