Monday, June 8, 2026

Bomera (Boomera) – 1 Wylde Street – Potts Point – NSW

Bomera (Boomera) – 1 Wylde Street – Potts Point – NSW

Built from 1856 · Architect John Frederick Hilly · Standing — private residence (SHR, with Tarana)

At the tip of Potts Point, where Wylde Street meets the harbour wall, two McQuade marine villas still face the water. Bomera — also spelled Boomera on older papers and on this blog’s label — is the elder: J.F. Hilly’s 1856 Italianate sandstone house for Windsor merchant William McQuade Sr., later given a ballroom and musicians’ gallery, later a boarding house, later Naval Fleet Headquarters with its neighbour Tarana, and now again a private harbourside mansion. When almost every peer on the Point fell, Bomera and Tarana held the headland. Do not confuse with Boomerang on Billyard Avenue, Elizabeth Bay — a different mansion entirely.

At a glance

  • Address: 1 Wylde Street, Potts Point (Bomera; Tarana adjoining as 1A etc. after subdivision)
  • Other names: Boomera (SHR alternate); precinct with Tarana / Taranah
  • Disambiguation: ≠ Boomerang (Billyard Avenue, Elizabeth Bay — Neville Wran / Hoskins Spanish Mission mansion; separate published post). Bomera/Boomera = Wylde Street McQuade villa only.
  • Built: Bomera 1856 (Hilly); major additions 1875–76 (ballroom, upper verandah — Hilly); servants’ link wing c.1902 (Sheerin & Hennessy); Tarana 1888–89
  • Architect: John Frederick Hilly (Bomera); Edward H. Buchanan (Tarana, probable); Sheerin & Hennessy (later works)
  • Style: Victorian Italianate marine villa (sandstone; harbour-oriented)
  • Original owner: William McQuade Sr. (merchant of Windsor); land purchased June 1856 on former Wylde grant
  • Heritage: NSW State Heritage Register #01400 — Bomera & Tarana (23 June 2000); National Trust; local LEP
  • Fate / current use: Standing — restored after Defence disposal (sold 2001); Bomera as private house; Tarana adapted as apartments

Site & setting

Derrawunn; Wylde Street remembers Judge-Advocate John Wylde, whose 1822 eleven-acre grant covered the tip of the Point. McQuade bought here in 1856 and oriented Bomera as a true marine villa — main face to harbour and Woolloomooloo Bay, not merely to the street. Early grounds included carriageway with stone edging, sandstone stables/coach house at the Wylde Street entry, foreshore bathing house and pool, jetty, summer house, flagpoles, iron picket fence and carved stone dogs (SHR).

Cowper Wharf Roadway (1911) and Wylde Street formalisation / Garden Island expansion (from 1941) severed waterfront recreation and reduced the garden. Bomera still reads strongly from the water and contributes to the Wylde Street frontage with Tarana — a rare paired McQuade precinct.

Timeline

  • 1822 – Judge-Advocate John Wylde granted 11 acres at the Point.
  • June 1856 – William McQuade Sr. purchases; clears land; Hilly designs Bomera (sandstone Italianate) and stables.
  • 1857 – Tenders for stables/coach house and boundary wall/iron fence/gates (SHR).
  • 1861–1867 – Boat club, reclamation, bathing house/pool; further foreshore grant 1867.
  • 1875–76 – Hilly: ballroom with musicians’ gallery, upper verandah, related works; jetty; organ later associated with McQuade musical taste (SHR / HMAS Kuttabul notes).
  • 1885 – William McQuade Sr. dies; estate divided among sons; Henry Michael Hale McQuade inherits Bomera; Arthur Frederick Hale McQuade builds Tarana adjacent 1888–89.
  • c.1902 – Bomera becomes boarding house; Sheerin & Hennessy servants’ wing linking stables; ballroom as dining room.
  • 1910–1917 – State acquisition pressures; Sydney Harbour Trust ownership; subdivision/sub-lease.
  • June 1941 – Commonwealth acquires Bomera & Tarana for Naval Fleet Headquarters, Eastern Australian Command.
  • Post-war–1980s – Continued naval administrative use; ballroom used for courts-martial into 1980s (SHR).
  • 2001 – Sold by Defence to Jorge & Monica Fernandez; Bomera restored (Graham Brooks & Associates); Tarana to three apartments.
  • 2010s–2019 – Later private ownerships and Domain-reported sales (Catelan; Sanjeev Gupta among reported purchasers — secondary press).
  • Today – Private residential precinct on SHR.

