Showing posts with label Elizabeth Bay. Show all posts

Friday, September 25, 2026

Kincoppal – Elizabeth Bay mansion + Rose Bay Sacred Heart – NSW

Kincoppal story – Elizabeth Bay mansion + Rose Bay Sacred Heart – NSW

Victorian Italianate harbour house (EB, standing in apartments) · Convent/school campuses · Amalgamated 1971 as Kincoppal-Rose Bay

No Kincoppal post exists yet on this blog — so this is a new scrapbook joining two Sacred Heart stories: John Hughes’s Elizabeth Bay villa that became a convent school, and the Rose Bay Convent of the Sacred Heart on the Claremont estate. The overlooked list’s “EB house demolished” line is corrected here: the sandstone mansion survives inside the Mirvac apartment complex.

At a glance

Elizabeth Bay — Kincoppal house: Victorian Italianate two-storey sandstone villa + stables; built c.1869–1874 for John Hughes on ~2 acres subdivided from Alexander Macleay’s Elizabeth Bay House gardens (DoS / BresicWhitney); school 1909–1971; Mirvac apartments early 1980s retaining mansion, gatekeeper’s cottage (ex-stables) and related fabric (Mirvac)
Rose Bay — Convent of the Sacred Heart: Society of the Sacred Heart arrives May 1882; Claremont (1851) occupied June; school opens 20 July 1882; main building opened Jan 1888; John Horbury Hunt chapel 1897–1900 (school / DoS)
Name: Kincoppal — Gaelic association with “horse head” / seahorse rock on the Rushcutters Bay foreshore (sales histories)
Amalgamation: 1971 — Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart (school / DoS)
Heritage: EB mansion described as heritage-listed in sales/estate copy (confirm City of Sydney item before hard SHR claim — not treating as SHR without ID); Rose Bay chapel widely cited as Hunt masterpiece / heritage building (school / MHNSW tours)
Fate: EB — standing within private apartments; Rose Bay — active school campus (Vaucluse Rd / New South Head Rd)

Site & setting

Elizabeth Bay: Gadigal Country; portion of Macleay’s 1835 botanic villa estate after 1869 subdivision hardship sales. Hughes’s two-acre harbour shelf looks over sandstone bluffs to open harbour and Rushcutters Bay; remnant figs, pines and palms read as Macleay-garden survivors in estate interpretation (BresicWhitney).

Rose Bay / Vaucluse ridge: Claremont estate above Rose Bay became the first Sacred Heart school in Australia (school). Jubilee Gates (1932/33) and harbour-facing Sacred Heart statue mark later ceremonial landscape (school).

Timeline

1835 ff. – Macleay Elizabeth Bay House gardens (context).
1869–74 – John Hughes builds Kincoppal villa and stables (DoS).
1882 – Hughes Knight of St Gregory (BresicWhitney); May five RSCJ nuns arrive; purchase/lease Claremont; school opens 20 July (school).
1885 – Hughes dies; Kincoppal to elder daughter Maria (later Mother Maria Hughes, first Australian Sacred Heart sister) (school / BresicWhitney).
Jan 1888 – Cardinal Moran opens Rose Bay main building (school).
1897–1900 – Horbury Hunt gothic stone chapel; opened 21 Nov 1900; bell turret in memory of Mother Vercruysse (school / DoS / social posts citing school archives).
1909 – Nuns take possession of Kincoppal Elizabeth Bay; convent boarding school begins (school).
1917 – Noviceship at Rose Bay (school).
1932–33 – Golden Jubilee; Jubilee Gates and Sacred Heart statue (school).
WWII – Kincoppal students evacuated (Bundanoon); Rose Bay juniors/seniors to Southern Highlands houses (school).
1952 / 1966 – Barat-Burn junior school chapters; new Barat-Burn buildings 1966 (school) — old Italian villa primary demolished for new junior school (archived school history).
1971 – Amalgamation → Kincoppal-Rose Bay; Elizabeth Bay site later sold for Mirvac apartments (school / Mirvac early 1980s).
1997 – Kincoppal Gates from Elizabeth Bay installed at Rose Bay entrance (school).
Today – Rose Bay campus active school; Elizabeth Bay mansion adapted within Kincoppal Apartments.

Architecture & interiors

Elizabeth Bay villa: two-storey sandstone Victorian Italianate; stables later gatekeeper’s cottage; Mirvac retained mansion as central apartment / concierge fabric and cottage (later gym, since reworked as apartments per sales copy) (Mirvac / BresicWhitney). Prefer “retained and adapted” language — not demolition.

Rose Bay: Claremont core; 1888 five-level central facade; Hunt chapel with complex Gothic massing — foundation stone 28 Nov 1897, Cardinal Moran; rare Puget organ association noted on MHNSW tour copy (verify before hard claims). Secret tunnels / sandstone bridge appear on heritage-tour marketing — treat as campus interpretation, not undocumented archaeology.

People & anecdotes

John Hughes — Irish immigrant, property developer, Catholic benefactor. Mother Maria Hughes — daughter and first Australian Sacred Heart sister; bequest enables Elizabeth Bay school. Mother Febronie Vercruysse — Belgian superior of the 1882 founding group; Hunt chapel linked to her memory (school). Society of the Sacred Heart (St Madeleine Sophie Barat tradition) ties both campuses into an international teaching order (archived school philosophy pages).

Image gallery guidance

1. Elizabeth Bay sandstone villa elevations (historic school + apartment era)

2. Kincoppal rock / foreshore

3. Rose Bay 1888 main facade

4. Horbury Hunt chapel interior/exterior

5. Jubilee Gates / relocated Kincoppal Gates

6. Elizabeth Bay House context maps showing Macleay subdivision

What stands today

Elizabeth Bay Kincoppal mansion — stands inside private Kincoppal Apartments (Mirvac, early 1980s). No school access; polite streetscape / foreshore views only.
Rose Bay campus — stands as Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart. Campus heritage tours are occasionally offered (MHNSW / school) — check current arrangements; otherwise private school grounds.

Pair with Elizabeth Bay House, Boomera/Boomerang cluster, Fernleigh Castle / Rose Bay harbour posts, and Horbury Hunt works (Cloncorrick, etc.).

Sources & further reading

Kincoppal-Rose Bay School — Our History: https://www.krb.nsw.edu.au/about-us/our-history/
Dictionary of Sydney — Kincoppal; Convent of the Sacred Heart Rose Bay; Kincoppal-Rose Bay School of the Sacred Heart
Mirvac — Our Legacy / past projects (Kincoppal, Elizabeth Bay, early 1980s)
Museums of History NSW — Heritage and Architecture Tours of Kincoppal Rose Bay School (chapel / organ notes)
BresicWhitney — Kincoppal apartments history (sales context; cross-check soft claims)
Trove — search Kincoppal Elizabeth Bay; Sacred Heart Rose Bay; Claremont Rose Bay

Related on this blog

Elizabeth Bay House
Boomerang – Elizabeth Bay · Boomera caution (different house)
Fernleigh Castle – Rose Bay
Horbury Hunt / Darling Point Cloncorrick — search labels

Add historic photos with captions and credits (SLNSW / Trove / author) from Image gallery guidance.

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Elizabeth Bay House - Part 2 - Elizabeth Bay

Elizabeth Bay House – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Built 1835–1839 · Architects John Verge & John Bibb (British plan attrib.) · Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum

On the northern edge of Woolloomooloo Hill — before Onslow Avenue, before the flat boom, before Elizabeth Bay meant balcony views for rent — Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay planted a private botanic garden on fifty-four acres of harbour rock and bush, then raised what contemporaries called the finest house in the colony. The oval saloon still soars. The planned Doric colonnade never arrived. The acres became a suburb. The house became flats, a squat, a reception venue — and, after one of Australia’s first scholarly restorations, a public museum. Ambition, insects, bankruptcy, and a staircase like an arum lily: welcome to Elizabeth Bay House.

**At a glance**

- Address: 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011

- Built: plans from 1832; constructed 1835–1839; occupied 1839

- Architect: John Verge and John Bibb supervising; SHR notes an unknown British designer / imported scheme Verge modified; builder James Hume

- Style: Greek Revival / Colonial Regency villa — severe unfinished exterior; celebrated oval domed saloon and cantilevered stair

- Original owner: Alexander McLeay / Macleay (Colonial Secretary of NSW), with wife Eliza

- Estate: c.54 acres (22 ha) grant by Governor Darling; gardens internationally famous; suburb of Elizabeth Bay takes its street pattern from the subdivisions

- Heritage: NSW State Heritage Register #00006 (house, 2 April 1999); grotto & works SHR #00116; former Register of the National Estate; early National Trust listing

- Fate / current use: Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum (Historic Houses Trust / Sydney Living Museums lineage); free entry; events hire

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### Site & setting

The Aboriginal name recorded for Elizabeth Bay is **Gurrajin** (official dual name with the European placename). This was Cadigal Country on Sydney Harbour — fishing ground, contact landscape, and, under Governor Macquarie, the site of **Elizabeth Town**: bark huts and a fishing settlement associated with **Bungaree**’s group (c.1815–1820s), downslope toward today’s Beare Park. Governor Brisbane later eyed the bay for an asylum. Instead, soon after Alexander Macleay arrived as Colonial Secretary in January 1826, Governor Darling granted him about **fifty-four acres** with commanding harbour views — a grant that drew heated newspaper comment for alienating public land.

Macleay did not clear-fell and start again. With assigned convict labour and gardener **Robert Henderson**, he kept indigenous trees where he could, cut picturesque walks, and layered in a private botanic garden of walls, grottoes, ponds, gravel paths, Cape bulbs, and fruit from half the globe. *The Sydney Gazette* (May 1831) already sang the transformation. Joseph Hooker in 1841 called it a “botanist’s paradise.”

