Elizabeth Bay House - Part 2 - Elizabeth Bay

 

Elizabeth Bay House – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Built 1835–1839 · Architects John Verge & John Bibb (British plan attrib.) · Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum

On the northern edge of Woolloomooloo Hill — before Onslow Avenue, before the flat boom, before Elizabeth Bay meant balcony views for rent — Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay planted a private botanic garden on fifty-four acres of harbour rock and bush, then raised what contemporaries called the finest house in the colony. The oval saloon still soars. The planned Doric colonnade never arrived. The acres became a suburb. The house became flats, a squat, a reception venue — and, after one of Australia’s first scholarly restorations, a public museum. Ambition, insects, bankruptcy, and a staircase like an arum lily: welcome to Elizabeth Bay House.

**At a glance**

- Address: 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011

- Built: plans from 1832; constructed 1835–1839; occupied 1839

- Architect: John Verge and John Bibb supervising; SHR notes an unknown British designer / imported scheme Verge modified; builder James Hume

- Style: Greek Revival / Colonial Regency villa — severe unfinished exterior; celebrated oval domed saloon and cantilevered stair

- Original owner: Alexander McLeay / Macleay (Colonial Secretary of NSW), with wife Eliza

- Estate: c.54 acres (22 ha) grant by Governor Darling; gardens internationally famous; suburb of Elizabeth Bay takes its street pattern from the subdivisions

- Heritage: NSW State Heritage Register #00006 (house, 2 April 1999); grotto & works SHR #00116; former Register of the National Estate; early National Trust listing

- Fate / current use: Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum (Historic Houses Trust / Sydney Living Museums lineage); free entry; events hire

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### Site & setting

The Aboriginal name recorded for Elizabeth Bay is **Gurrajin** (official dual name with the European placename). This was Cadigal Country on Sydney Harbour — fishing ground, contact landscape, and, under Governor Macquarie, the site of **Elizabeth Town**: bark huts and a fishing settlement associated with **Bungaree**’s group (c.1815–1820s), downslope toward today’s Beare Park. Governor Brisbane later eyed the bay for an asylum. Instead, soon after Alexander Macleay arrived as Colonial Secretary in January 1826, Governor Darling granted him about **fifty-four acres** with commanding harbour views — a grant that drew heated newspaper comment for alienating public land.

Macleay did not clear-fell and start again. With assigned convict labour and gardener **Robert Henderson**, he kept indigenous trees where he could, cut picturesque walks, and layered in a private botanic garden of walls, grottoes, ponds, gravel paths, Cape bulbs, and fruit from half the globe. *The Sydney Gazette* (May 1831) already sang the transformation. Joseph Hooker in 1841 called it a “botanist’s paradise.”

Subdivision from the 1840s onward — and especially after William Sharp’s death — carved the estate into the suburb we know. Onslow Avenue sliced the famous front lawn; Billyard Avenue edged what became **Arthur McElhone Reserve** (City of Sydney, landscape architect Ilmar Berzins, 1948–50). Today the villa sits tight among flats, looking north to a fragment of garden and the harbour beyond. The grotto and stone walls survive as rare fabric of that early landscape (separately listed).

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### Timeline

- **c.1815–1820s** – Macquarie’s Elizabeth Town Aboriginal settlement at Gurrajin / Elizabeth Bay (Bungaree association); bay named for Elizabeth Macquarie.

- **24 Jun 1767** – Alexander McLeay born Ross-shire, Scotland (ADB).

- **1794–1825** – Fellow then secretary of the Linnean Society of London; FRS 1809; amasses leading private insect collection.

- **14 Jun 1825** – Appointed Colonial Secretary of NSW (£2000); arrives Sydney **January 1826** with Eliza, daughters, library and collection (ADB / SHR).

- **c.1826** – Granted ~54 acres at Elizabeth Bay; begins estate works (exact deed year sometimes given as 1828 in secondary sources).

- **1826–1830s** – Garden laid out; Deas Thomson helps engineer walks; Verge ledger entries for garden structures **1833**; grotto/walls **c.1832–35**.

- **1832** – Villa plans in hand; construction delayed.

- **1835–1839** – House built (James Hume); Verge & Bibb; occupied **1839**. Intended Doric colonnade never completed.

- **2 Jan 1837** – McLeay quits Colonial Secretary’s office under Bourke (Thomson succeeds) — loss of salary deepens debt (ADB).

- **1839** – William Sharp Macleay joins family in Sydney; reviews finances; drawing-room furnishings ordered in London.

- **1840s** – Depression; 1841 subdivision attempt fails to sell; library and furniture sold; drawing-room pieces go to new Government House (**1845**).

- **1845** – William Sharp takes over debts and house; Alexander & Eliza withdraw bitterly to Brownlow Hill.

- **18 Jul 1848** – Alexander dies at Tivoli, Rose Bay, after a carriage accident (ADB).

- **1845–1865** – William Sharp lives largely alone; scientific salon; dies **1865**; estate to brother George; insect collection to cousin William John.

- **1865–1903** – George subdivides and leases house to Sir William John Macleay & Susan (daughter of Edward Deas Thomson of Barham); collections grow; Macleay Museum at University of Sydney endowed (**1880s–89**); Susan remains to **1903**.

- **1875, 1882** – Further subdivisions; garden shrinks.

- **1891+** – After George’s death, house passes (via Onslow line under W.S. will) to **James William Macarthur-Onslow**; maintenance including plumbing, gas, bathrooms — and **1890s portico / balcony** works (SHR: balcony 1892; Mansfield association for portico).

- **1903–1926** – Leased then sold to leather merchant **George (Col.) Michaelis**; first non-Macleay owner (purchase commonly dated **1911**).

- **Sep 1926** – Sold for **£42,500** (*Daily Telegraph* 30 Sep 1926); Sir Sydney Snow / Elizabeth Bay Estates Ltd era; final land sales **1927**; kitchen wing demolished for access road; house fails to sell; artists squat through Depression.

- **1935** – Renovated as fashionable reception house (Hall / Minnett); celebrity weddings (e.g. Madge Elliott & Cyril Ritchard era noted by MHNSW).

- **1941** – Converted to **fifteen flats** (sympathetic conversion noted in heritage literature); Donald Friend among artist residents.

- **1948–50** – Arthur McElhone Reserve created on former front lawn.

- **1961** – Early National Trust listing wave.

- **1963** – Cumberland County Council purchases house; essential repairs.

- **1972–76** – State Planning Authority / Fisher Lucas (Clive Lucas) scholarly restoration — first intended as Lord Mayor’s residence, then public museum.

- **1977** – Opened to the public.

- **1981** – Among first properties of the **Historic Houses Trust of NSW** (with Vaucluse House); later branded Sydney Living Museums; now **Museums of History NSW**.

- **2 Apr 1999** – Entered on NSW State Heritage Register (#00006).

- **Today** – House museum; free entry; Sunday–Monday opening (check MHNSW); events and weddings by arrangement.

