Jenner House – 2 Macleay Street – Potts Point – NSW
Built 1868–1871 (third storey 1876/77) · Architects Edmund Blacket; Thomas Rowe (upper floor) · Standing — private residence (SHR)
On the Elizabeth Bay side of Macleay Street — where Alexander Macleay’s great estate was carved into villa lots — stands one of Potts Point’s rare surviving marine villas. Jenner began life as Lebbeus Hordern’s Stramshall, a Blacket house with Horbury Hunt in the detailing; grew a third storey under Thomas Rowe; served forty years as a private hospital; lost its foreshore garden to the Captain Cook Graving Dock; worked for the Navy as Fleet Club and canteen; and has come home again as a restored private mansion with one of the last remnant villa gardens on the Point.
At a glance
- Address: 2 Macleay Street, Potts Point
- Other names: Stramshall; Kurragheen / Kurrahjeen; Lugano; Jenner Private Hospital; Fleet Club
- Built: 1868–1871 (Blacket two-storey villa + service wing); third storey added 1876/77 (Thomas Rowe)
- Architects: Edmund Blacket; internal detailing attributed to John Horbury Hunt (then in Blacket’s office); Thomas Rowe (second/third floor)
- Style: Regency Revival lower floors transitioning to Italianate villa (SHR)
- Original lessee / client: Lebbeus Hordern (retailer), 99-year lease on Macleay subdivision of Elizabeth Bay estate
- Heritage: NSW State Heritage Register #00776 (2 April 1999); Permanent Conservation Order 10 July 1998
- Fate / current use: Standing — private residence after Defence disposal (1998) and early-21st-century restorations
Site & setting
Derrawunn is the Aboriginal name recorded for Potts Point. This lot was not one of Darling’s 1828 villa grants; it was cut from Alexander Macleay’s ~54–55 acre Elizabeth Bay estate in the 1865/66 subdivision (Casey & Lowe / SHR). Harbour frontage once ran down to Elizabeth Bay with bathing pool and bathing house; that foreshore was resumed in 1940 for Garden Island / Captain Cook Graving Dock works, leaving the house perched above a sandstone ledge and semi-circular retaining wall.
The west forecourt to Macleay Street still reads as a villa approach — set-back house, carriage-loop memory, mature Magnolia grandiflora, remnant perimeter wall. The east garden, though truncated, is called out by the National Trust (1981) and SHR as among the only remaining gardens of the once-numerous fashionable Potts Point villas. Neighbours in spirit: Bomera & Tarana to the north-west, Elizabeth Bay House to the south-east.
Timeline
- 1828 – Alexander Macleay granted Elizabeth Bay estate (context).
- 1865/66 – Subdivision creates the Macleay Street marine-villa lots (Casey & Lowe).
- 1868–1871 – Lebbeus Hordern’s 99-year lease; Edmund Blacket designs and builds two-storey Stramshall (Regency Revival) with service wing; Hunt attributed for stair/external influence (SHR / Cox et al.).
- 1875 – Lease transferred to John Thomas Neale (produce merchant / Colonial Architect’s Office accountant; Newtown alderman).
- 1876/77 – Thomas Rowe adds third storey, reusing original materials (SHR; sources differ on 1876 vs Feb 1877). Eastern retaining wall, bathing pool and bathing house built by 1877 (probably Rowe).
- 1879 – Renamed Kurragheen (also spelled Kurrahjeen).
- 1884 – Outbuildings along northern Macleay boundary; renamed Lugano.
- 1897 – Neale dies; widow Hannah Maria Neale inherits (Cox et al.).
- 1915 – Adapted as private hospital Jenner; minor works for hospital use.
- 1920s – Garage at south-west corner; further hospital alterations (1929 north outbuilding raised, etc.).
- 1940 – Commonwealth acquires site for dockyard expansion; foreshore garden largely destroyed.
- 1943 – Air-raid shelter on eastern circular lawn (later demolished).
- 1952 – Hospital lease ends; RAN adapts building as Fleet Canteen (bar use; ground-floor walls opened).
- 1960s–1990s – Naval Photographic Unit, offices, Navy News; Mid-1990s Navy Commercial Support Group; prepared for disposal 1997–98.