Subdivision from the 1840s onward — and especially after William Sharp’s death — carved the estate into the suburb we know. Onslow Avenue sliced the famous front lawn; Billyard Avenue edged what became **Arthur McElhone Reserve** (City of Sydney, landscape architect Ilmar Berzins, 1948–50). Today the villa sits tight among flats, looking north to a fragment of garden and the harbour beyond. The grotto and stone walls survive as rare fabric of that early landscape (separately listed).

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### Timeline

- **c.1815–1820s** – Macquarie’s Elizabeth Town Aboriginal settlement at Gurrajin / Elizabeth Bay (Bungaree association); bay named for Elizabeth Macquarie.

- **24 Jun 1767** – Alexander McLeay born Ross-shire, Scotland (ADB).

- **1794–1825** – Fellow then secretary of the Linnean Society of London; FRS 1809; amasses leading private insect collection.

- **14 Jun 1825** – Appointed Colonial Secretary of NSW (£2000); arrives Sydney **January 1826** with Eliza, daughters, library and collection (ADB / SHR).

- **c.1826** – Granted ~54 acres at Elizabeth Bay; begins estate works (exact deed year sometimes given as 1828 in secondary sources).

- **1826–1830s** – Garden laid out; Deas Thomson helps engineer walks; Verge ledger entries for garden structures **1833**; grotto/walls **c.1832–35**.

- **1832** – Villa plans in hand; construction delayed.

- **1835–1839** – House built (James Hume); Verge & Bibb; occupied **1839**. Intended Doric colonnade never completed.

- **2 Jan 1837** – McLeay quits Colonial Secretary’s office under Bourke (Thomson succeeds) — loss of salary deepens debt (ADB).

- **1839** – William Sharp Macleay joins family in Sydney; reviews finances; drawing-room furnishings ordered in London.

- **1840s** – Depression; 1841 subdivision attempt fails to sell; library and furniture sold; drawing-room pieces go to new Government House (**1845**).

- **1845** – William Sharp takes over debts and house; Alexander & Eliza withdraw bitterly to Brownlow Hill.

- **18 Jul 1848** – Alexander dies at Tivoli, Rose Bay, after a carriage accident (ADB).

- **1845–1865** – William Sharp lives largely alone; scientific salon; dies **1865**; estate to brother George; insect collection to cousin William John.

- **1865–1903** – George subdivides and leases house to Sir William John Macleay & Susan (daughter of Edward Deas Thomson of Barham); collections grow; Macleay Museum at University of Sydney endowed (**1880s–89**); Susan remains to **1903**.

- **1875, 1882** – Further subdivisions; garden shrinks.

- **1891+** – After George’s death, house passes (via Onslow line under W.S. will) to **James William Macarthur-Onslow**; maintenance including plumbing, gas, bathrooms — and **1890s portico / balcony** works (SHR: balcony 1892; Mansfield association for portico).

- **1903–1926** – Leased then sold to leather merchant **George (Col.) Michaelis**; first non-Macleay owner (purchase commonly dated **1911**).

- **Sep 1926** – Sold for **£42,500** (*Daily Telegraph* 30 Sep 1926); Sir Sydney Snow / Elizabeth Bay Estates Ltd era; final land sales **1927**; kitchen wing demolished for access road; house fails to sell; artists squat through Depression.

- **1935** – Renovated as fashionable reception house (Hall / Minnett); celebrity weddings (e.g. Madge Elliott & Cyril Ritchard era noted by MHNSW).

- **1941** – Converted to **fifteen flats** (sympathetic conversion noted in heritage literature); Donald Friend among artist residents.

- **1948–50** – Arthur McElhone Reserve created on former front lawn.

- **1961** – Early National Trust listing wave.

- **1963** – Cumberland County Council purchases house; essential repairs.

- **1972–76** – State Planning Authority / Fisher Lucas (Clive Lucas) scholarly restoration — first intended as Lord Mayor’s residence, then public museum.

- **1977** – Opened to the public.

- **1981** – Among first properties of the **Historic Houses Trust of NSW** (with Vaucluse House); later branded Sydney Living Museums; now **Museums of History NSW**.

- **2 Apr 1999** – Entered on NSW State Heritage Register (#00006).

- **Today** – House museum; free entry; Sunday–Monday opening (check MHNSW); events and weddings by arrangement.

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### Architecture & interiors

Elizabeth Bay House is a two-storey Greek Revival villa on a centralised Palladian plan — square vestibule opening into an **oval, domed saloon** where a **cantilevered Marulan sandstone stair** rises to an arcaded gallery under a lantern. Cedar joinery, blackbutt floors, Grecian architraves, laurel-wreath plasterwork, imitation-bronze cast-iron balusters: this is the interior that made the house’s reputation. ADB Verge called the hall one of the richest and most spatially dramatic interiors in early Australian colonial architecture.

The exterior is another story. Soft Sydney sandstone under sand paint; blind windows for symmetry; a light iron-and-wood portico that was **not** part of the 1830s design. The house was meant to wear a **single-storey Doric colonnade** on three sides — the sort Conrad Martens painted into existence, and the sort Verge built at The Vineyard for Hannibal Macarthur. Money ran out; the colonnade never rose; the façade stayed severe. That incompleteness is not a romantic myth — it is fabric fact, and SHR significance turns on it. The small portico arrived only in the Macarthur-Onslow years, when open French windows otherwise dropped toward a sheer edge.

Service wings and stables are gone (kitchen wing sacrificed in the 1927 carve-up). Cellars remain under the house — two unconnected wings in the SHR description — but treat 1920s press tales of convicts “quartered” there as colour, not conservation evidence. Assigned convict labour built the estate; that much is documented.

**Architect note:** Prefer SHR wording: unknown British designer / imported scheme, realised under **Verge** and **Bibb**, built by **James Hume**. Do not claim a simple “Verge alone” authorship. Interior loosely compared to Henry Holland’s Carlton House for the Prince Regent.

Winter-solstice sunrise bisecting the house front-to-back is a documented observational effect (Malone / Sydney Living Museums); no contemporary document yet found that proves it was intentional — say “aligned” and flag the gap.

Museum interiors today interpret **1839–1845**: inventories, paint scrapes, and furniture trails (including pieces sold to Government House) guide the refurnishing — not a fantasy of how rich Macleay *wished* to live after the crash.

---

### People & anecdotes

**Alexander McLeay / Macleay** was Colonial Secretary, Linnean secretary, Fellow of the Royal Society, and a collector whose insect cabinets were said to be unmatched in private hands in England. He worked twelve-hour days for Darling, fought Bourke to a standstill over education and exclusivism, lost office in 1837, took the Speakership of the part-elective Council in the 1840s, and still found time for bulbs, botanic-garden politics, and a harbour showpiece he could not afford. Spelling: ADB files him as **McLeay**; the Australian family settled on **Macleay**.

**Eliza Macleay** ran the household through the rise and the bitterness of the fall. **William Sharp Macleay** — Cambridge scholar, pre-Darwinian theorist, recluse — paid the debts, sold the drawing-room glories, posted dog-warning signs at the boundary, and kept the house as a scientific salon until 1865. Cousin **Sir William John Macleay** and **Susan** (Deas Thomson’s daughter) turned the collections into a public legacy: the **Macleay Museum** at the University of Sydney. Through daughter Rosa’s Onslow marriage, the house later brushed the **Macarthur-Onslow** world of Camden Park.

Twentieth-century chapters are pure Sydney scrapbook: Michaelis family life within walking distance of the Great Synagogue; Snow and the Estates company (Leslie Wilkinson among shareholders); Charm School artists camping in a decaying mansion; reception-house glamour; fifteen flats without gutting the fabric; then the conservation rescue that helped invent the Historic Houses Trust.

No **Mitchell** owner belongs in this story — only the **Mitchell Library**, which holds the plant and seed books.

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### Image gallery guidance

Do not invent URLs — search these collections and embed with proper acknowledgement. Keep strong images already on the 2016 post (estate plans, historic views) and re-credit.

1. **Conrad Martens views of Elizabeth Bay House (1830s–40s)**

Search: NGV / SLNSW “Elizabeth Bay House Martens”.

Caption idea: *The colonnade that never was — Martens painting Macleay’s dream complete.*

2. **William Blackwood photograph, Elizabeth Bay, 1858**

Search: SLNSW ML PSC 955.

Caption idea: *Reality check, 1858 — house without the encircling colonnade.*

3. **Oval saloon / cantilevered stair (historic and modern)**

Search: MHNSW media; SLNSW; existing blog stair shots.

Caption idea: *“Like the flower of an arum lily” — the saloon that made the house’s name.*

4. **Estate / subdivision plans (1859 and later)**

Already on the existing post; also NLA/Trove maps “Elizabeth Bay Estate”.

Caption idea: *Watch 54 acres become a suburb — estate plans from grant to flat boom.*

5. **Grotto and Arthur McElhone Reserve**

Search: MHNSW; City of Sydney; Wikimedia.

Caption idea: *What the garden left behind — grotto, walls, and Berzins’ reserve on the old lawn.*

6. **Portraits of Alexander and Eliza Macleay**

Search: Dixson Gallery / SLNSW; Australian Museum loans noted in HHT literature.

Caption idea: *The Colonial Secretary and Mrs Macleay — patrons of insects, books, and harbour views.*

7. **Macleay Museum / collection cabinets**

Search: University of Sydney Macleay Collections.

Caption idea: *From Elizabeth Bay cupboards to campus — the collections that outlived the estate.*

8. **Compare set: Tusculum and Rockwall**

Search: MHNSW / SLNSW *Villas of Darlinghurst*.