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### Architecture & interiors

Elizabeth Bay House is a two-storey Greek Revival villa on a centralised Palladian plan — square vestibule opening into an **oval, domed saloon** where a **cantilevered Marulan sandstone stair** rises to an arcaded gallery under a lantern. Cedar joinery, blackbutt floors, Grecian architraves, laurel-wreath plasterwork, imitation-bronze cast-iron balusters: this is the interior that made the house’s reputation. ADB Verge called the hall one of the richest and most spatially dramatic interiors in early Australian colonial architecture.

The exterior is another story. Soft Sydney sandstone under sand paint; blind windows for symmetry; a light iron-and-wood portico that was **not** part of the 1830s design. The house was meant to wear a **single-storey Doric colonnade** on three sides — the sort Conrad Martens painted into existence, and the sort Verge built at The Vineyard for Hannibal Macarthur. Money ran out; the colonnade never rose; the façade stayed severe. That incompleteness is not a romantic myth — it is fabric fact, and SHR significance turns on it. The small portico arrived only in the Macarthur-Onslow years, when open French windows otherwise dropped toward a sheer edge.

Service wings and stables are gone (kitchen wing sacrificed in the 1927 carve-up). Cellars remain under the house — two unconnected wings in the SHR description — but treat 1920s press tales of convicts “quartered” there as colour, not conservation evidence. Assigned convict labour built the estate; that much is documented.

**Architect note:** Prefer SHR wording: unknown British designer / imported scheme, realised under **Verge** and **Bibb**, built by **James Hume**. Do not claim a simple “Verge alone” authorship. Interior loosely compared to Henry Holland’s Carlton House for the Prince Regent.

Winter-solstice sunrise bisecting the house front-to-back is a documented observational effect (Malone / Sydney Living Museums); no contemporary document yet found that proves it was intentional — say “aligned” and flag the gap.

Museum interiors today interpret **1839–1845**: inventories, paint scrapes, and furniture trails (including pieces sold to Government House) guide the refurnishing — not a fantasy of how rich Macleay *wished* to live after the crash.

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### People & anecdotes

**Alexander McLeay / Macleay** was Colonial Secretary, Linnean secretary, Fellow of the Royal Society, and a collector whose insect cabinets were said to be unmatched in private hands in England. He worked twelve-hour days for Darling, fought Bourke to a standstill over education and exclusivism, lost office in 1837, took the Speakership of the part-elective Council in the 1840s, and still found time for bulbs, botanic-garden politics, and a harbour showpiece he could not afford. Spelling: ADB files him as **McLeay**; the Australian family settled on **Macleay**.

**Eliza Macleay** ran the household through the rise and the bitterness of the fall. **William Sharp Macleay** — Cambridge scholar, pre-Darwinian theorist, recluse — paid the debts, sold the drawing-room glories, posted dog-warning signs at the boundary, and kept the house as a scientific salon until 1865. Cousin **Sir William John Macleay** and **Susan** (Deas Thomson’s daughter) turned the collections into a public legacy: the **Macleay Museum** at the University of Sydney. Through daughter Rosa’s Onslow marriage, the house later brushed the **Macarthur-Onslow** world of Camden Park.

Twentieth-century chapters are pure Sydney scrapbook: Michaelis family life within walking distance of the Great Synagogue; Snow and the Estates company (Leslie Wilkinson among shareholders); Charm School artists camping in a decaying mansion; reception-house glamour; fifteen flats without gutting the fabric; then the conservation rescue that helped invent the Historic Houses Trust.

No **Mitchell** owner belongs in this story — only the **Mitchell Library**, which holds the plant and seed books.

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### Image gallery guidance

Do not invent URLs — search these collections and embed with proper acknowledgement. Keep strong images already on the 2016 post (estate plans, historic views) and re-credit.

1. **Conrad Martens views of Elizabeth Bay House (1830s–40s)**  

   Search: NGV / SLNSW “Elizabeth Bay House Martens”.  

   Caption idea: *The colonnade that never was — Martens painting Macleay’s dream complete.*

2. **William Blackwood photograph, Elizabeth Bay, 1858**  

   Search: SLNSW ML PSC 955.  

   Caption idea: *Reality check, 1858 — house without the encircling colonnade.*

3. **Oval saloon / cantilevered stair (historic and modern)**  

   Search: MHNSW media; SLNSW; existing blog stair shots.  

   Caption idea: *“Like the flower of an arum lily” — the saloon that made the house’s name.*

4. **Estate / subdivision plans (1859 and later)**  

   Already on the existing post; also NLA/Trove maps “Elizabeth Bay Estate”.  

   Caption idea: *Watch 54 acres become a suburb — estate plans from grant to flat boom.*

5. **Grotto and Arthur McElhone Reserve**  

   Search: MHNSW; City of Sydney; Wikimedia.  

   Caption idea: *What the garden left behind — grotto, walls, and Berzins’ reserve on the old lawn.*

6. **Portraits of Alexander and Eliza Macleay**  

   Search: Dixson Gallery / SLNSW; Australian Museum loans noted in HHT literature.  

   Caption idea: *The Colonial Secretary and Mrs Macleay — patrons of insects, books, and harbour views.*

7. **Macleay Museum / collection cabinets**  

   Search: University of Sydney Macleay Collections.  

   Caption idea: *From Elizabeth Bay cupboards to campus — the collections that outlived the estate.*

8. **Compare set: Tusculum and Rockwall**  

   Search: MHNSW / SLNSW *Villas of Darlinghurst*.  

   Caption idea: *Verge’s hilltop kin — Tusculum and Rockwall still standing in the same story.*

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### What stands today / how to see it

Elizabeth Bay House **stands**, and unlike many on this blog it is a working **house museum**.

- **Visit:** 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay — Museums of History NSW. Free entry; typically open **Sundays and Mondays 10am–4pm** — always confirm at [mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/](https://mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/). Pre-book tickets online when advised.

- Walk the reduced curtilage and cross Onslow Avenue into **Arthur McElhone Reserve** for the harbour outlook and lawn fragment.

- Seek the **grotto** remnant (public path territory near Onslow / flats — take care; private property boundaries matter).

- Pair with **Vaucluse House** (fellow early HHT museum) and the Verge survivors **Tusculum** and **Rockwall**.

- Remember Gurrajin / Elizabeth Town: Beare Park interpretation speaks to the Aboriginal settlement that preceded the grant.

