Fairfield House - Windsor - NSW
Fairfield House, the 1833 Georgian mansion built by pioneer William Cox at Windsor, has been sold by the executors of the late karate world champion-turned-professional poker player, Ladislaus “Joe” Meissner.
It sold for $2.4m through Lloyds Real Estate, which marketed it as suitable as a boutique hotel, day spa, aged-care facility or function venue, with its R2 and RE2 zoning.
The original 1830s house that sits on 7822sq m was expanded into a remarkable trophy home in the 1880s by Henry McQuade, manager of Her Majesty’s Theatre, and his actress wife Cissy Durant. It comes with a ballroom with two cloakrooms.
Meissner, who was last in the news in 2009 with his unsuccessful Western Sydney A-League proposal, paid $900,000 for the property in 1988 with his then wife, Sharron.
It was three years after The Sunday Telegraph published a 1985 report that he owned the infamous “Love Boat” that briefly scandalised NSW politics.
With connections to the NSW Labor Party as former secretary of its Enmore branch, it was alleged senior party figures had consorted with organised crime figures and a prostitute, Virginia Perger, aboard his boat the Kanzen.
Probate was granted in mid-June following Joe’s death, aged 79, last November.
The court, which was notified of his death in May, is set to hear the application next month. There has been a caveat on the Haymarket title from Xiuhua Shi since 2013 after a claim of being a co-purchaser in 2002.
It was the strata corporation’s ninth petition since 2007 to seek strata payments and arising legal costs.
According to PropTrack the median house price in Windsor, NSW is $825,000, down 12.6 per cent over the past 12 months.
Transcription:
THE STORY OF FAIRFIELD HOUSE WINDSOR 1833
Transcription:
FAIRFIELD HOUSE, WINDSOR.
This imposing Victorian Mansion dominates the approach to Windsor from the west.
The original part of “Fairfield” was built just prior to 1833, when William Cox took up residence there. The house was built on land granted to Henry Cox (son of William) in 1804, and consisted of a dining room, drawing room, large bedroom, dressing room, study, kitchen and utilities on the ground floor, and four bedrooms and two dressing rooms upstairs. “Fairfield” remained in the Cox family until the late 1840’s.
James Hale was the next occupant, and on his widow’s death in 1866, it passed on to their grandson, Henry McQuade. He leased the property to Benjamin Richards for fourteen years.
In 1880, Henry McQuade took up residence and added to the Cox building a handsome ornamented two-storied structure which majestically overlooks the Hawkesbury Valley. A striking feature is the fourteen feet high fluted iron verandah columns supporting a balcony with an attractive cast-iron railing. The verandah floor is of white marble slabs diagonally laid. The slate roof gives contrast to the high white walls. The portico protects a large cedar door with frosted glass panels in which the monograms HMcQ.and CMcQ. are engraved. In the semi-circular fanlight “Fairfield” is similarly inscribed. The vestibule with tiled floor opens in to a spacious Reception Room, measuring thirty-seven feet by twenty-four feet, with a central elevated skylight. (Two bedrooms and a dressing room upstairs were demolished to make way for this skylight). It was designed for entertaining in a grand manner. Henry McQuade was manager of Her Majesty’s Theatre, Sydney, and entertained lavishly the theatrical celebrities visiting Sydney.
Directly opposite the main entrance are a pair of coloured glass windows, not unlike leadlight windows, each piece of glass is set in brass strips held by brass screws. Around the walls of the reception room are large brackets of florentine gilt originally holding candles. The spacious drawing room opens off the reception room. It is thirty-three feet by twenty feet and has three windows ten feet high facing the north. The fourteen feet high ceilings have exquisitely ornamented cornices. The fireplace of carved white marble from Italy is set off by a blue tiled hearth. Throughout the house, cedar has been used freely in all the joinery including the skirting boards eighteen inches high and the hand-carved curtain rods.
Transcription:
“Fairfield” expressed good taste in a Victorian home. The decoration was not over embellished as many buildings of that period, were. It was grand enough for Henry McQuade to live the life of a benevolent sporting gentleman, he patronised all sports and had a cricket oval with pavilion, as well as a private race track in the grounds.
An event of some importance was the cricket match between an All England Eleven and twenty-two players from the Hawkesbury and Nepean in 1882. A special train ran from Sydney and 1,000 people gathered at Henry McQuade’s cricket ground at “Fairfield” where ‘a wicket was made of concrete and carpeted, thus adding greatly to the comfort of the players’. This was the only time the Hawkesbury has been favoured by a visit from an international team.
Shortly after Henry McQuade’s death in 1893, at the age of 41, his widow went to England. “Fairfield” then passed into the hands of Percy Miller who ran a trotting stud. Thomas Cambridge leased it in 1932 and purchased it two years later. On his death it passed to his widow. It was from her deceased estate that Blains bought the house in 1969 and the Brangwins purchased it in 1972.
During the next two years unaccountable hours were spent restoring “Fairfield” to its present condition. The ceilings in the reception room (ballroom) were replaced and the decorations on the new cornices hand painted. The two chandeliers, bought in Turkey, are cut from German crystal and especially made to blend with the door knobs, finger plates and feature windows. Also a new floor was laid as the original had been badly repaired and was burnt in the centre.
The two small rooms either side of the entrance vestibule were originally cloak rooms and still have the gas light fittings on the walls, as does the lounge room (over the fireplace). This fireplace, also from Italy, incorporates brass and copper in its construction. The centre light fitting was purchased in London.
The main feature in the dining room is the black marble, columned, Italian fireplace. The small ante-room opening off the dining room was the entertainer’s waiting room.
It required twenty-five gallons of paint stripper to remove the “Japan Black” varnish from all the woodwork on the ground floor before it was french polished, and to complete the decore 335 yards of material was used in the curtains and 205 rolls of wallpaper hung.
Approval has been granted for “Fairfield” to operate as a centre for wedding receptions and similar functions, thus ensuring its continued high standard of maintenance.