Caption idea: *Verge’s hilltop kin — Tusculum and Rockwall still standing in the same story.*

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### What stands today / how to see it

Elizabeth Bay House **stands**, and unlike many on this blog it is a working **house museum**.

- **Visit:** 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay — Museums of History NSW. Free entry; typically open **Sundays and Mondays 10am–4pm** — always confirm at [mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/](https://mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/). Pre-book tickets online when advised.

- Walk the reduced curtilage and cross Onslow Avenue into **Arthur McElhone Reserve** for the harbour outlook and lawn fragment.

- Seek the **grotto** remnant (public path territory near Onslow / flats — take care; private property boundaries matter).

- Pair with **Vaucluse House** (fellow early HHT museum) and the Verge survivors **Tusculum** and **Rockwall**.

- Remember Gurrajin / Elizabeth Town: Beare Park interpretation speaks to the Aboriginal settlement that preceded the grant.

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### Sources & further reading

- NSW State Heritage Register — Elizabeth Bay House (SHR 00006): https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045185

- NSW State Heritage Register — Elizabeth Bay House Grotto Site and works (SHR 00116)

- Museums of History NSW — Elizabeth Bay House: https://mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/

- Dictionary of Sydney — Elizabeth Bay House: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/elizabeth_bay_house

- ADB — Alexander McLeay: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcleay-alexander-2413

- ADB — John Verge: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/verge-john-2757

- Scott Carlin, *Elizabeth Bay House: a history and guide*, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 2000

- Joy Hughes, Macleay entries, *Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens*, 2002

- State Library of NSW, *Villas of Darlinghurst* exhibition catalogue, 2002

- Sydney Barani — Elizabeth Town: https://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/elizabeth-town/

- *Daily Telegraph*, 30 September 1926, “Historic Home Sold” (clipping on existing blog post)

- *Herald* book review of Nesta Griffiths, 25 June 1949 (clip on this blog): https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/06/houses-of-colonial-sydney.html

- Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/elizabeth-bay-house-elizabeth-bay-new.html

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### Related on this blog

- [Tusculum – Potts Point](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2017/08/tusculum-potts-point.html) (Verge neighbour)

- [Rockwall – Potts Point](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/rockwall-7-rockwell-crescent-potts.html) (Verge neighbour)

- [John Verge – Colonial Architect](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2021/07/john-verge-colonial-architect-new-south.html)

- [Vaucluse House – Vaucluse](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2025/05/vaucluse-house-vaucluse.html) (fellow early HHT / MHNSW museum)

- [Tiranna – 17 Billyard Avenue – Elizabeth Bay](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/08/tiranna-17-billyard-avenue-elizabeth.html)

- [Houses Of Colonial Sydney – 1949 Herald clip](https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/06/houses-of-colonial-sydney.html)

*(Expand the 2016 post in place with this template text, keep the scrapbook images and the 1926 Telegraph clip, and refresh “Historic Houses Trust” language to Museums of History NSW.)*

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### Suggested title options

1. **Elizabeth Bay House – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW** (template match; recommended)

2. **Elizabeth Bay House – Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW** (shorter street form)

3. **Elizabeth Bay House (MHNSW Museum) – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW** (flags current use)

Optional subtitle line: **Built 1835–1839 · Architects John Verge & John Bibb · Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum**

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Tiranna – 17 Billyard Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Tiranna – 17 Billyard Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Victorian marine villa · Built c.1880–1890 · Standing — private residence (marketed 2026)

Billyard Avenue is one of those Elizabeth Bay cul-de-sacs where the harbour still feels close enough to touch — Boomerang down the street, McElhone Reserve and the marina at your feet, Elizabeth Bay House up the slope. Tiranna is the five-level Victorian pile that has somehow stayed freestanding while most of Macleay’s old estate dissolved into flats. The live post was thin auction copy. This scrapbook fills what can be checked — and flags what can’t.

At a glance

Address: 17 Billyard Avenue, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011
Built: approximately 1880 (current marketing / live blog); some agent copy says c.1890 — flag conflict
Style: Victorian multi-level residence (five levels; harbour-oriented)
Site: elevated parcel about 607 m²; internal living space reported ~1,000 m²; soaring ceilings cited ~3.4 m
Rooms (as marketed 2026): 10 bedrooms, 10 bathrooms, lift to all levels, 3 lock-up garages
Ownership note (agent claim): only five owners in nearly 150 years — treat as marketing until title chain checked
Heritage: within the Elizabeth Bay / Rushcutters Bay heritage conservation area pattern (City of Sydney); no individual SHR entry found in this research pass — do not claim State listing without Schedule 5 / SHR confirmation
Fate / current use: Standing — restored as private family home; marketed 2026 with $30m auction guide (Pillinger / Simon Exleton); September auction date cited in marketing

Site & setting

Tiranna sits at the quieter end of Billyard Avenue — dress-circle Elizabeth Bay, carved from Alexander Macleay’s original marine estate that once spilled gardens down to the bay. Neighbours and near-neighbours on this blog’s beat include Boomerang, Jenner House, and the museum piece Elizabeth Bay House. The outlook is north-easterly across Elizabeth Bay toward the Heads; McElhone Reserve and the marina sit in the foreground of modern agent photography.

The Aboriginal Country is Cadigal / Gadigal land of the Eora Nation — as for all of Port Jackson’s southern shore. European subdivision of the Elizabeth Bay estate through the later nineteenth century produced the villa streetscape of which Tiranna is a surviving freestanding chapter.

Timeline

c.1880 / c.1890 – Tiranna built as a private Victorian residence on Billyard Avenue (date conflict between marketing sources; Sands / rate-book confirmation needed).
Late 19th–early 20th c. – Private house chapter (owner names not verified from ADB / Dictionary of Sydney / Heritage NSW in this pass — do not invent).
1940s–1980s – Converted to three whole-floor apartments, then operated as a high-end guest house (consistent claim across 2026 marketing and the live blog).
1988 – Purchased by John Pooley and Prudence Harper for $1.1 million — reported as more than seven times the then Sydney median house price (~$150,000 cited in press).
1988–2020s – Restored back to a single private family home; lift and modern services; 2020 upgrade cited for boutique-hotel / compliance readiness (lift, bathrooms, electrical, plumbing, fire safety).
2021–22 – DA D/2021/1261 for boarding-house / rear addition scheme refused by City of Sydney Local Planning Panel (8 June 2022) — planning history, not a heritage verdict.
2026 – Marketed with ~$30 million auction guide; auction date cited as 15 September (confirm closer to publish).

Architecture & interiors

What the marketing and the live scrapbook agree on: a five-level Victorian residence on a tight elevated lot, freestanding, with harbour views and enough internal volume (~1,000 m² claimed) to have absorbed apartments and a guest-house phase without disappearing. Features repeatedly cited: lift to all levels, high ceilings, restored Victorian detailing, three garages.

What we do not yet have from Heritage NSW or Dictionary of Sydney: a secure architect attribution, original room schedule, or fabric analysis. Treat decorative claims in agent copy as unverified until a conservation report or rate-book / Sands trail is in hand. The closest architectural neighbour often named in copy is Jenner House — useful for readers, not a proven authorship link.

People & anecdotes

The only named modern custodians securely repeated in press are John Pooley and Prudence Harper, who bought in 1988 and held for nearly four decades — the longest chapter claimed for the house. Earlier owner names are not confirmed here from ADB, Dictionary of Sydney, Heritage NSW, SLNSW catalogues, or Trove article text in this research pass. Leave them blank rather than guess from estate-agent folklore.

The guest-house decades (1940s–1980s) fit a familiar Elizabeth Bay pattern: big Victorian houses broken into flats or rooms when servants vanished and rates rose — then, occasionally, put back together by someone stubborn enough to reverse the carve-up.

Image gallery guidance

Do not invent URLs — search and embed with acknowledgement. Keep any historic views already on the live post.

1. Current / recent exterior from Billyard Avenue Search: agent photography 2026; City of Sydney street views. Caption idea: *Tiranna still freestanding on Billyard — five levels over the bay.*

2. Harbour / Heads outlook from upper floors Search: marketing gallery; private photos with permission. Caption idea: *Why Billyard was dress-circle — Elizabeth Bay to the Heads.*

3. Jenner House / Boomerang context shots Search: existing blog posts; SLNSW Elizabeth Bay collections. Caption idea: *Same street culture — Jenner and Boomerang as the comparable survivors.*

4. Elizabeth Bay House & McElhone Reserve Search: Museums of History NSW; City of Sydney archives. Caption idea: *Macleay’s estate broken up — Tiranna one late Victorian remnant of the slope.*

5. Trove / Sands Directory pages for “Tiranna” + Billyard Search: Trove newspapers; Sands online. Caption idea: *Owner trail to chase — Sands and SMH, not agent myth.*

What stands today

Tiranna stands as a private residence at 17 Billyard Avenue. It is not a house museum. As of the 2026 marketing campaign it was offered at auction with a multimillion-dollar guide after nearly forty years in one family’s hands.

What you can do:

Walk Billyard Avenue and read the freestanding Victorian massing against the flat towers — note the elevated siting and harbour orientation from the street.
Pair with Elizabeth Bay House (Museums of History NSW) and the surviving Jenner / Boomerang stories on this blog.
For planning / heritage status, check City of Sydney LEP Schedule 5 and the Elizabeth Bay–Rushcutters Bay HCA mapping before asserting any listing.