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### Sources & further reading

- NSW State Heritage Register — Elizabeth Bay House (SHR 00006): https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045185

- NSW State Heritage Register — Elizabeth Bay House Grotto Site and works (SHR 00116)

- Museums of History NSW — Elizabeth Bay House: https://mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/

- Dictionary of Sydney — Elizabeth Bay House: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/elizabeth_bay_house

- ADB — Alexander McLeay: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcleay-alexander-2413

- ADB — John Verge: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/verge-john-2757

- Scott Carlin, *Elizabeth Bay House: a history and guide*, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 2000

- Joy Hughes, Macleay entries, *Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens*, 2002

- State Library of NSW, *Villas of Darlinghurst* exhibition catalogue, 2002

- Sydney Barani — Elizabeth Town: https://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/elizabeth-town/

- *Daily Telegraph*, 30 September 1926, “Historic Home Sold” (clipping on existing blog post)

- *Herald* book review of Nesta Griffiths, 25 June 1949 (clip on this blog): https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/06/houses-of-colonial-sydney.html

- Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/elizabeth-bay-house-elizabeth-bay-new.html

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### Related on this blog

- [Tusculum – Potts Point](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/tusculum-potts-point.html) (Verge neighbour)

- [Rockwall – Potts Point](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/rockwall-7-rockwell-crescent-potts.html) (Verge neighbour)

- [John Verge – Colonial Architect](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/john-verge-colonial-architect-new-south.html)

- [Vaucluse House – Vaucluse](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2025/05/vaucluse-house-vaucluse.html) (fellow early HHT / MHNSW museum)

- [Tiranna – 17 Billyard Avenue – Elizabeth Bay](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/08/tiranna-17-billyard-avenue-elizabeth.html)

- [Houses Of Colonial Sydney – 1949 Herald clip](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/06/houses-of-colonial-sydney.html)

*(Expand the 2016 post in place with this template text, keep the scrapbook images and the 1926 Telegraph clip, and refresh “Historic Houses Trust” language to Museums of History NSW.)*

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### Suggested title options

1. **Elizabeth Bay House – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW** (template match; recommended)

2. **Elizabeth Bay House – Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW** (shorter street form)

3. **Elizabeth Bay House (MHNSW Museum) – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW** (flags current use)

Optional subtitle line: **Built 1835–1839 · Architects John Verge & John Bibb · Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum**

Tusculum Part 2 - 1-3 Manning St - Potts Point

 

Tusculum – 1–3 Manning Street – Potts Point – NSW

Built c.1831–1836 · Architect John Verge · Standing — Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter HQ

On Woolloomooloo Hill — before the flats, before the Cross, before Manning Street filled in — stood a parade of white Regency villas meant to prove that Sydney had a gentry of its own. Most of that skyline is gone. Tusculum is one of the stubborn survivors: John Verge’s stucco villa for merchant A.B. Spark, episcopal town house for Bishop Broughton, Italianate-fronted mansion for the Longs, private hospital, American Red Cross wartime billet, near-ruin — and today the living headquarters of the architects of New South Wales.

**At a glance**

- Address: 1–3 Manning Street, Potts Point (AIA NSW Chapter lists **3 Manning Street**)

- Built: c.1831–1835/36 (SHR construction years 1831–1837; Verge ledger through 1836)

- Architect: John Verge (original); later works associated with John Frederick Hilly (likely, Long era) and John Burcham Clamp (1905–06 stair / billiard room)

- Style: Colonial Regency villa, later overlaid with mid-Victorian Italianate two-storey Ionic verandahs

- Original owner: Alexander Brodie Spark (merchant); built largely as an investment

- Famous early tenant: Bishop William Grant Broughton, 1836–1851

- Heritage: NSW State Heritage Register #00027 (2 April 1999); Permanent Conservation Order 1979; Register of the National Estate; National Trust

- Fate / current use: Standing — restored 1985–87; NSW Chapter HQ of the Australian Institute of Architects under long lease; events, meeting rooms, gallery

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### Site & setting

The Aboriginal name recorded for Potts Point is **Derrawunn**. In the late 1820s the rocky ridge inland from the point was still **Eastern / Woolloomooloo Hill** — close to town, high enough for harbour and mountain views, and far enough from the crowded Rocks to tempt Sydney’s “pure merinos.”

Governor Ralph Darling’s 1828 subdivision created large “town allotments” under strict **villa conditions**: one approved house per grant, set in gardens, generally facing the town, and built to a substantial standard. Spark’s grant of more than nine acres (September 1828) was unusual in going to a private merchant rather than a senior civil servant. From the water and from Sydney Town the finished white villas read as a civic advertisement — genteel New South Wales, on show.

Tusculum once sat near the centre of its own garden, lawn and shrubbery, with coach-house and stables, and a frontage that related to Woolloomooloo Bay. Subdivision from the 1840s onward (and especially late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century cutting-up) ate the grounds. Manning, Hughes and Tusculum Streets tell the story in their names. Today the villa is hemmed by flats — Art Deco towers toward Macleay Street, lower blocks to the west — with a reduced forecourt and the 1980s AIA wing behind. The spacious marine-villa setting is gone; the house is not.

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### Timeline

- **1823** – Alexander Brodie Spark arrives Sydney as a free settler (*Princess Charlotte*); builds a shipping and mercantile fortune (ADB).

- **1 Jan 1827** – Spark writes to Colonial Secretary **Alexander McLeay** seeking a building allotment east of Woolloomooloo Bay (quoted MHNSW / Abbott & Little). *(McLeay is not Tusculum’s owner — his own Verge house is Elizabeth Bay House.)*

- **Sept 1828** – Spark granted 9+ acres on Woolloomooloo Hill.

- **1 June 1830** – Spark sends a house plan to the Colonial Secretary, wanting it more “ornamental”; Verge’s ledger first records the commission in **1831**.

- **1831–c.1835/36** – Tusculum built under Verge; liveable by about 1835; ledger details continue to 1836. Named for ancient Tusculum near Rome.

- **1836** – Alterations for first long tenant, Bishop **William Grant Broughton**; Broughton household moves in. Verge involved in modifications (including expanding rooms onto the verandah per MHNSW).

- **1836–1851** – Broughton’s almost entire Australian episcopacy centred here; garden, library shelves (1839), hospitality; after Government House, the colony’s leading domestic address (SHR).

- **1840s** – Depression; Spark mortgages Tusculum (ADB: £6000) and sells assets; insolvency 1844. First estate subdivisions; Broughton loses part of his cherished garden.

- **1848** – Broughton renews lease seven years at £300 p.a.; SMH sale notice describes stone house, verandah, hall, drawing & dining rooms (~26 × 18 ft), study, basement kitchen/cellarage, coach-house and stables (MHNSW quoting *SMH* 6 Sep 1848).

- **Oct 1850** – Conference of Australasian Bishops accommodated at Tusculum.

- **1851–52** – Broughton leaves; **William Long** purchases (DoS: £3010) and occupies from 1852.

- **1850s–1870s** – Long-family modernisation: slate roof, windows, chimneypieces, SE extension; earlier verandahs replaced/extended as two-storey **Ionic** colonnades (cast iron and wood) — likely **J.F. Hilly** (stylistic attribution). Italian moulded stonework ordered for rooms (MHNSW).

- **1876** – William Long dies; son **William Alexander Long** inherits; later lets to approved tenants including Mayor **W.P. (Sir William) Manning**.

- **21 Oct 1904** – Auction; **Lewis Edward Isaacs** buys house lot for £3,750; **Burcham Clamp** alters staircase/stair hall (builder John White).

- **1906** – **Orwell and Alfred Phillips** purchase; Orwell later sole owner; billiard-room addition likely Clamp.

- **1919** – Harold **Cazneaux** photograph published in *Art in Australia* special *Domestic Architecture in Australia* (Hardy Wilson collaboration) — early architectural celebrity for the house.

