As the School Council cast around for an urgent solution to find space for boarders, an anonymous donor gave £2,000 in 1925 towards the appeal being run by William Cartwright. The donor, later revealed as wealthy Baptist man Burdett Laycock, Alfred Mellor’s maternal grandfather, owner of Melbourne’s famous woollen mills and creator of Laconia blankets, wanted the money to be used to build a new boarding house and for it to be named to honour his father, Frederick Laycock. This was done in November 1925 when Laycock House was opened by Annie Mellor, Burdett Laycock’s daughter and Alfred Mellor’s mother.

The solid red-brick two-storey building nicely matched Urangeline's façade. It provided an enormous dormitory upstairs, quarters for resident masters and a large boarders’ common room downstairs. A first-floor walkway that connected Laycock House to Urangeline via the verandah remained in place until 1981. Boarding numbers peaked for the first time at Carey in 1929 when thirty-one were enrolled. The effects of the Great Depression immediately followed, reducing the house to ten in 1931. During this time of acute economic anxiety, boarding was out of reach for most Baptist families.