Sources & further reading

Live scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/08/tiranna-17-billyard-avenue-elizabeth.html
NSW Planning Portal — DA D/2021/1261 (17 Billyard Avenue; refused 8 June 2022): https://www.planningportal.nsw.gov.au/daex/determined/17-billyard-avenue-elizabeth-bay-2011
City of Sydney Local Planning Panel issue — D/2021/1261
Contemporary marketing / press (facts to verify against titles): Pillinger Estate Agents campaign; property press July–Aug 2026 citing 1988 $1.1m purchase and $30m guide
Jenner House (comparable neighbour on this blog): existing Potts Point / Elizabeth Bay posts
Museums of History NSW — Elizabeth Bay House (estate context): https://mhnsw.au/
Dictionary of Sydney — Elizabeth Bay / Rushcutters Bay place entries (estate context): https://dictionaryofsydney.org/
Trove — search “Tiranna” + “Billyard” + “Elizabeth Bay” for owner trail
Sands Directories — Billyard Avenue listings (SLNSW / City of Sydney)

Research gaps (honest): Dictionary of Sydney, Heritage NSW SHR, ADB, and SLNSW catalogue searches in this pass did not return a dedicated Tiranna building entry with early owner or architect. Enrich from rate books, Torrens title, and Trove before claiming Victorian-era biography.

Related on this blog

Elizabeth Bay House – Elizabeth Bay
Jenner House – Potts Point (search Jenner)
Boomerang – Elizabeth Bay (search Boomerang)
Tudor – Elizabeth Bay

Keep existing historic / listing photos on this post; add SLNSW or Trove scans where noted in Image gallery guidance above, with captions and credits.

Friday, July 10, 2026

Tudor – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Tudor – 106 Elizabeth Bay Road – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

Demolished (Riviera apartments 1968) · JC Williamson’s Sydney home · Foreshore grounds partly absorbed into Beare Park (1954)

On the Elizabeth Bay foreshore loop — where Macleay’s old marine estate once ran gardens down to the water — stood a harbour mansion remembered simply as Tudor. Theatrical entrepreneur James Cassius Williamson made it his Sydney home in the early twentieth century. The house is gone; an octagonal pool remnant from its grounds still marks Beare Park, and the Riviera flat block (1968) occupies the street address.

At a glance

Address: 106 Elizabeth Bay Road, Elizabeth Bay
Also known as: Tudor; Tudor House (secondary / later property notes)
Notable resident: J.C. Williamson (theatrical entrepreneur) — in residence by c.1904
Grounds feature surviving in park: octagonal pool (CoS: “may date back to the 1870s”); spray fountain added 1954
Fate: Parts of grounds resumed 1954 into Beare Park enlargement (with Holmesby, 104 Elizabeth Bay Road); Riviera residential flats (60 units) built 1968 on the Tudor site
Build year / architect: not confirmed in Dictionary of Sydney / Heritage NSW / ADB this pass — leave open

Site & setting

Elizabeth Bay Road curls around the residual foreshore of Alexander Macleay’s 1830s Elizabeth Bay grant. Tudor sat at 106, hard against the harbour edge now shared with Beare Park and Kings Cross Rotary Park. City of Sydney park history places Williamson’s Tudor beside Holmesby (104) and, later, the gardens of Boomerang (1926) further along Ithaca Road. The Aboriginal Country is Cadigal / Gadigal land of the Eora Nation. European villa subdivision of the Macleay estate produced the dress-circle streetscape of which Tudor was one foreshore chapter.

Timeline

c.1870s? – Octagonal pool associated with Tudor grounds “may date back to the 1870s” (City of Sydney Beare Park history) — suggests an established villa landscape before the Williamson chapter; house construction date not verified.
By c.1904 – James and Mary Williamson resident at Tudor, 106 Elizabeth Bay Road (SBW Foundation / JC Williamson diary apparatus).
1948–1954 – City of Sydney Archives hold interim development application papers for “Proposed erection of two (2) blocks of flats” at 106 Elizabeth Bay Road (J. Marron) — evidence of postwar flat pressure on the site.
1954 – Council resumes parts of the grounds of Holmesby (104) and JC Williamson’s Tudor (106) to enlarge Beare Park; spray fountain added to the octagonal pool the same year.
1968 – Riviera apartment building (SP 2539; 60 units) constructed on the site of the former Tudor mansion (Riviera owners’ handbook).
Today – No house. Walk Beare Park / The Esplanade for the octagonal pool remnant and harbour setting; Riviera occupies 106 Elizabeth Bay Road.

Architecture & interiors

The live scrapbook preserves four historic exterior photographs of Tudor — keep and re-credit them. No verified architect attribution or measured description was locked in this research pass. Do not invent style labels beyond what the images themselves show; treat the CoS pool note and Riviera site statement as the hard topographic facts.

People & anecdotes

J.C. Williamson (1845–1913) dominated Australasian commercial theatre — “the Firm” — for decades. Secondary theatre-history apparatus (SBW Foundation diary edition) places the family at Tudor, Elizabeth Bay, by about 1904, as Williamson sought to ease day-to-day management and concentrate on private life. City of Sydney park history continues to identify the house as “JC Williamson’s Tudor,” which is how the foreshore memory sticks even after the Riviera rebuild.

Image gallery guidance

Do not invent URLs — search and credit properly. Keep the four historic views already on the live post. 1. Existing live-post historic exteriors of Tudor — keep/re-credit. 2. City of Sydney / Beare Park historic views showing foreshore and octagonal pool. 3. SLNSW / Mitchell Library search: “Tudor Elizabeth Bay,” “106 Elizabeth Bay Road.” 4. J.C. Williamson portraits — SLNSW / theatre collections (for people section only). 5. Riviera / 106 Elizabeth Bay Road modern street view — “what stands today” contrast only; credit carefully.

What stands today

Tudor does not stand. Riviera (1968) occupies 106 Elizabeth Bay Road. Walk Beare Park for the octagonal pool remnant from Tudor’s grounds and the foreshore setting that once belonged to the villa. Pair on this blog with Elizabeth Bay House, Boomerang, and other Elizabeth Bay Road survivors/losses.

Sources & further reading

City of Sydney — History of Beare Park: https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/histories-local-parks-playgrounds/history-beare-park
City of Sydney Archives — 106 Elizabeth Bay Road flats proposal file (1948–1954): https://archives.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/1045667
Riviera SP 2539 owners’ handbook (site of former “Tudor,” built 1968) — residents’ document summarised in public PDF hosting
SBW Foundation — JC Williamson Diary 1909 apparatus (Tudor, 106 Elizabeth Bay Road residency note)
Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2026/07/tudor-elizabeth-bay-new-south-wales.html

Related on this blog

Elizabeth Bay House – Elizabeth Bay (see Elizabeth Bay House posts on this blog)
Tiranna – 17 Billyard Avenue – Elizabeth Bay
Killountan – Potts Point

Add historic photos with captions and credits from Image gallery guidance.

Thursday, February 21, 2019

"Tresco" - Historic Waterfront Estate - 97 Elizabeth Bay Road - Potts Point - New South Wales

Tresco – 97 Elizabeth Bay Road – Elizabeth Bay (often filed under Potts Point) – NSW

Victorian Italianate sandstone villa · Thomas Rowe 1867–68 + Westgarth east wing/garden 1883 · Standing — private · SHR #00780

One of the few MacLeay Point allotments still on its original harbour parcel. Rowe built it for himself, named it after the Scilly isle, lost it financially; Westgarth made the garden and east wing; for a century the Flag Officer slept here opposite Garden Island; then private money again.

At a glance

Address: 97 Elizabeth Bay Road, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011 (City of Sydney). Often listed as Potts Point; the official suburb is Elizabeth Bay.
Land: Part of Alexander Macleay’s 1831 Elizabeth Bay grant → 1865/67 MacLeay Point leasehold subdivision; Rowe secured lot (SHR).
Built: 1867–68 Thomas Rowe — two-storey pick-axed sandstone Italianate, slate roof, ~13 rooms, coach house/stables (SHR). Name Tresco from Scilly Isles / family association (agent / Rowe biography).
Major additions: 1883 George Charles Westgarth — east wing (incl. billiard room), kitchen upper floor, garden layout, summerhouse, fernery, boat pound / boathouse (SHR).
Navy: Leasehold to Crown 1902; Captain-in-Charge residence from 1903; Commonwealth freehold 1922; Flag Officer-in-Charge RAN residence through WWI/II until Defence Housing era; conserved 1991–97 (Otto Cserhalmi & Partners); sold Commonwealth 1997 (~$9m Anstee) then 2004 Waterhouse (Wikipedia / SHR / Naval Historical Society).
Site: c.3,300 m² wedge to Elizabeth Bay; terraced garden; Moreton Bay figs (incl. outstanding upper-terrace specimen), carob, evergreen magnolia scheduled on City Significant Trees / SHR; tidal pool, jetty, boat pound (SHR).
Heritage: NSW SHR #00780 “Tresco, grounds and trees” (2 Apr 1999); National Trust; RNE; Sydney LEP.
Fate / current use: Standing private. Feb 2025 City of Sydney LPP refused DA D/2024/471 (two new dwellings + subdivision) after Heritage Council refused general terms of approval.

Site & setting

Cadigal harbour Country; fishing village era under Bungaree noted on SHR before Macleay’s estate. Tresco sits high on MacLeay Point with harbour outlook toward Clark Island / Garden Island — the reason the Navy wanted it. High stone wall to Elizabeth Bay Road; terraced lawns to the water. Rare intact original subdivision parcel among 20th-century apartment walls (SHR rarity).

Timeline

1831 – Alexander Macleay grant; Elizabeth Bay House 1839; foreclosure path to George Macleay (SHR).
1865–67 – MacLeay Point subdivided leasehold with build covenant; Thomas Rowe takes lot; builds Tresco 1867–68; resides to 1876 (SHR).
1876 / 1880 – Lease to Gilchrist then George Westgarth; major works 1883; Westgarth family to 1891 then tenancies (SHR).
1902–03 – Crown acquires lease; NSW hands house to Navy as Captain-in-Charge residence (Naval Historical Society / SHR).
1913 / 1922 – Commonwealth leasehold then freehold; Flag Officer-in-Charge residence (SHR).
1991–97 – Defence Housing conservation/restoration (SHR).
1997 / 2004 – Private sales (Anstee; Waterhouse) (Wikipedia citing public reporting).
2024–25 – DA for two additional houses refused (City of Sydney LPP / Heritage Council).