- **1927–28** – Further sale and subdivision; from **1928** leased as private hospital (Isabel Christie); operating theatre and sterilising room inserted (1928 Ross & Rowe works documented in SHR).

- **1930s** – Surrounding flats rise; curtilage shrinks to roughly today’s footprint (SLNSW notes flats obscuring front by mid-1930s).

- **WWII** – American Red Cross officers’ club / convalescent use; basement air-raid shelter reported (MHNSW).

- **Post-war–early 1980s** – Nursing home / later religious centre; vacancy, squatters, vandalism, fires to rear additions; main joinery and panelled ceilings survive.

- **Dec 1979** – Permanent Conservation Order.

- **April 1983** – First compulsory resumption under the **NSW Heritage Act 1977** (~$1.03m).

- **1985–87** – Clive Lucas conservation; Levine & Durbach competition wing for RAIA; restoration evokes early–mid Victorian period.

- **11 March 1988** – Official opening by the Premier of NSW.

- **2 April 1999** – Entered on NSW State Heritage Register (#00027).

- **2011–13** – Further renovations addressing damp (MHNSW).

- **Today** – AIA NSW Chapter headquarters; villa used for meetings, gallery and receptions; rooms for hire.

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### Architecture & interiors

Tusculum began as a large **two-storey Regency** villa in stuccoed brick — Verge at the height of his Sydney practice (ADB: colony’s high-water mark of austere Regency stucco). It is one of the few Sydney colonial houses that still show the full “villa” diagram: principal floors above, **basement service rooms and stair** below — upstairs/downstairs domestic administration made visible in plan (SHR).

Early descriptions and the 1848 sale notice give the bones: verandah; ground-floor hall opening to drawing and dining rooms linked by folding doors; study, store, butler’s pantry and servants’ room; four bedrooms and dressing room above; kitchen, servants’ room and cellarage below; substantial coach-house and three-stall stables with loft.

Heritage statements long credited **cedar** joinery (said imported from Lebanon) in panelled ceilings and later verandah work, and **marble** flooring and chimneypieces said to come from Tusculum in Italy — the latter now noted as removed (SHR). Treat those material stories as heritage-register tradition unless you have a current fabric survey in hand.

What you see from the street today is heavily shaped by the **Long** decades: a fine classical **two-storey verandah of the Ionic order on three sides**, probably completed in the late 1870s (SHR), transforming a Regency villa into a mid-Victorian Italianate mansion. High shuttered French doors open onto the broad verandahs. The matching portico/porte-cochère on the garden side was removed in the later twentieth century. Edwardian **Clamp** work remade the staircase and stair hall (retained in the 1980s conservation as significant). Hospital-era accretions on the verandahs were later stripped back.

Clive Lucas — leading Verge authority — directed the 1980s conservation to reveal original form while keeping key later layers. Behind the villa, the **Levine & Durbach** Institute building (national competition win) holds auditorium, offices and foyer gallery — 1980s architecture deliberately paired with the conserved colonial house.

**Architect note:** Verge’s authorship of the original villa is secure (ledger + SHR). Attribution of the Ionic verandah campaign to **Hilly** is persuasive but stylistic. Do not credit Alexander McLeay as owner or client — he was the Colonial Secretary across town at Elizabeth Bay House, another Verge masterpiece.

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### People & anecdotes

**A.B. Spark** was the merchant who named houses after classical Italy (**Tusculum**, **Tempe**) and lived the boom-and-bust of the 1830s–40s. Tusculum marked his rise; his failure to settle there marked the slide — Bank of Australia collapse, guarantees for bankrupt friends, mortgage, sale, insolvency (ADB). He poured affection into Tempe on the Cooks River instead, entertaining hundreds there in a single busy year (1839). Tusculum was the showpiece investment on the Hill; Tempe was home.

**Bishop Broughton** made the unfinished house decent, planted roses and a kitchen garden, shelved his library against damp, and still grumbled that it was “a sad, imperfect place and anything but episcopal” — then renewed the lease anyway because the air and the outlook answered. For fifteen years church politics, education fights, and colonial hospitality ran through these rooms. In October 1850 Australasian bishops crowded in for their conference — Emily Crawley’s letter sketches the bedding arrangements. After Government House, this was the address that mattered.

**William Long**, emancipist publican turned wine merchant, bought respectability in stone and cedar. His and his son’s alterations — Ionic verandahs, Italian enrichments, slate instead of shingle — are why Tusculum reads mid-Victorian from the footpath. Later names on the visitors’ book of ownership and tenancy include politicians and lawyers (**Kater**, **Sir James Martin**), Lord Mayor **Sir William Manning**, and the **Phillips** brothers (Orwell’s name echoes in nearby Orwell Street / Orwell House territory on this blog).

Twentieth-century chapters are less glamorous and just as telling: private hospital beds where drawing rooms had been; Red Cross officers in wartime; then neglect so severe the State stepped in with the Heritage Act’s first compulsory rescue. That 1983 resumption is itself a heritage landmark — proof that NSW had decided some houses were not disposable. Paul Keating’s later association with lobbying for the architects’ lease (and a suite in the complex) is a modern footnote often repeated in secondary sources.

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### Image gallery guidance

Do not invent URLs — search these collections and embed with proper acknowledgement. The existing 2017 post already holds several historic views and estate plans worth keeping or re-crediting.

1. **Early photographic views of Tusculum (c.1860s–1880s)**  

   Search: existing blog images; SLNSW / Trove digitised photos “Tusculum Potts Point”; City of Sydney archives.  

   Caption idea: *Tusculum when the grounds still breathed — verandahs and garden before the flat boom.*

2. **Harold Cazneaux, Tusculum, for *Domestic Architecture in Australia* (1919)**  

   Search: SLNSW archival record 110051389 (PXA 731 album); *Art in Australia* special number.  

   Caption idea: *Already a classic by 1919 — Cazneaux’s Tusculum in Hardy Wilson’s circle.*

3. **Matthew James MacNally, watercolour of Tusculum, 1932**  

   Search: SLNSW archival record 110318466.  

   Caption idea: *1932 — hospital years beginning, flats closing in (MacNally).*

4. **Tusculum Estate subdivision plans (1842, 1852, 1871, 1928)**  

   Already on the existing post; also Trove / NLA map searches “Tusculum Estate Woolloomooloo”.  

   Caption idea: *Watch the acres shrink — estate plans from Spark’s grant to the 1928 carve-up.*

5. **Portrait of A.B. Spark, 1836, by Forbes Mudie**  

   Search: SLNSW (ADB cites P2/373).  

   Caption idea: *The merchant who named it — A.B. Spark, 1836.*

6. **William Grant Broughton portraits (e.g. William Nicholas, 1843)**  

   Search: SLNSW; ADB Broughton page.  

   Caption idea: *First Bishop of Australia — Broughton, master of Tusculum 1836–1851.*

7. **Contemporary AIA / Manning Street views**  

   Search: Australian Institute of Architects NSW Chapter media; Wikimedia Commons “Tusculum Potts Point”.  