Architecture

Bomera is a two-storey Italianate marine villa in fine sandstone ashlar with quoins, classical porch (stone sphinxes noted on SHR), hipped slate roof, and a north verandah/loggia composition facing the harbour. The 1875–76 ballroom — curved external corners, coffered ceiling, cast-iron musicians’ gallery, classical fireplaces — is a highlight of Hilly’s domestic work. Original timber stair, architraves, doors and much plasterwork survive beneath later partitions (SHR). The two-storey ashlar stables/coach house at the street entry states the estate’s status in stone.

Hilly also designed Carrara (Strickland House, Vaucluse) and Fiona (Ascham, Edgecliff); SHR notes identical front-elevation kinship between Fiona and Bomera. Tarana (Buchanan; third storey 1907) completes the paired composition but is a separate build for the next McQuade generation.

People

William McQuade Sr. made money at Windsor, helped establish Randwick racecourse traditions, and planted a harbourside court on Wylde’s old grant. His sons studied pipe organ in Europe — Bomera’s ballroom once held a Bryceson organ later moved to Tarana to entertain officers of the Great White Fleet (1908), and eventually to St Brigid’s, Marrickville (HMAS Kuttabul / SHR notes). That is the McQuade sound-track: commerce, racing, music, then the Navy’s typewriters in the same rooms.

J.F. Hilly — also tied to Campbell Lodge on this blog’s beat — gave Potts Point one of its best Italianate waterfront essays. The Navy chapter (1941 onward) is why the pair survived the flat boom that erased Grantham, Orwell, Springfield and so many others.

Gallery guidance

  • Historic harbour views of Bomera / Potts Point tip

Search: SLNSW; Heritage NSW image set for SHR 01400. Caption idea: Marine villa to the water — Bomera before Cowper Wharf cut the garden.

  • Stables and Wylde Street entry

Search: SHR thumbnails; City of Sydney. Caption idea: Ashlar coach house — the estate announcing itself to the street.

  • Ballroom / musicians’ gallery (historic or approved interior publicity)

Search: Domain features cited on SHR; conservation photos. Caption idea: Hilly’s ballroom — where the McQuade organ once spoke.

  • Naval Headquarters era

Search: Navy Heritage; HMAS Kuttabul open-day notes 1986. Caption idea: Fleet HQ — Bomera and Tarana in uniform.

  • SMH 22 June 1940 clipping already on live post

Keep and re-credit via Trove (nla.news-article17681565 per blog image filename). Caption idea: Wartime paper trail — Boomera in the Herald.

What stands today

Bomera stands at 1 Wylde Street, privately owned, SHR-listed with Tarana. Appreciate from Wylde Street and from the harbour; do not enter private grounds. Pair with Jenner House (2 Macleay) and Elizabeth Bay House. The lost foreshore baths and jetty survive only in plans and early views.

Sources & further reading

Related

Gallery

Transcription (Sydney Morning Herald, Saturday 22 June 1940, page 11)

HISTORIC SYDNEY MANSION.

[Sketch of the house, signed by the artist]

"Bomera," a picturesque stone mansion (now an apartment house) at the foot of Wylde Street, Potts Point, was built for William McQuade in 1858, and was the home of the McQuade family until 1883. Afterwards it was the official residence of Commodore Erskine during the period when he commanded the Royal Naval Squadron in Sydney. (Sketch by Mr. Albert N. Clarke.)



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