Architecture & interiors

Victorian Italianate sandstone: hipped slate roof, Italianate entrance portico, north verandah to the bay (later enclosed in naval period), cedar joinery, fireplaces to main rooms (SHR). Westgarth east wing and service south wing create the compound plan. Naval-era bedroom reconfigurations and plasterboard ceilings; 1990s conservation reinstated finishes; later private works converted stables to office/cellar and added garage apartment (Wikipedia).

People & anecdotes

Thomas Rowe (1829–1899) — Penzance-born architect-builder, City alderman, first mayor of Manly, founder Institute of Architects NSW; overreach on a natatorium nearly ruined him (agent biography). Named sons after Wren, Leonardo, Ruskin — and Tresco. George Westgarth — Australasian Steam Navigation manager; the garden-and-east-wing man. Naval Flag Officers made it Sydney’s “first naval residence” opposite Garden Island (Naval Historical Society).

What stands today

Tresco stands as a private State Heritage waterfront villa. No public access. Views from the water and distant street wall only. Feb 2025 refusal reaffirmed that new houses on the curtilage would permanently harm historic, aesthetic and rarity values — report the decision, don’t re-litigate.

Sources & further reading

NSW SHR — Tresco, grounds and trees (#00780, DB 5045193): https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045193
Naval Historical Society — “Tresco – History of the First Sydney Naval Residence of the RAN”
City of Sydney Local Planning Panel — D/2024/471 refusal (5 Feb 2025)
Wikipedia — Tresco, Elizabeth Bay (portal; verify against SHR)
Live post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2019/02/tresco-historic-waterfront-estate-97.html

Related on this blog

Elizabeth Bay House / Macleay Point estate posts
Potts Point / Elizabeth Bay villa scrapbook
Other naval / harbour official residences only when separately sourced

Historic live gallery

Images retained from the live Blogger post:

Transcription:

[Handwritten:] W/Worth Courier / Wednesday 20th February 2019

[Print, partly legible:] 97 ELIZABETH BAY ROAD / ELIZABETH BAY · [illegible] · [agent banner, reversed:] Hooker

Transcription:

[Handwritten:] [W/]Worth Courier / Wednesday February 20th 2019

Friday, September 14, 2018

DARLINGHURST - A Short History

Originally the great Valley Of Darlinghurst was originally subdivided by Governor Ralph Darling in the mid 1820s [Note: the allotments were promised from 1828 and the 17 grants were issued between 1828 and 1831 (Dictionary of Sydney; SLNSW).] when he created 17 allotments of land parcels to house public servants and other private citizens.

With the 17 land grants that Governor Darling allowed he had strict conditions regarding that there could only be one dwelling per allotment, that each dwelling should be built facing the city along the ridge, and that the land should have landscaped gardens around.

This changed the whole topography of the area when you sailed into Sydney harbour and Port Jackson made a great difference from what people could see. It also gave a very strong impression of the colony and the prosperity that you could gain as a free settlers coming to Australia.

it was a very strong a pointer of what you could gain by coming to Australia it was also very strong reminder of what you could also lose

Sources

Dictionary of Sydney, “Darlinghurst” (Mark Dunn, 2011): https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/darlinghurst
State Library of NSW, “Sydney fashionable villas, 1830s”: https://www2.sl.nsw.gov.au/archive/discover_collections/society_art/arch/nineteenth/arch_villas.html
James Broadbent, The Development of Woolloomooloo Hill (Potts Point Preservation)

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Elizabeth Bay House – 7 Onslow Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW - Built for Alexander Macleay - Architect John Verge 1835

Elizabeth Bay House -

7 Onslow Avenue

Elizabeth Bay - New South Wales

photo courtesy of a friend

Transcription:

[Exhibition panel; small header line illegible]

The unnerving and the surreal

"… most of the things I do are imaginative and … have a touch of fantasy in them, which I prefer."

[Body text of the panel too small/blurred to read — illegible]

Elizabeth Bay House was built between 1835 & 1839 In the Regency Architectural Style & was originally surrounded by a 22 Hectare garden, in what was then the Fashionable Suburb of Woolloomooloo Hill.

The rooms, Sweeping staircase and lavish furnishings reveal the tastes of its original owner Alexander Macleay. The one time Colonial Secretary Of New South Wales, had magnificent gardens Expressed his passion for the natural world. By the 1840's a downturn in the economy

Alexander macleay arrived in Sydney from England in January 1826, with his wife Eliza, 9 of 10 surviving children, and his extensive entomological collection. At the time he possessed the finest and most Extensive collection of any private individual in England.

Architect John Verge produced a design for a splendid "Marine Villa" in the Greek Revival Style which was at its peak of trend.

A Nearby grotto with accompnaying stone walls & steps, plus several trees, are all that remain of the original extensive Gardens. It helf Macleays considerable native and exotic Plant Collection, an orchard & kitchen garden.

The main axis of the house is aligned with the Winter Solstice.

For the remainder of the 19th Century & well into the 20th Century Elizabeth Bay House had a Chequered history, With the property being subdivided, the gardens were reduced to a small fragment. The house became home for a succession of tenants inclusing many artists.

In 1961 the National trust started to list and publicise important histporic places and Elizabeth bay house was One of the first 50 names.

in 1977 the house was extensively restored and refurbished. Initially so it could become the offical residence of the Lord Mayor of Sydney, it later became one of the first properties acquired by the Historic Houses trust.

Transcription:

TO · BE · ERECTED · AT · ALEXANDRIA, FOR ·
THE HONOURABLE Alexander MACLEAY.

SCALE · 4 · FEET · TO · AN · INCH ·

J. VERGE · ARCHITECT

Elizabeth Bay House was an allotment of 54 Acres granted to Alexander Macleay in 1828. It Is 1 of only 5 remaining homes from the original 17 Darlinghurst Villas that were the first buildings to be deceloped on Woolloomooloo Hill also known as Darlinghurst in the 1830's

But it is only 1 of 3 that survive in their original condition without serious modifications.

These Include

- Barham (1833) inside the grounds of SCEGGS
- Tusculum (1831-1835) On Manning St Potts Pt

The Other 2

Telford Lodge (1831)

- Rockwall (1837)

Are Barely recognisable & have been extensively modified or partially demolished

The greatest thing about Elizabeth Bay House today is that it's owned by the Historic Houses Trust & is open to the public.

Scottish born Macleay was a passionate and extravagent man who spent liberally on landscaping his homes and his entomological collections of which his main interest was of moths & butterflies.
in 1795 he had Entered the British Civil Service as Chief Clerk of the War Office and was later Secretary Of the Transport Board, but when the board was disbanded in 1818 he was out of work

With mounting bills for his homes in Westminster & Surrey, which were undergoing landscaping improvements- as well as his big spends for his entomological collection and Investment Losses, he began borrowing from his eldest son William.

But in 1925, his former colleagues rallied and secured him the Australian post, which came with a 2000 pound Salary and Official Residence that was initally rent free.

Macleay arrived in Sydney in 1826 with his wife & daughters (of a total of 17 Children) but he was so enamoured by the place he eventually persuaded other family members to join them, including his son William & Grandchildren Arthur & Georgina Onslow, who were the children of his Indian based daughter & son in law Ross & Arthur Onslow

In those days Macleays bug collection was recognised at the largest in Private Possession. He brought it with him to Australia & it possibly had pride of place in his library which at the time was the largest room in an Australian home, reflecting the importance Macleay placed his books & natural history Collections.

With 54 Acres of Bushland at his disposal, Macleay immediately began establishing a Botanic Garden of imported plants in compliment with the native Vegetation, & the green space became wuite an attraction with its rustic bridges, terrace walls and grottoes.

Today only 1 section of garden remains just across the road at the front of the house and is known as Arthur Mcelhone Reserve. There is also only 1 Grotto left if you know where to look - about 100 metres south of the house down Onlsow Avenue, and follow the public path between the flats Eltham & Tradewinds.

The design of the house was as equally celebrated as its gardens and harbour views. The enormous two storey Greek Revival Villa with Cellar, was designed by John Verge & was considered one of the most Extravagent Constructions of the day, with costs totalling around 10,000 Pounds.

Plans for the house were developed in 1832 but construction was delayed until 1835, & the house wasn't completed until 1839

The villa design means the rooms are arranged around the central column or Stair hall and allowed for Architectural experimentation with shaped interior spaces.

But with all the love and passion Macleay dedicated to the development of Elizabeth Bay House and its garden, he wasn't able to enjoy it for long. in 1817 Governor Richard Bourke forced Macleay to retire from his position, losing his 2000 Pound salary. In the 1840's, when the economy crashed in the new colony of Sydney, macleay found himself further in debt. In late 1844 the house was mortgaged as Macleays debt to his son William reached 18,195 pounds

The Macleays were forced to sell off furniture to settle some of the debts and in 1846 William took over the Elizabeth Bay House Mortgage and assumed control of the estate.

After less than 6 Years in his Grand unfinished house, Macleay then moved to his country property, Brownlow Hill near camden. Macleay died in 1848 at Tivoli, The Rose Bay Home of his daughter and son in Law.

William Macleay moved into the house in 1845 & lived there alone for 20 years. But lacking the easthetic sensibility of his father, gave no thought to completing the building.

William sounds like a curious character, and during his time at Elizabeth Bay House, the residence was closed to all but the small circle of scientists and Colonial intellectuals with whom he associated. The Boundary of the estate was marked with signs warning potential Trespassers of Guard Dogs.