   Caption idea: *Still standing — Verge’s villa as NSW architects’ home, Manning Street.*

8. **Compare set: Rockwall and Elizabeth Bay House**  

   Search: SLNSW *Villas of Darlinghurst* exhibition material; MHNSW.  

   Caption idea: *Verge’s surviving hilltop kin — Rockwall next door in spirit; Elizabeth Bay House for McLeay.*

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### What stands today / how to see it

Tusculum **stands**. It is not a house museum on daily public opening like Elizabeth Bay House, but it is very much alive as the **NSW Chapter headquarters of the Australian Institute of Architects** at **3 Manning Street, Potts Point**.

What you can do:

- Walk Manning Street and read the villa from the footpath — Ionic verandahs, stucco, reduced forecourt, flats pressing close.

- Check **architecture.com.au** (NSW Chapter) for events, talks, and **room hire** — the restored villa hosts meetings, exhibitions and receptions; public access is typically via Institute programs rather than open-house tourism.

- Pair the visit with surviving neighbours on this blog’s beat: **Rockwall** (Verge), and across to **Elizabeth Bay House** (Verge for Alexander McLeay — Museums of History NSW house museum).

- Remember the lost setting: Woolloomooloo Bay frontage and multi-acre gardens survive only in plans, early photos, and street names (Tusculum Street included).

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### Sources & further reading

- NSW State Heritage Register — Tusculum (SHR 00027): https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045157  

- Museums of History NSW — Tusculum story: https://mhnsw.au/stories/general/tusculum/  

- Dictionary of Sydney — Tusculum: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/tusculum  

- Dictionary of Sydney — Potts Point: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/place/potts_point  

- ADB — Alexander Brodie Spark: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/spark-alexander-brodie-2684  

- ADB — William Grant Broughton: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/broughton-william-grant-1832  

- ADB — John Verge: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/verge-john-2757  

- Australian Institute of Architects — NSW Chapter (Tusculum HQ): https://www.architecture.com.au/nsw-chapter  

- SLNSW — Cazneaux / *Domestic Architecture in Australia* album: https://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110051389  

- SLNSW — MacNally, *Tusculum*, 1932: https://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110318466  

- Clive Lucas & Partners, *Tusculum… conservation analysis and draft conservation policy*, 1985  

- Terry Kass, *History of “Tusculum”, 1–3 Manning Street, Potts Point*, Heritage Council of NSW report, 1983  

- Graham Abbott & Geoffrey Little, *The respectable Sydney merchant A. B. Spark of Tempe*, Sydney University Press, 1976  

- State Library of NSW, *Villas of Darlinghurst* exhibition catalogue, 2002  

- *Sydney Morning Herald* sale notice, 6 September 1848 (via MHNSW / Trove)  

- Existing scrapbook post (images & clippings): https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/tusculum-potts-point.html

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### Related on this blog

- [Rockwall – Potts Point](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/rockwall-7-rockwell-crescent-potts.html) (Verge neighbour)  

- [Elizabeth Bay House – Elizabeth Bay](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/elizabeth-bay-house-elizabeth-bay-new.html) (Verge for Alexander McLeay)  

- [Orwell House – Orwell Street – Potts Point](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2025/09/orwell-house-orwell-street-potts-point.html)  

- [John Verge – Colonial Architect](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/john-verge-colonial-architect-new-south.html)  

- Bonus neighbour: [Tempe House – Tempe](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2022/12/tempe-house-tempe-wolli-creek-sydney.html) (Spark’s favoured Verge villa)

*(Expand the thin 2017 stub in place, or republish under the fuller title and keep the old URL as the canonical post.)*

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### Suggested title options

1. **Tusculum – 1–3 Manning Street – Potts Point – NSW** (template match; recommended)  

2. **Tusculum – 3 Manning Street – Potts Point – NSW** (matches AIA street listing)  

3. **Tusculum (AIA NSW HQ) – Manning Street – Potts Point – NSW** (flags current use)

Optional subtitle line: **Built c.1831–1836 · Architect John Verge · Standing — AIA NSW Chapter headquarters**

Tiranna - 17 Billyard Avenue - Elizabeth Bay - New South Wales

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Tiranna - 17 Billyard Avenue -  Elizabeth Bay
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When Tiranna House in Elizabeth Bay last changed hands in 1988, the Victorian Residence sold for more than 7 times the Sydney Median House Price at the time. 

The closest comparable house is Jenner House. 
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The 10 Bedroom and 10 Bathroom Tiranna is set to go to Auction in September 15th

Built in about 1880, Tiranna House sits on an elevated 607 Sq metre parcel with 1000sq metres of internal living space

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The 5 Level residence was originally a private home, then it was converted into a three whole floor apartments & later a high end Guest House between the 1940's and 1980's

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The current owners had restored the property back into a private family home. Tiranna has a lift servicing all 5 levels and 3 lockup garages 

Point Piper Es------Estates

 Point Piper - Estates

Henrietta Villa - Built by John Piper

1822 - 1827

Henrietta Villa – Point Piper – NSW

Built c.1816–1822 · Architect unknown (possibly Henry Kitchen) · Demolished 1850s

Before Point Piper meant Wolseley Road price tags and harbour-front penthouses, it meant one dazzling house on a lonely headland — Captain John Piper’s Henrietta Villa, the colony’s showpiece marine pavilion, and the place that put the Piper name on the map.

**At a glance**

- Address / site: Point Piper headland (today roughly the block of Longworth Avenue and Wunulla Road); Woollahra Council plaque at 1 Wunulla Road

- Built: foundation stone 1816; occupied mid-1822

- Architect: unknown (has been argued as Henry Kitchen; Francis Greenway sometimes claimed but not confirmed by local heritage sources)

- Style: classical single-storey marine villa / “Naval Pavilion”

- Original owner: Captain John Piper (Naval Officer of Port Jackson)

- Named for: Elizabeth Henrietta Macquarie (Mrs Macquarie)

- Heritage status: demolished — site since redeveloped; suburb and road names preserve the association

- Fate: demolished in the 1850s for Sir Daniel Cooper’s planned Woollahra House; later subdivision shaped modern Point Piper

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### Site & setting

In Piper’s day the eastern harbour foreshores were still mostly bush and small grants. Eliza Point (also Elizabeth Point) jutted into Port Jackson about four miles by water from Sydney Cove — a commanding lookout toward the Heads, and a perfect stage for a man who loved boats, bands, and company.

Piper’s 190-acre (77 ha) grant — recommended in the Macquarie years and formalised on 10 February 1820 — became Point Piper. To reach the villa by carriage he cut a road “at a very considerable expense through the Bush” (Joseph Lycett). That route ran out from the South Head Road through what we know as Woollahra and Paddington (along Jersey Road, long called Point Piper Road), then on through Double Bay toward the point.

Gardens and orchards backed the house. Lycett wrote of oranges, peaches, apricots, nectarines and more on the high ground behind the villa, with orange trees and tasteful planting in front. A row of small brass cannon on the lawn saluted friends sailing up the harbour. Aboriginal name recorded for the area in Dictionary of Sydney sources: Bungarung.

