Hove Villas Business Centre was the site where the Short brothers, Eustace and Oswald made their first coal-gas balloons at the very start of their careers as pioneering balloon and aeronautical designers, engineers, and manufacturers. This was also the site where their elder brother Horace worked on his experiments in sound amplification. That work was sufficiently original to warrant the issue of British patents.
In February 1900 Colonel George E Gouraud, a veteran of the American Civil War and Thomas Edison's European agent, signed a lease for parts of No. 2 Hove Villas, Hove. He named the premises ‘Menlo Laboratory’ with the intent of establishing an inventions factory.
He financed the laboratories of Horace Short to develop his ‘Gouraudphone’ and other experiments.

It was here that Eustace and Oswald followed their ‘dream’ and built their first balloon, in the loft, in April 1901. Eustace  finalised the first outline of his project for a high-altitude balloon. Oswald invented an instrument for accurately measuring the speed of a motor car and another for ascertaining the drift and direction of a balloon in relation to the ground.

Menlo Laboratory was more than just a workplace, as all three brothers lived in an apartment over the workshops, although Horace later moved to nearby rooms. The site was certainly very significant in terms of the Short brothers’ subsequent careers in aviation and Menlo Laboratories became an unnoticed bridge between the Industrial Revolutions of two centuries. The Short Brothers were active in supporting local events, an amusing account of the Grand Opening of Aldrington Recreation Ground (Wish Park) in 1900 mentions their activities.

The site later became the premises of Dubarry Perfumary and is an elegant listed industrial building enhanced by decorative mosaic work.

Period Press Reports:

BALLOON ASCENT AT HOVE.
Many persons in Mid-Sussex were interested on Saturday evening in watching the passing of a balloon over the district. The silken ball ascended from St. Ann's Well, Furze Hill, Hove, about 7pm., the party in the car consisting Mr Eustace Short, aeronaut, Mr. George Bevan, and Mr. Ben Parker, of Hove. The balloon used for the trip was a new one, made at Brighton by Mr. Short, with a capacity of over 38,000 cubic feet. At first it took a course towards the sea, but the ballastbeing lightened, it reached a higher altitude, andgetting into a different current, sailed inland over Preston Park and on to Falmer and Lewes, and then over Plumpton towards Chailey and Horsted Keynes, the descent, after a delightful trip of nearly an hour and a half, being made near Violet Cottage on the farther confines of that parish. The balloon came down perfectly steadily and smoothly, the descent being made so easily that when terra firma was reached once more the members of the party retained their seats and chatted for some minutes before getting out and returning to Hove by train. The atmosphere was perfectly clear throughout the trip, and the panoramic view is alluded to by one of the members of the party as having been simply magnificent in its grandeur. In the course of the trip the balloon soared to a height of a mile and a half.

BALLOON VOYAGE FROM HOVE TO WILLINGDON.
Mr. Eustace Short the aeronaut, made a second successful ascent with his balloon from St. Ann’s Well, Hove on Thursday evening. The balloon which had been inflating in the grounds for seven hours, made its ascent, with Mr Short and Mr. William Johnson, about 6.45 p.m. There was a good current of air along the coast, but it was deemed advisable to keep the balloon low, on account of an upper current blowing out to sea. Just before reaching Newhaven, while at a height of about at a height of about 1,000 feet, the aeronauts got into a whirlwind, and for about three minutes there was a terrible shaking of the balloon.
About eight o'clock, when nearing Willingdon, Mr. Short threw out the grapnel, which trailed for about half-a-mile, and eventually the descent was made in the
garden of Messrs. R. Willard and Sons, market gardeners. About fifty willing hands seized
the trail rope and assisted to bring the balloon to earth, which was accomplished without any mishap. Some Eastbourne people saw the balloon in what they believed to be the neighbourhood of Ratton.

A PHONOGRAPH HEARD TEN MILES AWAY.
The latest thing in phonographs is one that can be heard at a distance of ten miles. It as the invention of a Brighton gentleman named Horace Short, and has been successfully tested at the Devil’s Dyke, near Brighton. Every word uttered by the machine was heard by a number of people ten miles away. In appearance the machine is merely an ordinary phonograph, with a trumpet measuring four feet in length. Instead of the “records" being taken on wax in the usual manner, a sapphire needle is made to cut the dots representing the sound vibrations on a silver cylinder, and when the needle travels over the metal a second time the vibrations cause the whistle to produce a series of air waves, and the machine thus becomes a talking siren. which transforms the human voice into a deafening roar. At a second trial, with a favourable wind, the words of the phonograph were heard perfectly distinctly twelve miles away. Across water the sound will carry still further, and, placed on a lighthouse, its warning voice will be heard by persons on vessels fifteen miles out at sea, and will be infinitely more effective than the foghorns and detonators at present in use.

 Photo credits: Judy Middleton; Elizabeth M Walker, Jerry Swift, Mike Faherty licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence; Google Maps with thanks