William died in 1865 and the house was inherited by his brother George, who remained in London. George subdivided the Estate and sold off lots on 99 Year Leases, he sibdivided again only leaving 18 acres. In 1882 Another subdivision was made and there was only 3 Acres of Garden around the house.

George And William's Cousin, William John Macleay, and his wife Susan, were tenants of the house from 1865 to 1903. Susan was the daughter of Edward Deas Thomson, Alexander Macleays Successor as Colonial Secretary, who owned another one of the original Villas - Barham

William John was also a keen Entomologist and had taken over the care of Macleay's Vast collection, building the Macleay museum on an area that is now the lowere corner of Ithaca Road & Bilyard Avenue. William john donated the Collection to the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney in 1888 and was Knighted for his Generosity. He died in 1891.

From 1891 to 1911 was owned by James William Macarthur Onslow, Great Grandchild of Alexander Macleay. Because George Was based in London the house had been quite neglected, as Macarthur Onslow Embarked ona maintenance program, which included new plumbing, the introduction of gas lighting, 2 new bathrooms, a Servants bell and a new portico.

From 1903 Macarthur Onlsow leased the house to a leather merchant George Michaelis. In 1911 Michaelis purchsed the house for 800 pounds, becoming the first owner who was not from the Macleay family. He stayed at the house with his wife and 3 children until 1926, when he sold it to retailer Sir Sydney Snow.

Snow's shop was on the corner of Pitt St & Liverpool St, and paid 40,000 Pounds before on selling it to Elizabeth Bay estates Limited for 60,000 Pounds.

The final Subdivision of the Estate took place in 1927 with 16 lots put up for auction. 5 lots were sold and were no doubt developed into apartments that exist today. The remaining 11 lots were sold in 1934 and the late 1940's, when more apartment buildings were developed.

The actual house failed to sell at auction in 1927, and thats when the Squatters moved in . This period when the Charm School Artists occupied the house . Artists that lived at the house up until 1935 included Donald Friend, Rex Juilius, Wallace Thornin, who held wild parties in the decaying mansion.

In 1935 Elizabeth Bay Estates leased the property to a Mr and Mrs Hall, and a Mrs L Minnett who renovated and redecorated the house as a venue for fashionable receptions.

In 1940, Evangiline Olga Murray, wife of realtor James Daniel Murray purchased the house and immediately began renovating the house into 15 Apartments, which was carried out Sympatheticallu and without damage to the original fabric of the house.

In 1959 the house was declared an historic building whose preservation was essential for reasons of historic and architectural interest under the County of Cumberland Planning Ordinance.

When Mrs Murray died in 1963, the Cumberland County Council purchased the house and the following year when the council was abolished, it became the responsibility of the State Planning Authority.

The Authority Commissioned the repair works to the roof, dome & Portico and in 1973 dedicated $275,000 to the buildings restoration but the costs rose to $750,000

In 1977 the house opened to the Public and in 1981, along with Vaucluse House - became one of the first properties acquired by the Historic Houses Trust

Daily Telegraph - Thursday 30 September 1926, page 10

HISTORIC HOME SOLD
ELIZABETH BAY HOUSE

One of the finest historic homes in Australia. "Elizabeth Bay House," Onslow Avenue Elizabeth Bay; was sold -yesterday for £42,500 to a'well-known city business man. . The vendor
was Colonel Geo. Mlchaelis. managing director of M'Murtries, Ltd. "Elizabeth Bay House" was built, in 1828 by Alexander Macleay, then Colonial.- Secretary, he having : obtained a grant of .54 acres of ground on the foreshores - of Elizabeth Bay. Here he devoted a great deal of time and money, to the study & -classification of fauna & flora, & the property, was-famous- for its collection of flowers & shrubs from all over the world. The home was built by convicts, & underneath the dwelling are-two large cellars, now subdivided into- several rooms, where the convicts were quartered." The house is constructed entirely of 'Stone, & it is understood that it cost over- £10,000 to build. That sum represented a very large amount of money nearly 100 years ago. . . "Elizabeth Bay House" was occupied, by the Macleay family until 1903. The present' occupants. Col. Mlchaelis & his family, have lived there for over 20 years, & the previous resident was Colonel Onslow. In 1875 the extensive grounds were subdivided into streets & avenues, which form: portion of the suburbs, Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay, Rushcutters Bay and; part of Darlinghurst.. The original property extended from the shores of Elizabeth and Rushcutters Bays to William St Darlinghurst.

____________________________________________________________________________

Transcription:

PLAN
shewing the situation
OF
THE ALLOTMENTS FOR SALE
at
DARLINGHURST
ELIZABETH BAY
the Property of
ALEXR. McLEAY ESQRE.
BY MR. S. LYONS.

[Landholders and buildings:] J. C. Brown Esq. · F. Parbury Esq. · Col. Shadforth · H. C. Sempill Esq. · Sir M. O'Connell · The Bishop of Australia · Griffiths Esqre. · [?J. H.] Grose Esq. · E. Hallen Esq. · Sir James Dowling · Hon. R. Jones M.C. · T. Barker Esqre. · T. McQuoid Esqre. · Mr. O. West's Property · Alexr. McLeay Esqre. · Mr. McLeay's Garden · Stables

Sir T. L. Mitchell's new Road
to S. Head Darling's Point Double Bay &c.

NOTE
Lots 2 to 24 inclusive are 60 feet by 120 ft.
" 27 " 33 do — do — do
" 34 " 44 — — 100 wide.

Edward J. W. Knapp [signature]
Land Surveyor

SCALE OF CHAINS
W. Nicholas Litho. Bridge St.

[Lot numbers 1–44 on the plan are not transcribed.]

_________________________________________________________________

Transcription:

ELIZABETH BAY ESTATE.
DARLINGHURST
For Sale by
MESSRS. RICHARDSON & WRENCH.
Allan & Wigley Lithog.

ELIZABETH BAY

RUSHCUTTERS BAY

Horse's Hd. Point

Sandy Beach

MACLEAY STREET

WYLDE ST

ELIZABETH BAY ROAD

RUSHCUTTERS BAY

ROSLYN STREET · ROSLYN ALLOTMENTS · Princes St. · UPPER WILLIAM STREET NORTH To Darling Point · From Sydney

[Estate and owners:] A — CONTENTS 18 Ac. 0r. 0p. · Mansion · Orchard · Orangery · J. Thompson · LARBERT LODGE Conveyed to Elwin now E. T. Lamb · GREENKNOWE · Conveyed to Gilchrist now W. Lamb · Conveyed to Gilchrist · Conveyed to Mitchell · Conveyed to Deloitte · Conveyed to J. Brown now H. Moore · Conveyed to Barker · John Williams · Lot 61: To be sold with adjoining Lot

N.B. The Lots are staked out with numbered pegs
and the Lines cleared.

For further particulars see Large Plan.

F. H. Reuss.
Architect & Surveyor
134 Pitt Street Sydney

[Library mark:] F 875

[Lot numbers 1–62, with their areas and frontages, are not transcribed.]

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Transcription:

Elizabeth Bay House

City of Sydney

ELIZABETH BAY
Fitzroy

Transcription:

Elizabeth Bay
House Estate

Presenting the Residence and
15 Allotments of
SYDNEY'S GREATEST
RESIDENTIAL
SUBDIVISION
by Public Auction Sale on
the Ground,
SATURDAY, 17 SEPT.,
1927 at 3 p.m.

Auctioneers in conjunction:
STANTON & SON LIMITED,
STANTON HOUSE, 133 PITT STREET, SYDNEY
RICHARDSON & WRENCH LTD.
92 PITT STREET :: :: SYDNEY

_____________________________________________________________________

Transcription:

Vendors of the Estate:
ELIZABETH BAY ESTATES LIMITED,
62 Pitt Street, Sydney

Solicitors to the Estate:
Messrs. PIGOTT, STINSON, MACGREGOR & PALMER,
Castlereagh Street, Sydney

Surveyors to the Estate:
Messrs. COWDERY & COWDERY,
4 Castlereagh Street, Sydney

Acknowledgments are due to the Mitchell
Library and Building Ltd. (Mrs. Florence
Taylor) for information and data.

NOTE—The particulars herein are issued subject to any variation or
alteration that may be announced by the Auctioneers at the time of sale.

___________________________________________________________

Ppp

Transcription:

Foreword

"We may build more splendid habitations, fill our rooms with paintings and with sculptures, but we cannot buy with gold the old associations."

IN Sydney it is but seldom that occasion to acquire a coveted and old-time belonging may be taken by the hand. The flowers of ancient sanctities most often continue in the possession of their owners: a home that is an oratorio of memories is apt to remain as an integral part of the family Estate. The golden opportunity to acquire ground, dignified by wisdom, or patriotism in the days that were, is rare indeed; but who amongst us does not feel the beauty and sublimity of such associations, which, "like the stretched metre of an antique song," fling their ancient splendours round us?

It may well be that no home has played a nobler or more exigent part in the history of New South Wales than Elizabeth Bay House, or, as it is sometimes called, Macleay House.

It has been said that there is no sentiment in business, but, like most generalizations, this is at best merely a half truth. In Macleay House
"The very marrow of tradition's shown;
And all that history, much that fiction weaves"
around the solid angularity of the facts which time so surely dissipates to shining ether.

Elizabeth Bay House is beautiful for situation: its position on the foreshore of our wondrous harbour is of preponent and unparalleled attractiveness. Nearly a century ago it was well and wisely chosen as the fit and proper situation for Sydney's most beautiful home.

For well nigh a century this home has been privately owned, but now, at long last, Elizabeth Bay House, with its magnificent grounds, rich with the spoils of time, is to be cut up and sold to the highest bidder.