Today nothing of Piper’s house stands, but the peninsula still carries his name — and the later mansions that rose after the Cooper era are part of the same long story.

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### Timeline

- **1792** – John Piper arrives in Sydney with the New South Wales Corps (ADB; born Scotland 1774 per ADB — see note on birth-year discrepancy below).

- **1793–1810** – Service including Norfolk Island; later acting commandant there; relationship with Mary Ann Sheers begins.

- **1814** – Returns as Naval Officer of Port Jackson (customs, harbour dues, related duties); post becomes highly remunerative.

- **10 Feb 1816** – Marries Mary Ann by special licence.

- **Nov 1816** – Foundation stone of the new house laid at Elizabeth Point with a masonic ceremony and *fête champêtre* (*Sydney Gazette*, 9 Nov 1816).

- **10 Feb 1820** – Grant of 190 acres formalised; the point becomes Point Piper.

- **Mar 1820** – Richard Read Jr paints the unfinished villa (verandahs not yet on the long windows) — SLNSW collection.

- **2 Dec 1819** – Reported *fête champêtre* at Henrietta Villa; guests include officers of the 48th and of the French ship *L’Uranie*; dinner for about 100, dancing, and a fifteen-gun salute on departure (*Sydney Gazette* reporting, widely cited).

- **Mid-1822** – Piper family moves from town to Henrietta Villa (*Sydney Gazette*, 3 May 1822). Cost of the house commonly reported as £10,000.

- **1824** – Lycett’s *Views in Australia* calls it “the most superb residence in the colony.”

- **May 1825** – Artist Augustus Earle, sailing in, writes that the first pleasing object after entering the Port is Point Piper, named for the gentleman who chose the spot for his residence.

- **c.1825–26** – When Hyde Park racing fades, Piper stages races on the flats of Rose Bay, with marquees on Bellevue Hill slopes.

- **1825–27** – Peak of Piper’s public life: magistrate, chairman of the Bank of New South Wales (1825), committees and sociability — and mounting private debt (mortgage of £20,000 in 1826).

- **1826–27** – Governor Darling orders inquiries into the Bank and into Piper’s Naval Office administration. Piper resigns the bank chairmanship (Jan 1827); suspended from official duties (Apr 1827) after a large deficiency is found (ADB: mismanagement rather than deliberate theft).

- **1826–27** – After a farewell dinner at the villa, Piper attempts to drown himself outside the Heads; his boat crew rescues him. He sells to clear debts.

- **1826** – Point Piper Estate conveyed to Daniel Cooper and Solomon Levey; **1827** – Point Piper villa property to Daniel Cooper; Vaucluse estate to William Charles Wentworth.

- **Late 1820s–** – Pipers retire to Alloway Bank, Bathurst; later setbacks; friends help establish them at Westbourne on the Macquarie River.

- **8 Jun 1851** – John Piper dies at Westbourne, aged 78 (ADB). Mary Ann survives him by about twenty years.

- **1850s** – Henrietta Villa demolished. **Dec 1856** – Foundation stone laid for Sir Daniel Cooper’s intended mansion “Woollahra” (architects Hilly and Mansfield reported at the ceremony). Cooper leaves for England in 1861 before that house is completed as planned.

- **1883** – Second Woollahra House built for William Cooper (design associated with John Fitzpatrick); **1929** – demolished for residential subdivision.

- **Late 19th–early 20th c.** – Progressive subdivision of the vast Point Piper / Cooper estate shapes modern Woollahra, Rose Bay and Point Piper streets and house lots.

- **Later** – Grand houses on the peninsula include places readers of this blog already know or may see in follow-up posts (Kilmory, Tresco, and others).

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### Architecture & interiors

Henrietta Villa was a single-storey classical showpiece — called a Naval Pavilion or Naval Villa as often as a “house” — built to be seen from the water and to entertain on a grand scale.

Descriptions and early views agree on the broad outline: a long villa terminating in two pavilions, each topped with a saucer-shaped cupola (dome) with windows lighting the rooms below. One pavilion held the celebrated ballroom or banqueting hall, planned in the shape of a St Andrew’s cross — a nod to Piper’s Scottish pride — under a dome. Deep verandahs (added by the time the family lived there full-time; Read’s 1820 watercolour still shows the long windows without them) were made for evening quadrilles.

Joseph Lycett’s published view and text sold the house to a British audience as the colony’s finest. Contemporary opinion treated it as proof that New South Wales had arrived — elegant, picturesque, and unmistakably harbourside.

For interiors we are lucky to have more than hearsay. The State Library of NSW holds a watercolour of the “Dome Room” at Point Piper attributed to Frederick Garling — festivity, chandelier light, statues — the sort of scrapbook glimpse that makes Piper’s hospitality feel real. Augustus Earle’s portrait of Mary Ann Piper with four of her children places the family inside that palatial setting around 1826.

Exact room schedules and fittings lists for the whole house have not been chased down here from primary inventories; treat detailed “room-by-room” claims with care unless you have auction catalogues or Piper papers in hand (Mitchell Library holds Piper papers).

**Architect note:** Woollahra Council’s plaque research and the SLNSW catalogue commentary on the Read watercolour both treat the designer as unknown, while noting the argument for **Henry Kitchen**. Claims that Francis Greenway designed Henrietta Villa appear in popular writing but are not confirmed in those local heritage summaries — so this post leaves Greenway as an unverified attribution.

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### People & anecdotes

**Captain John Piper** was the colony’s favourite host long before he was its cautionary tale. Naval Officer from 1814, friend of Macquarie, magistrate, bank chairman, horse-breeder and race-goer — he personified what Marjorie Barnard later called the colonial dream: generous, gay, well liked, and not shrewd enough with money when the tide turned.

**Mary Ann Piper** (née Sheers), daughter of a convict, rose with him to become mistress of Henrietta Villa and hostess of balls and dinners that defined Sydney’s early high life. Earle’s portrait of her with the children is one of the great colonial family pictures.

Hospitality was theatre. Guests came by carriage-and-four or by boat; a band played; brass guns barked a salute; dancing spilled onto the verandahs. The November 1816 foundation-stone party and the December 1819 *fête* (French officers included) set the tone years before the house was even finished.

Then came the crash. Darling’s inquiries, suspension, debt, and the night Piper made his will, dined his closest friends, and tried to end it outside the Heads — only to be hauled back by the same boatmen who doubled as his musicians. He paid the government debt and satisfied creditors, but Henrietta Villa and the eastern estates were gone. Wentworth and others later helped the family onto safer ground at Bathurst.

The next chapter on the same ground belonged to the **Coopers**. Emancipist merchant Daniel Cooper (with Solomon Levey) took over the Point Piper Estate; Cooper occupied Henrietta Villa before returning to England in 1831. His nephew **Sir Daniel Cooper** — first Speaker of the NSW Legislative Assembly — laid plans for Woollahra House on the villa site in 1856. The name “Woollahra” stuck to the municipality as well as the mansion. Subdivision of the Cooper holdings in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries is what finally turned Piper’s private peninsula into the suburb we know.

