Thursday, July 15, 2021

Cheverells (Cheverelles) – 2 Elizabeth Bay Road – Potts Point / Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Cheverells (Cheverelles) – 2 Elizabeth Bay Road – Potts Point / Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Nineteenth-century mansion · Later private hotel / Red Cross officers’ club · Demolished for Gazebo Hotel (opened 1969) · Site now Gazebo Apartments

On the corner of Elizabeth Bay Road and Baroda Lane (now Baroda Street) — east of Fitzroy Gardens — stood the three-storey mansion remembered as Cheverells (also Cheverills / Cherverall’s / live scrapbook Cheverelles). Part of the old Macleay grant band, it housed Captain Deloitte, David Jones of the department store, and later the Hon. W. R. Campbell; became a high-class residential / private hotel; served as an American Red Cross officers’ leave club in WWII; and was cleared for the International Style Gazebo Hotel. The mansion is gone; the corner address is not.

At a glance

  • Address / site: 2 Elizabeth Bay Road, corner Baroda Lane / Place / Street, Potts Point–Elizabeth Bay edge (live title: Cnr Elizabeth Bay Road and Baroda Lane)
  • Built: nineteenth-century mansion fabric (exact year / architect not locked in sources used here — do not invent)
  • Early / notable residents (press tradition): Captain Deloitte; David Jones (David Jones & Co.); Hon. W. R. Campbell (SMH “Progress of the Suburbs”, 1 Nov 1913, citing Dowling; echoed in Sun 4 Jan 1941)
  • Later use: high-class residential / private hotel (Mrs Kidd pre-war tradition in 1946 clipping); WWII American Red Cross Officers’ Leave Club; postwar Army hostel chapter; Lord Mayor Ald. J. R. Bartley purchase reported Feb 1946 (City Archives newsclipping)
  • Also associated (secondary wartime notes): later PM Billy McMahon, aviators P. G. Taylor and Jimmy Mollison among former occupants in leave-club lore
  • Fate: Demolished for Gazebo Hotel (DA / erection trail mid-1960s; hotel opened May 1969 tradition); hotel closed late 1990s; converted to Gazebo Apartments by 2005

Site & setting

Cheverells sat on the Macleay-grant side of Elizabeth Bay Road, on the Baroda corner east of the Fitzroy Gardens cell. City heritage assessment notes the Gazebo Hotel (c.1969) on the site of “Cherverall’s Private Hotel” to the east of the gardens. Live aerial / high scrapbook view shows the pre-Gazebo corner massing against Macleay Regis and the harbour beyond — useful for orientation, not for inventing a floor plan.

Keep separate from Tamworth Mansions at 1–11 Elizabeth Bay Road (south side, demolished 1960s for Ward Avenue / park extension) and from Maramanah / Osterley on the Macleay Street park edge.

Timeline

  • 19th century – Mansion established on Macleay-grant land at the Elizabeth Bay Road / Baroda corner (construction year open).
  • Early occupancy ladder (press) – Deloitte → David Jones → W. R. Campbell (SMH 1913 / Sun 1941 tradition).
  • Interwar / 1930s–40s – High-class residential / private hotel chapter (Mrs Kidd); flats conversion noted in secondary wartime summaries.
  • WWII – American Red Cross Officers’ Leave Club at 2 Elizabeth Bay Road; Director Lady Emilie Coote in unit histories; tens of thousands of men lodged / meals served (13th Air Force unit history tradition via ozatwar summary).
  • 21 Feb 1946 – Kings Cross Times clipping (City Archives): Lord Mayor Ald. J. R. Bartley purchases Cheverills; prior residential use and wartime Army hostel noted.
  • 1963–67 – City Archives DA trail for erection of a private hotel at 2 Elizabeth Bay Road (Goulds Properties Ltd. tradition).
  • May 1969 – Gazebo Hotel opens (International Style tower; Max Dupain commissioned photography in building lore); assessment date c.1969.
  • Late 1990s / 2005 – Hotel ceases; apartment conversion complete 2005.
  • Today – Gazebo Apartments at 2 Elizabeth Bay Road.

Architecture & interiors

Wartime and secondary descriptions: a three-storey masonry mansion / private hotel. No architect attribution in the sources used here. Prefer the live scrapbook corner view and City Archives clippings over invented cedar inventories. The Gazebo that replaced it is a separate International Style chapter — footnote the tower; this post is the mansion.

People & anecdotes

David Jones at Cheverells links the Elizabeth Bay Road villa belt to the George Street department-store fortune — same surname gravity as other Cross/Point merchant houses, but keep the address distinct from Maramanah’s Sparke/Hollander story.

The Red Cross officers’ club is why so many American unit histories remember the corner: Sunday teas, musicales, Eugene Ormandy among performers in leave-club lore. Bartley’s 1946 purchase closes the wartime hostel loop before the 1960s hotel clearance.

Gallery placeholder note

Do not invent historic photo URLs — keep existing live-post images; captions and sequence guidance below for the merge pass.

1. Keep the live high-angle corner photograph (pre-Gazebo mansion massing / Macleay Regis beyond).

Caption idea: Cheverells on the Baroda corner — before the Gazebo.

2. City of Sydney Archives — 1946 Bartley purchase clipping

https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/885974

3. WWII Red Cross / Laessig drawing tradition

Search: ozatwar Cheverells page; unit histories.

4. Gazebo Hotel opening / Max Dupain views — site succession only.

5. Modern Gazebo Apartments exterior at 2 Elizabeth Bay Road — “what stands today.”

6. Compare: Tamworth 1–11; Maramanah; Osterley; Kinneil

What stands today

Cheverells is gone. 2 Elizabeth Bay Road is the Gazebo Apartments tower on the old Baroda corner. Read the street number as mansion → private hotel / Red Cross club → Gazebo Hotel → apartments.

  • Map pin: 2 Elizabeth Bay Road (cnr Baroda Street).
  • Spelling variants Cheverells / Cheverills / Cherverall’s / Cheverelles are the same house.
  • Do not merge with Tamworth Mansions at 1–11.

Sources & further reading

  • Sydney Morning Herald, 1 Nov 1913 — “Progress of the Suburbs… Potts Point and Darlinghurst” (Cheverells / Deloitte / David Jones / W. R. Campbell): https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/15462331
  • Sun (Sydney), 4 Jan 1941 — Walter E. Bethel, “Doomed Mansions of Potts Point” (Cheverells on Elizabeth Bay Road)
  • City of Sydney Archives — Cheverills purchase clipping, 21 Feb 1946: https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/885974
  • City of Sydney Archives — 2 Elizabeth Bay Road private-hotel erection files (e.g. nodes/view/786037)
  • John Oultram Heritage & Design — Fitzroy Gardens / Lawrence Hargrave Reserve Heritage Assessment (Gazebo on Cherverall’s Private Hotel site)
  • ozatwar — Cheverell’s American Red Cross Officers’ Leave Club: https://www.ozatwar.com/civilian/cheverells.htm
  • Dictionary of Sydney — Gazebo (alternate name Cheverells): https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/gazebo
  • Gazebo Apartments — History: https://gazeboapartments.com.au/history/
  • Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/cheverelles-cnr-elizabeth-bay-road-and.html

Related on this blog

Historic live gallery

Images retained from the live Blogger post:

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