The house at 87 Grey Street was built for Alexander Hutchison, a compositor. Sometimes he is described as a civil servant. It is possible, perhaps, that he worked for the Government Printing Offices on Eastern Hill.

His chosen builder was Murray & Hill, a local firm whose business was up the lane known now as Contractors Lane. It was a well-established and highly regarded firm having constructed some of Melbourne’s finest buildings including the Customs House and the Mint. The house was completed in 1867.

Hutchison lived in the house, which he named Ness Cottage, with his wife and family for nearly thirty years.  In 1890 his wife died, and in 1892 his 30 year-old son, George, an employee of Melville, Mullen and Slade, booksellers, Collins Street, travelled to Mentone after an argument with one of the principals, and after a few drinks at the local pub swam out to sea and drowned. 
Hutchison put the house up for sale in 1897.  It was described as ‘containing 7 rooms, bathroom, wash house, sheds, verandah back and front’.  

The purchasers were Denis and Mary Mackey.  For the first year they rented the house to Harley Tarrant. On 31 Aug 1897 Sydney’s Evening News published a list of patents applied for.  Among them was: - H. Tarrant of 87 Grey street, East Melbourne, for: "Improvements in explosion motors operated by gas oil and like fuel."  Tarrant is credited with constructing Australia's first motor car in the same year. Joe Rich writing in the Australian Dictionary of Biography says:-

In August 1897 he patented an engine powered by kerosene, a fuel which he declared to be safe, cheap and readily available, whereas electric motors needed recharging stations, and steam-driven machines were dangerous and 'too heavy for rough country roads'. 

This car was deemed a failure but four years later, as a partner in Tarrant Motor & Engineering Co. Tarrant built one of the earliest Australian-made, petrol-driven cars. 

The Mackeys moved into the house the following year. Denis Patrick Mackey had been appointed cashier of the Metropolitan Board of Works in 1891 and remained so until his retirement in 1930.  Mary died in 1914, and Denis remarried soon after and moved to another address. Some of the children moved with him, including eldest son Vincent Patrick Mackey.  [see link below for more on VP Mackey]

Around this time Mary’s widowed sister-in-law, Elizabeth Donohoe, moved into the property with her children and remained there until her death in 1950. a photograph of the house from around this time shows it with the name 'Pasadena' over the gateway.  Denis had died in 1937 and ownership of the property passed to his children.   

During the 1950s it appears the house was given a makeover in the current fashion of the era.  The iron lace work was removed and the polychrome brick façade was cemented over and painted. 

In 1960 the house was put up for sale.  The new owner was Marie Alice Henderson.  Marie was born to parents William Herbert and Mary Jane in Collingwood in 1893.  She became a tailoress and later a shopkeeper. She lived with her parents in the same house in Collingwood until after their deaths, William’s in 1942 and Mary’s in 1955, before retiring to East Melbourne. By the late 1980s Marie had moved out and the house was put on the market again. An advertisement in The Age, 27 Jul 1989, described it as:-

A RARE OPPORTUNITY TO ACQUIRE A VIC VILLA OF FADED FLORY REQUIRING EXTENSIVE RENOVATIONS, IN MELBOURNE’S FINEST LOCALE
THE HOME COMPR: 6 main rooms with arched ent hall through to paved garden area and outbuildings with side and rear areas.  NOTE: many period features intact incl ornate overmantels.

It sold for $372.500. The new owners gave the house a thorough renovation including replacing the cast iron, although in a slightly different arrangement.  The original iron work included four columns creating three equally spaced bays, whereas now the central bay is considerably wider than the two on each side of it.