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### Image gallery guidance

Do not invent URLs — search these collections and download/embed with proper acknowledgement.

1. **Richard Read Jr, *Elizabeth Heneretta [Henrietta] Villa…*, March 1820**  

   Watercolour of the unfinished house from the water, figures on lawn and foreshore.  

   Search: SLNSW catalogue — “Henrietta Villa” / “Read” / archival record 110324649. Also discussed on Portrait Detective.  

   Caption idea: *Henrietta Villa unfinished, March 1820 — Read Jr’s watercolour, before the verandahs went on.*

2. **Joseph Lycett, *View of Captain Piper’s Naval Villa, at Eliza Point…*** (plate from *Views in Australia*, London, published 1825)  

   The classic published aquatint that sold Piper’s house to the world.  

   Search: Trove / NLA digitised books; dealers and galleries also reproduce the plate; keywords “Lycett Naval Villa Eliza Point”.  

   Caption idea: *Lycett’s “most superb residence in the colony” — Eliza Point, looking every inch the Naval Pavilion.*

3. **Augustus Earle, portrait of Captain John Piper, c.1826**  

   Piper in Naval Officer uniform; Henrietta Villa often noted in the background. Mitchell Library / SLNSW.  

   Caption idea: *The host at the height of his fame — Earle’s Piper, with the villa behind him.*

4. **Augustus Earle, *Ann Piper and her children*, c.1826**  

   Mary Ann and four children in the villa interior. SLNSW collection page.  

   Caption idea: *Mistress of Henrietta Villa — Mary Ann Piper and the children, Earle, c.1826.*

5. **“Dome Room [Henrietta Villa] Point Piper”** — attributed to Frederick Garling  

   Interior of the domed festivity room. SLNSW collection record nX6mjkVY.  

   Caption idea: *Inside the Dome Room — one of Piper’s many nights of music and company (attr. Garling).*

6. **George Edwards Peacock, City and Harbour from above Vaucluse, c.1855**  

   Henrietta Villa still visible on Point Piper from across the water — useful proof it survived into the mid-1850s. SLNSW.  

   Caption idea: *Still there in the mid-1850s — Peacock’s harbour view, villa on the point at left.*

7. **Later: Woollahra House / Point Piper Estate maps and postcards**  

   Woollahra Library / Council local history; Trove newspaper illustrations of the 1856 foundation ceremony; early 20th-century postcards of Woollahra Point.  

   Caption idea: *After Piper — Cooper’s Woollahra House era, before the 1929 demolition and the streets we know.*

Stub note: the existing August 2026 stub already uses a historic Henrietta Villa image — keep/replace with a clearer SLNSW scan and full credit if you expand in place.

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### What stands today / how to see it

Henrietta Villa is gone. The house site sits in the residential block framed by Longworth Avenue and Wunulla Road, Point Piper — private houses and streets now, not a museum lawn.

What you *can* do:

- Find the **Woollahra Municipal Council plaque** to Captain John Piper at **1 Wunulla Road**, Point Piper.

- Walk or ferry the harbour and read the headland the way Earle did in 1825 — the geography still explains why Piper chose it.

- Trace Piper’s approach road in today’s street pattern (Jersey Road’s old “Point Piper Road” identity is part of that story).

- Visit related surviving eastern-harbour houses on this blog’s beat — **Vaucluse House** (on land Piper once held and sold to Wentworth) is the great public house-museum counterpart to this lost villa.

- Remnants sometimes linked to the later Woollahra House estate (not Piper’s villa itself) include the former gatekeeper’s lodge associated with Rose Bay Police Station and stables later adapted as Wyuna Court — worth a careful local-history check before stating firm fabric claims in captions.

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### Point Piper estates — a series hub

Henrietta Villa is where Point Piper’s European house story begins. After Piper’s fall and the Cooper decades, the peninsula filled with later estates and harbourside mansions that readers often ask about in the same breath:

- **Woollahra House** (Cooper era; demolished 1929) — the direct successor on Piper’s ground  

- **Kilmory** (Wentworth Street) — already on this blog  

- **Tresco** — already on this blog  

- **Fairwater** (Fairfax association; New South Head Road / Double Bay–Point Piper edge) — strong follow-up candidate  

- **Wolseley Road** houses and 20th-century harbourside piles — series material  

- Other names that turn up in scrapbooks and sales: Craig-y-Mor, Villa del Mar, and neighbours across to Rose Bay and Bellevue Hill  

This post can sit as the hub: Piper first, then the Cooper subdivision, then the Federation and interwar mansions. Follow-ups welcome — especially Fairwater, a fuller Kilmory expansion, and a Woollahra House “what replaced Henrietta” piece.

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### Sources & further reading

- Marjorie Barnard, ‘Piper, John (1774–1851)’, *Australian Dictionary of Biography*: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/piper-john-2552  

- Woollahra Municipal Council, Captain John Piper plaque page: https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/Library/Woollahra-Plaque-Scheme/Captain-john-piper  

- Woollahra Municipal Council, Sir Daniel Cooper plaque page: https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/Library/Woollahra-Plaque-Scheme/Sir-Daniel-Cooper  

- Dictionary of Sydney, Henrietta Villa: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/henrietta_villa  

- Dictionary of Sydney, Point Piper: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/place/point_piper  

- SLNSW — Read Jr watercolour (Henrietta Villa, 1820): https://archival.sl.nsw.gov.au/Details/archive/110324649  

- SLNSW — Dome Room, Point Piper (attr. Garling): https://collection.sl.nsw.gov.au/record/nX6mjkVY  

- SLNSW — Ann Piper and her children (Earle): https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/ann-piper-and-her-children-0  

- SLNSW — Peacock harbour view (villa visible c.1855): https://www.sl.nsw.gov.au/city-and-harbour-sydney-new-south-wales-above-vaucluse  

- Joseph Lycett, *Views in Australia* (London, 1824/1825 plates)  

- Helen Proudfoot, ‘Captain Piper and Henrietta Villa’, *Journal of the Royal Australian Historical Society*, Vol. 59, pt 3, 1973  

- Rosemary Broomham, *The Coopers of Woollahra: Land dealings on the Point Piper Estate 1820–1920*, Woollahra Council, 2001  

- M. Barnard Eldershaw / Marjorie Barnard, *The Life and Times of Captain John Piper*  

- Nesta Griffiths, *Point Piper, Past and Present* (Ure Smith, 1970)  

- SMH on Piper grant and 1826 sale documents: https://www.smh.com.au/national/pipers-point-of-no-return-a-story-as-old-as-sydney-20070118-gdp9o8.html  

- Contemporary notices: *Sydney Gazette* 9 Nov 1816; 3 May 1822; and reporting of the Dec 1819 *fête* (via Trove)

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### Related on this blog

- [Kilmory Estate – Point Piper](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/06/kilmory-estate-point-piper.html)  

- [Tresco – historic waterfront estate, Point Piper](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2019/02/tresco-historic-waterfront-estate-97.html)  

- [Vaucluse House – Vaucluse](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2025/05/vaucluse-house-vaucluse.html) (Piper once held this ground; sold to Wentworth in 1827)  

- [Greycliffe – Mona Road – Vaucluse](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2023/11/greycliffe-2123-mona-road-vaucluse-new.html)  

*(Expand the thin stub at https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/08/point-piper-es-estates.html with this text, or republish under the fuller title and keep the old URL as a redirect/update.)*

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### Suggested title options

1. **Henrietta Villa – Point Piper – NSW** (template match; recommended)  

2. **Henrietta Villa – Eliza Point – Point Piper – NSW** (adds the early placename)  

3. **Henrietta Villa (Naval Pavilion) – Point Piper – NSW** (flags the alternate name)

Optional subtitle line: **Built c.1816–1822 · Architect unknown · Demolished 1850s**

mm

Baronia House - Military Rd

 

Boronia House 

Military Road 

Mosman 

Built in 1885, the grand Victorian villa has long stood as a symbol of Mosman’s charm and heritage. Its sweeping verandahs, intricate iron lacework, and graceful proportions have hosted everything from civic gatherings to the most elegant of events.