The moment is most opportune. Development, of late, in the neighbourhood of King's Cross and Macleay Street has been phenomenal, and investors and home-builders are avid for freehold land in these areas.

The Auctioneers feel that they are indeed privileged in being entrusted with the sale of an Estate so eminently desirable and so rich in history as Elizabeth Bay House.

___________________________________________________________

Transcription:

Elizabeth Bay House
Estate

HISTORICAL

"History is the witness of the times, the torch of truth, the life of memory, the messenger of antiquity."

THE history of Elizabeth Bay is necessarily the history of the Macleay family, and, incidentally, the history of early Sydney and its Social and Political activities. Its earliest associations concern themselves with the Hon. Alexander Macleay, who, in 1825, was appointed in England by the Earl of Bathurst to fill the position of Colonial Secretary of New South Wales, which position he held until 1837.

In his office as Colonial Secretary Mr. Alexander Macleay had perhaps more public work to do than the Governor of those days. When seventy-seven years of age he was elected Speaker of the first Representative Legislative Council of New South Wales. To Mr. Macleay and five other gentlemen, George IV. granted a Charter for the purpose of forming a Linnean Society to study the flora of the young Colony, of which Society he was for many years the Honorary Secretary. He devoted much time to scientific and intellectual pursuits, and at all times spared no effort tending to the advancement of learning in this new country. The foundation of the free Public Library was laid by him in 1843.

For the Australian Linnean Society, Mr. Macleay built that fine brick Hall which is on part of the original Estate, and which now stands at the corner of Billyard Avenue. Portraits of Sir George Macleay and Sir William Macleay are in the Society's Rooms.

The Macleay property was originally 54 acres in extent, and was granted to Mr. Alexander Macleay by Governor Darling, in 1828. It was given for the purpose of erecting a family house, and the cultivation of a

Page Four

_____________________________________________________________________

Transcription:

garden, as it was thought that Mr. Macleay's knowledge as a botanist and horticulturist was likely to prove beneficial to the Colony.

Mr. Macleay brought out with him seeds and plants from England and Rio Janeiro. The seed and plant book, retained by the Macleay family, serves to indicate the intense interest taken by the owners in the development of the Elizabeth Bay grounds. The records contain an almost interminable list of rare species of bulbs and plants from almost every corner of the world. The separate entries from 1836 to 1853 total over 3,800, and include seeds and plants received from England, Madeira, Mauritius, Calcutta, Madras, China, Java, The East Indies, Brazil, Bolivia, Chili, Valparaiso, Tahiti, The Sandwich Islands, the Society Islands, The Cape of Good Hope, Van Dieman's Land, and Norfolk Island.

These records are of interest as contributions to the early horticultural annals of New South Wales. It is of interest to note that at this period, 1837, the Botanic Gardens in Sydney were first opened to the public.

When Mr. Alexander Macleay designed and built Elizabeth Bay House he evidently had in mind the storage of his collection of natural history specimens, for there is ample room for a private museum (such as afterwards existed) and the spacious library has accommodation for the many thousand books which he possessed, most of which have been placed in the Sydney University.

Page Five

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An early description of the Macleay Estate, Elizabeth Bay, is given in a letter written by Mr. Robert Lowe in 1842. He writes:—

"A few days ago I saw one of the most perfect places I ever saw in my life. It belongs to Mr. W. S. Macleay. The drive to the house is cut through rocks covered with splendid shrubs and flowers, and here and there are immense primeval trees. The house is built of white stucco, and looks like a Nobleman's place. In the garden are the plants of every climate from Rio to the East Indies, China and England; bulbs from the Cape, and beautiful roses are to be seen; oranges, lemons, citrons, and guavas are in full bloom, while there is even a beautiful collection of plants from New Zealand."

The Hon. Alexander Macleay died in 1848, and his eldest son, William Sharp Macleay, who came to Australia in 1839, took over the care of his father's collections and library at Elizabeth Bay, residing there until his death in 1865. Sir George Macleay, a younger son, then inherited the property. Mr. William Macleay (afterwards Sir William), a nephew of the Hon. Alexander Macleay, lived at Elizabeth Bay House until 1891, and Lady Macleay resided there for some years after his death. On the death of Sir George Macleay the property was willed to Colonel Onslow.

Although the heavy taxation of property by Sir Henry Parkes resulted in the subdivision of part of the large Estate, Elizabeth Bay House, surrounded by spacious gardens, was left intact. The formation, however, of such new streets as Ithaca Avenue, Billyard Avenue and Onslow Avenue, resulted in the outlying portion of the original garden being cut off from the house grounds. This section was subdivided, and let on long leases in 1875. In the meantime, as soon as circumstances permitted, Sir William Macleay became the tenant on a long lease of the house and some of the allotments bounded by Ithaca Road and Billyard Avenue. His oc-

Page Six

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Transcription:

cupancy of the house lasted until his death, in December, 1891, and Lady Macleay continued until her death in August, 1903. From these records it will be seen that, with the exception of one year (when the house was sublet furnished during Lady Macleay's absence in England after Sir William Macleay's death), the old house was continuously in occupation by members of the family from 1837 to 1903.

No house is more picturesque nor more reminescent of the English type of architecture of the period than Elizabeth Bay House. It is estimated that the Hon. Alexander Macleay expended not less than £10,000 on the property, and his successful gardening exploits are said to have given a marked stimulus to ornamental gardens in Sydney.

The lawn, immediately surrounded by the fine carriage drive fronting the residence, is said to have cost originally £3000 to make, and contained every specimen of Cape bulb that could be collected.

A strong wall of solid rock protected the gardens, the steps and the terraces cut in the natural rock, and overgrown with rare plants from every part of the world. The original Estate has been so much curtailed that where there were formerly acres of lovely garden grounds, villas and terraces now stand; but there still remains sufficient to tell of the past glories of the Elizabeth Bay House which once stood out solitary amidst virginal forest land. Incidentally, it is of historical interest to note that Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo, about the year 1822, were called Henrietta-town, and constituted a reserve set apart for the blacks. The name was adopted by Governor Macquarie. Similarly, he used the name Elizabeth (for Elizabeth Bay) in honour of his wife, whose christian names were Henrietta Elizabeth.

Page Seven

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Transcription:

[Aerial photograph, printed sideways, with numbered keys]

Key to aerial view of Potts Point, Elizabeth Bay, and Kings Cross Darlinghurst.
1. Kings Cross
2. Hampton Court
3. Kingsclere
4. Macleay Street
5. Potts Point
6. The Property

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Transcription:

THE PROPERTY

ELIZABETH Bay House stands to-day as a proud monument to the men who selected the material, designed the work, and built the home. Externally the residence is in Georgian style—the embellishments consisting of fine cornice, a pediment and moulded architraves to windows, and although the verandah is carried along three sides of the building, the absence of the usual pitched roof gives it a foreign appearance. Evidently a verandah did at one time exist there, for it is shown in pencil sketches belonging to Mr. J. J. Fletcher; and the painting by Conrad Martens, in the National Art Gallery, Sydney, shows a verandah to the front and a central balcony with an entablature and pediment supported by four columns.

It has been characteristic of many British Statesmen to possess a home worthy of their position and attainments, and it is this spirit which has added so much of dignity and charm to the domestic architecture of Great Britain. Elizabeth Bay House is a worthy representative of the Georgian period. It is recorded that all the stone was quarried on the site of the building, and the whole of the stonework even to-day is in an excellent state of preservation.

The fine Central Hall is of the type favoured by English architects and builders, and has a cantilevered staircase and wreathed handrail. The support is entirely derived from the curvature, and the arches and openings are fine examples of circular work.

The openings in the building are of considerable size. The main openings being approximately 12 feet high and 5 feet wide. The house, in a solid rectangular block, has an extreme frontage of bout 100 feet and a depth of about 75 feet. So extensive was the accommodation in its first design that very few additions have been required by succeeding generations of occupants.

The large flagged verandahs, uncovered except where the great Portico forms a stately entrance, extend round three sides of the house, and are fully 20 feet wide. The great square entrance reception hall, with massive

Page Nine

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Elizabeth Bay House Estate

An Estate of distinction and charm.
An ideal environment.
Picturesque surroundings.
Unsurpassed Harbour Views.
A few sites only — distinctive exclusive.
Most suitable for the most exacting.
An Old World atmosphere yielding to the appeal of to-day.

FOR AUCTION SALE
on the Ground,
SATURDAY,
SEPTEMBER 17th,
1927, at 3 p.m.

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Transcription:

cedar fittings and huge doors is in the custom of the early homesteads of similar type.

The great brass lock and huge key for the front door are not unlike those used in mediaeval castles. It reminds one, also, of the huge lock on the door of Dr. Johnson's house in Gough Square, quite near the historical Cheshire Cheese. Dr. Johnson's house has been bought and presented to the nation by Mr. Cecil Harmsworth.

The windows are protected from without by heavy solid cedar louvred shutters. Such shutters provided the special protection deemed necessary in those days, and at the same time allowed ample ventilation throughout the residence.

The reception hall already referred to is about 24 feet by 24 feet, and is so beautifully proportioned with regard to the height and size of the openings that its spaciousness is not in evidence. The staircase hall is surmounted with a fine dome set on a panelled coving and supported by a mullioned window. Externally the dome forms a pleasing finish to the building, relieving the severity of the straight sky-line. This staircase hall forms a central feature from and around which the rooms and corridors of the house radiate. The entrance and staircase hall are flagged with sandstone, and there are nearly 200 cast iron decorative balusters imported from England. Each of the main bedrooms is accompanied by a dressing-room. The drawing-room and dining-room are each 34 feet x 24 feet; the mantelpieces are of black marble, and the open fireplace is in keeping with the dignity of the room. The woodwork is chiefly of cedar, and the walls of the building have a thickness of 18 ins. in parts, and in certain sections of even 3 feet. The sitting-room behind the dining-room has for its prominent feature an antique effect produced by the marble mantel and grate. The ball-room is about 46 feet x 27 feet. This was fitted up and used as a Library in Sir William Macleay's time, and the book-cases are all in cedar. The books have been dispersed, some removed to the Linnean Society's Library, some to the Sydney University, and some to England.

