Historic Sydney Mansions, Manors, Villas & Houses : Cairo

Prestonville (later Cairo) – 81 Macleay Street – Potts Point – NSW

Mansion / guesthouse · Cairo hotel era from 1911 · Demolished 1959 · Site now Ikon apartments (former Chevron-Hilton)

At 81 Macleay Street — where the Chevron’s international glamour and later the Ikon towers would rise — stood Prestonville, the Potts Point house of Robert and Mary Anne Thorne. After Mary Anne’s death in 1911 the place traded as the Cairo hotel and guesthouse, lawn tennis courts and garden still part of its pitch. It was knocked down in 1959 for Sydney’s Chevron-Hilton. The mansion is gone; the street number is not.

At a glance

Address: 81 Macleay Street, Potts Point (Rockwall Lane at side on mid-century survey cards)
Built: Mid–late Victorian mansion fabric; illustrated as Prestonville by 1876 (Australian Town and Country Journal, 27 May 1876)
Architect: Not established in sources used for this draft
Early residents: Robert Thorne (d. 4 August 1878 at Prestonville); widow Mary Anne Thorne (née Moffitt; d. 1911 still at Prestonville)
Later name / use: Cairo hotel / lodging house from 1911; tennis courts and large garden noted in secondary lost-mansion summaries; wings proposed mid-century (City Archives DA files 1951–53)
1929 sale: Mrs J.J. Copeman sold Cairo for £45,000 to Mr L.H. Hinks, “intention to erect a block of modern flats” (SMH, 13 Nov 1929 — live post)
Fate: Demolished 1959 for Chevron-Hilton Hotel (opened 1960); site succession Nikko / Landmark Park Hotel / Ikon apartments (Mirvac, 2002–05)

Site & setting

Macleay Street is the ridge high street. Number 81 sat in the band of large houses and later residential hotels that defined Kings Cross–Potts Point before the international hotel boom. City building-survey cards file “Cairo” at 81 Macleay with Rockwall Lane beside — a reminder that Rockwall and the Verge villa layer were neighbours in spirit even when the fabric differed.

Timeline

By 1876 – Australian Town and Country Journal (27 May 1876) features Prestonville for Mr Robert Thorne (illustrated — keep live images).
4 Aug 1878 – Robert Thorne dies at Prestonville, Potts Point (People Australia / death notice trail).
to 1911 – Mary Anne Thorne remains at Prestonville; dies 1911; Evening News obituary (10 Aug 1911) and related notices (live post scrapbook includes 9 Aug 1911 page).
1911 – Property enters its Cairo hotel / guesthouse chapter (secondary consensus; timing tied to the end of Thorne occupation).
13 Nov 1929 – SMH reports sale of Cairo, 81 Macleay Street, for £45,000 to L.H. Hinks with flat-building intent (live post). Flats were not the final twentieth-century outcome.
1949–53 – City Archives building survey / DA trail for Cairo residences and proposed new wings (lodging-house additions).
1959 – Cairo demolished for Chevron construction.
Sept 1960 – Chevron-Hilton opens; later chapters Nikko (from late 1980s/1990), Landmark Park Hotel, then Ikon apartments.
Today – Ikon residential towers at 81 Macleay Street.

Architecture & interiors

Prestonville reads in 1876 illustration as a substantial Victorian house in garden grounds. Cairo-era descriptions emphasise lawn tennis courts and a large garden — residential-hotel amenity layered onto the old mansion. Mid-century lodging-house wings (Gange & Son DA trail) show the incremental hotelisation typical of Macleay Street before total clearance.

No claim is made here to a named colonial architect without a ledger or notice.

People & anecdotes

Robert and Mary Anne Thorne anchor the house’s domestic identity. Mary Anne, daughter of early Sydney identity William Moffitt and sister to the Marks women of Glenrock and Elystan, died still calling the house Prestonville in 1911 — the hinge year when the Cairo hotel story begins.

The 1929 flat scheme that did not finally own the site’s future, and the Chevron that did, bookend the Cross’s shift from mansion-hotel to international tower. Secondary hotel lore (Silver Spade nightclub, Beatles snub, Molly Meldrum interviews) belongs to the Chevron chapter on the same street number — footnote it lightly; this post is about Prestonville/Cairo.

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 ATCJ 1876 Prestonville illustrations (Robert Thorne) from the live post.

2. Keep Evening News / death-of-identity clippings and Cairo building-layout images already uploaded.

3. Keep SMH 13 Nov 1929 sale clipping.

4. City of Sydney Archives — Cairo building survey card; DA wing files.

5. Chevron-Hilton construction / opening photography — site succession only.

6. Modern Ikon exterior at 81 Macleay — “what stands today.”

What stands today

Prestonville / Cairo is gone. 81 Macleay Street is now the Ikon apartment complex on the Chevron’s ground. Read the street number as a palimpsest: Thorne mansion → Cairo hotel → Chevron-Hilton → Nikko/Landmark → Ikon.

Sources & further reading

Australian Town and Country Journal, 27 May 1876, p. 20 — Prestonville / Robert Thorne (Trove; live post)
Obituaries Australia — Mary Anne Thorne: https://oa.anu.edu.au/obituary/thorne-mary-anne-23062
People Australia — Robert Thorne: https://peopleaustralia.anu.edu.au/biography/thorne-robert-23063
Sydney Morning Herald, 13 November 1929, p. 16 — Cairo sale (live post)
City of Sydney Archives — Cairo / 81 Macleay building survey and DA files (e.g. nodes/view/962888; nodes/view/1015371)
Existing posts: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/04/prestonville-potts-point.html and https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2017/02/81-macleay-street-potts-point.html

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