Over the decades, Boronia House has served as a municipal library, council offices and, more recently, a well-known restaurant and function venue where countless Mosman locals have celebrated milestones and shared memories.

 

Auction Catalogues And Listings From Different Houses & Estates 

Winslow - Darling Point

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Greenoakes - Darling Point

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Carthona 

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Barbazon -Ocean Street Woollahra

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Clarendon House  - Yaranabee Road - Darling Point

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Barongle - 44 Waratah Avenue - Randwick 

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Admiralty House 

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Arn - Wyuna Road - Point Piper

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Ashbourne - Charlotte Street - Ashfield

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Beach Manor - Carthona Avenue - Darling Point

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Babworth House 

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beverley - Darling Point Road - Darling Point

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Baech Manor - Carthona Avenue - Darkling Point

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Booinbah - Cnr of Nicholson St & Burwood Road - Burwood

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Boronia - Jersey Road - Strathfield

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Braemar - Grosvenor Road - Wahroonga

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Brooksby - 35 Lower Ocean Street - Double Bay 

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Buckinbah - Cnr Carr And Brooks St - Coogee

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Bundarra Captain Pipers Road - Vqaucluse

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burdekin House - 197 Macquarie Street 

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Caerleon - Ginagulla Road - Bellevue Hill

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Careenya - Fairfax Road - Bellevue Hill

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Clapton - Clapton Place of Upper Forbes Street 

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The Cliffords - Chrerry Street  & Hastings Road - Warrawee

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Clovelly - Avoca Street - Randwick 

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Clydesale - Marsden Park 

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Cooinoo - 153 Bellevue Road - Bellevue Hill

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Coowong - Wentworth Road - Point Piper

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Cravenna - 8 macleay Street - Potts Point

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Denholm - 16 Rosedale Road - Gordon

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Elizabeth Bay House 

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Edna Ville - Belmore Road - Coogee

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Engadine - 2 Onslow Avenue - Elizabeth Bay 

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Eothem - Melalenga Street - Mosman

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Gladswood House - Gladswood Gardens - Double Bay 

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Glen Mervyn - 39 Carr Styreet - Coogee

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Gowan Brae - Pennant Hills Road - Parramatta

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Greville Mount - Darling Point Road - Dalirng Point

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Greystanes - Greystanes Road - Prospect

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Heath - 43 Cross St - Double Bay 

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Hillview - Cheltenham - Close To Station on the Main Northern Line, between Strathfield And Hornsby

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Hopewood House - Dalring Point 

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Inverness - 47 Church Street - Randwick 

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Kamilaroi - Darling Point Road - Dasrling Point

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Kenrich - 22 Park Road - moore Park 

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Kooroogama - Corner Wentworth Road & Liverpool Rd - Burtwood

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Langlee - Dickson Street - Waverley 

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Lauriston - 425 The Boulevarde - Strathfield 

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Leitelinna - Fairlight Street - Manly 

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Leith link - 1 Ithaca Road - Elizabeth Bay 

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Linton - Yass - NSW

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Lypiatt - 22 Wolseley Road - Point Piper

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Mahrata - Lane Cove Road - Warrawee

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Mendaribba - Mona Road - Darling Point

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Meon Stoke - Fullerton Strett - Woolahra

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Merioola - Rosemont Avenue - Woolahra

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Milroy - 84 Beresford Road - Rosebay 

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Minimbah - Whiuttingham - Singleton 

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Mornington Lodge - Penkivil Street - Bondi 

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Morven - Gore Hill - Close to Gore Hill Town Hall 

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Mount View - grosvenor Road - Wahroonga

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Murrulla - Martin zRoad - Centennial Park 

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Murtle - 46 Fitzwilliam Road - Vauclue

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Nitchevo - Wunulla Road - Woolahra Point

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once upon A Time - 115a Kurraba Road, Nuetral Bay 

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2 onslow House - Elizabeth Bay 

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Oruba - Cnr Of Paul And Dalley St - Waverley 

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Orwell - Cnr Orwell St & Macleay St - Potts Point

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St Osyth - 3 Prince Albert Street - Mosman

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porthamel - Eastbourne Avenue - Dalirng Point

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Quambi - Albert Street - Woolahra

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Quiraing - Trelawney Street - Woolahra

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Rainworth - Victoria Road - Bellevue Hill

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Rancliff - Ocean street - woolahra

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Rathven - 61 St Marks Road - randwick 

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Rippon Grange - 35 Water Street - Wahroonga 

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Rowallan - Dalley Avenue - Vauclue 

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Ruperra - Dalring Point Road - Darling Point 

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San Remo - Penkivil Street - Bondi 

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Silva Plana - Springwood - Blue Mountains

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Springfort - Redmyre Road - Strathfield

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St Mervyns - New South head Road - Double Bay 

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St Albans - Alison Road - randwick 

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Strathaden - 4 Elizabeth Bay Road - Elizabeth bay 

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Strathroy  Cabarita Road - Cabarita

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Sunnyside - alison Road - Randwick 

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Straun lodge  -  Bilyard Avenue - elizabeth bay 

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Tasma - 312 Bondi Road - bondi 

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Templeton - 9 Wolseley Road - Point Piper

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Torrington - Darling Point Road - Darling Point 

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tusculum - Manning Street - Potts Point

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Varna - Dalley Avenue - Vaucluse 

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Venice - Frenchmans Road - randwick 

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Villa Rosa - Middle Head Road - mosman

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Virginia - Wolseley Road - point Piper

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Walmer  - Wentworth Street - Point Piper - Woolahra

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Wandeen - John & Mcintosh Streets - gordon 

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Warwick - Belmore Road - Randwick 

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Washtenaw - 8 Kingsland Rd - Strathfield 

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Weemala - Ryde - Parramatta River

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Woolahra House - Woolahra Point

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Wilga - Wylde Street - Potts Point 

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Winbah - 341 Edgecliff Road - Edgecliff

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Wongala - 27 Boomerang Street - Turramurra

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Wyldefel - Potts Point 

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Yaralla - concord 

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