- 1998 – Sold to Anthony (Tony) Peterson; Peter Freeman CMP 2000/01; SHR listing pathway.
- 2009 onward – Terry & Wendy Mullens purchase; major restoration (Domain / SHR notes 2018–21 “painstaking” works).
- Today – Private residence on SHR.
Architecture & interiors
Jenner is a grand three-storey marine villa. The lower two floors on the western façade still read Regency; elsewhere the house shows the more flamboyant asymmetrical Italianate taste of the later nineteenth century (SHR statement of significance). Blacket’s domestic hand, with Hunt’s detailing in stair and related work, makes the interiors especially valuable. Rowe’s upper floor completed the harbour-facing silhouette.
SHR and later descriptions note solid sandstone foundations, high ceilings (sales copy often says ~4 m), Australian cedar staircase and joinery, and multiple nineteenth-century chimneypieces. Modern Domain pieces reproduced on the heritage record mention white Carrara mantelpieces and imported chandeliers — treat those provenance stories as sales tradition unless a fabric survey confirms them. The north wing is significant as evidence of servants’ status and planning (SHR). Remnant outbuilding walls survive in the north-west of the site; the 1920s garage sits on the Macleay frontage.
People & anecdotes
Lebbeus Hordern of the retailing family commissioned Stramshall — a late Macleay-estate marine villa rather than an 1828 Darling grant house. Edmund Blacket, former Colonial Architect and church-builder extraordinary, here shows his domestic register; John Horbury Hunt, then in the office, leaves fingerprints scholars still argue over in the stair and elevations.
J.T. Neale and his widow carried the house through its Lugano years. From 1915 the name Jenner stuck through hospital decades — another Potts Point mansion that survived by becoming a clinic. Then the Navy: Fleet Canteen, photographers, Navy News editors upstairs — Garden Island’s civilian neighbour in uniform. The 1998 Defence sale returned the villa to private hands; the Mullens-era restoration is why the bones Blacket and Rowe left can be read again.
Image gallery guidance
1. Historic photographs of Jenner / Stramshall from Macleay Street
Search: SLNSW; City of Sydney Archives; Heritage NSW thumbnails. Caption idea: Blacket to the street — before the dockyard ate the foreshore garden.
2. East garden / semi-circular sandstone retaining wall
Search: CMP / SOHI figures; National Trust garden survey references. Caption idea: One of the last Potts Point villa gardens — truncated but still circular.
3. Naval / Fleet Club era interiors or exteriors
Search: Navy Heritage; Navy News archives; Defence disposal photos. Caption idea: From drawing room to canteen — Jenner in uniform.
4. Compare set: Bomera, Tarana, Elizabeth Bay House
Search: this blog; MHNSW. Caption idea: Marine-villa kin along the Point.
5. Contemporary exterior from Macleay Street (respect privacy)
Search: Wikimedia “Jenner House”; street view stills for orientation only. Caption idea: Still standing — 2 Macleay Street after restoration.
What stands today
Jenner House stands at 2 Macleay Street as a private SHR-listed residence. The Macleay Street forecourt and remnant east garden can be appreciated from the public footpath and (where visible) from harbour/dockyard edges — do not enter private grounds. Pair with Bomera & Tarana (1 Wylde Street) and Elizabeth Bay House (house museum). Remember the lost bathing pool and foreshore terraces under today’s dockyard edge.
Sources & further reading
- NSW State Heritage Register — Jenner House (SHR 00776): https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5051239
- Heritage NSW HMS: https://www.hms.heritage.nsw.gov.au/App/Item/ViewItem?itemId=5051239
- Peter Freeman & Associates, Jenner Precinct Conservation Management Plan, 2000/2001
- Philip Cox, Richardson, Taylor & Partners, ‘Jenner’, 2 Macleay Street, Potts Point — Conservation Study, 1993
- Casey & Lowe, archaeological assessments (2001, 2004) — cited on SHR
- City of Sydney Archives — Jenner Precinct CMP record: https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1866414
- Dictionary of Sydney — Potts Point: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/place/potts_point
- Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/10/jenner-house-2-macleay-strret-potts.html
Related on this blog
Historic live gallery
Images retained from the live Blogger post:
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