Although the residence to-day may be deemed more commodious than present residential requirements necessitate, its accommodation is such as to permit of convenient adaptation for other purposes.

Off the vestibule entrance hall on the ground floor are the billiard room, library, reception-rooms, main dining-room, whilst the numerous bedrooms off the collonade and upper landing are spacious and conveniently arranged. The rooms are free from awkward angles, and lend themselves to subdivision. In addition, there are bathrooms, storerooms, and extensive accommodation in cellar section.

Page Twelve

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Transcription:

[Four photographs of apartment buildings]

Modern Flat Buildings at Darlinghurst and Elizabeth Bay.

Page Thirteen

[Pencilled library mark:] E5/89

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Transcription:

From the front of the residence one has a most perfect view of the Harbour, including both North and South Heads, with the verdant little Clark Island in the middle distance.

The approach to the grounds of Elizabeth Bay House is one of the most desirable in Sydney. The convenience from city by a short tram ride to William Street is all that could be desired, and the property is also situated within easy walking distance along Darlinghurst Road to Elizabeth Bay Road, and thence to Onslow Avenue.

This route includes most of the principal Flat Buildings in this centre of Sydney, and Onslow Avenue itself is practically a private thoroughfare leading direct to Elizabeth Bay House, and the new roadway through the Estate is a continuation of it. On its Harbour side boundary the approach is given by Billyard Avenue leading from Ithaca Road. On this charming avenue are built many of Sydney's most distinctive water frontage residences.

Similarly, Macleay Street has become one of the leading Apartment Avenues of Sydney. One may say, therefore, that, from the standpoint of Residential selectness, nothing better could be desired than the Elizabeth Bay House Estate.

The Residence is admittedly larger than is ordinarily required at the present day for a private home, but it is obvious that such a fine property should have many uses. In this regard it may be suggested that a convenient alteration of the property into flats might be made, or otherwise the existing building could be adapted as a Private Hotel.

[?Page Fourteen] [partly cut off]

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Transcription:

THE GROUNDS

MUCH has already been said in regard to the botanical feature of the Elizabeth Bay House grounds. These, in some sort, must now disappear as the result of the present subdivision. The former tennis courts and front gardens have now been subdivided so that they will face the new Avenue and Billyard Avenue frontage. These blocks are level, have direct approach, and obtain an unrivalled outlook over the Harbour. The rear and side blocks are in terrace formation, and extend towards the properties fronting Macleay Street. The allotments are very suitable in area for either private homes or for the type of flats now so much in vogue in this centre.

Virtually every allotment will have a view over the Bay and Harbour. All that is beautiful shall abide, and the panorama looking over Elizabeth Bay towards the Heads, is of a singular beauty, whose colour schemes are as various as the dreams of poets. As Keats has so happily phrased it in Endymion—
A thing of beauty is a joy for ever;
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness.

Page Fifteen

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Transcription:

The Harbour is a perennial feasting presence, garmented in the allure of the light from its own beauty. The beauty of the scene, as the eye travels over the water towards the Heads, is of God's handwriting, and its daily contemplation must diffuse through the inmost soul a soothing and subtle joy, by which the heart's anxious and aching cares are softly smiled away.

Of recent years large properties suitable for subdivision—so far as the City and main Eastern Suburbs are concerned—have been very few. The most famous that can be readily called to mind are Cranbrook, at Rose Bay, and the Quiraing Estate at Edgecliff. The Cranbrook property was formerly State Government House, and its subdivision has now provided sites for some of the finest homes in this district; at the same time allowing the original residence with its immediate grounds to be used for a Grammar School.

Quiraing Estate comprised practically an island block with frontages to Trelawney Street, Edgecliff Road, and Fullerton Street. So greatly was land in demand in this centre of Edgecliff that the sites then offered were purchased at very satisfactory figures, and the whole of the Estate has since been built upon, and is regarded as the finest and most recherche residential part of Sydney.

Elizabeth Bay Estate proffers all the attractiveness of the two Estates referred to, with the further advantage that the lots are superlatively suitable for the erection upon them of Apartment Buildings.

[Photograph caption:] Harbour View from the Residence.

Page Sixteen

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Transcription:

THE LOCALITY AND SURROUNDINGS
OF TO-DAY

In the history of Sydney's Real Estate no centre has been more rapid in transformation and in rise of values than King's Cross, Darlinghurst, extending to Elizabeth Bay. The interchange of properties has recorded figures that have bewildered many experienced speculators in Real Estate.

This remarkable development is not a transitory one, but is due to the very reasons that have stabilised and influenced Real Estate in other similar centres of the world. No centre could be more peculiarly adapted for high-class flats and apartment buildings in Sydney than Darlinghurst and Elizabeth Bay.

King's Cross is perhaps the apex of the movement so obvious in the whole district, As a junction of motor 'bus, tram and motor traffic, the activity of seven thoroughfares converges upon it. This is the main trading centre of the Darlinghurst territory, and the changes over the short period of even two years (commencing with the transformation of the well-known "Alberto Terrace" property) have been more than remarkable.

Bayswater Road, close by, receives the traffic leading to Rose Bay, and on this thoroughfare, as well as on the branch roads leading from it, many residential establishments and apartment blocks are built. Many of the latest apartment buildings are to be seen in Springfield Avenue, Macleay Street, Onslow Avenue, and Elizabeth Bay Road, and their importance may be gauged by the sales of such buildings recorded during recent months at figures exceeding £75,000, for certain individual buildings.

In the minds of those experienced in such matters this centre of Sydney is the most logical for the purpose of the present trend of development, and compares more than favourably with other centres in London and New York adapted for apartment localities. It is also a fact that the modern flat buildings in the King's Cross-Elizabeth Bay area are readily tenanted at rentals ranging from £3/3/- to £5/5/- per week for the moderate sized flat, and many apartments are rented at from £6/6/- to £10/10/- per week, where the accommodation and appointments conform with modern requirements.

Page Seventeen

[Pencilled library mark at foot, partly cut off: [illegible]]

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Transcription:

PLAN OF
ELIZABETH BAY HOUSE ESTATE
CITY OF SYDNEY
Scale:- 30 feet to an Inch

[Streets:] BILLYARD AVENUE · ONSLOW AVENUE (40 feet wide) · Strip 7 feet wide for widening Billyard Avenue · Easement for Drainage 4' wide

[Lots and areas:]
1 — 5026 sq ft
2 — 5082 sq ft
3 — 8315 sq ft
4 — 7617 sq ft
5 — 6766 sq ft
6 — 10426 sq ft
7 — 7681 sq ft
8 — 6700 sq ft
9 — 4939 sq ft
10 — 5037 sq ft
11 — 7333 sq ft
12 — 6795 sq ft
13 — 6787 sq ft
14 — 4276 sq ft
15 — 5758 sq ft
16 — ELIZABETH BAY HOUSE — 13106 sq ft

Cowdery & Cowdery [signature]
Licensed Surveyors

Note - All dimensions subject to Deposited Plan

[Boundary bearings and dimensions are not transcribed.]

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Transcription:

ELIZABETH BAY
HOUSE ESTATE

will be offered by
Public Auction on
the ground on
Saturday, 17 Sept.
1927 · 3 p.m.

TERMS OF SALE
The RESIDENCE: 25% deposit and the balance repayable over 3 yrs. at 6%
The ALLOTMENTS: 15% deposit and balance in equal quarterly instalments extending over 3 years with interest at 6%
TORRENS TITLE

Auctioneers in conjunction:
STANTON & SON LIMITED
STANTON HOUSE, 133 PITT STREET, SYDNEY
RICHARDSON & WRENCH LTD.
92 PITT STREET ::: SYDNEY

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Transcription:

The House with a History.

Designed, engraved, wholly set up and printed in Australia, by W T. Baker & Co. Ltd., 190 York Street (North), Sydney.

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Elizabeth Bay House - The Finest House in The Colony

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Elizabeth Bay House & The Winter Solstice

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The Ghost Kitchen At Eloizabeth Bay House

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Lost Gardens Of Sydney - Elizabeth Bay House

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Historic Elizabeth Bay

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Setting the Table At Elizabeth Bay House

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Elizabeth Bay House

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Day 22 - Elizabeth Bay House

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Historical Elizabeth Bay House - Colonial Architecture

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Kings Cross & Elizabeth Bay House

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The Hidden Gem Of Elizabeth Bay

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The Rocks To Elizabeth Bay

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Elizabeth Bay Garden

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Built 1835–1839 Architects John Verge & John Bibb (British plan attrib.) · Standing — Museums of History NSW house museum

On the northern edge of Woolloomooloo Hill, Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay planted a private botanic garden on fifty-four acres of harbour rock and bush, then raised what contemporaries called the finest house in the colony. The oval saloon still soars. The planned Doric colonnade never arrived. The acres became a suburb. The house became flats, a squat, a reception venue — and, after one of Australia’s first scholarly restorations, a public museum. Ambition, insects, bankruptcy, and a staircase like an arum lily: welcome to Elizabeth Bay House.

At a glance

Address: 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011
Built: plans from 1832; constructed 1835–1839; occupied 1839
Architect: John Verge and John Bibb supervising; SHR notes an unknown British designer / imported scheme Verge modified; builder James Hume
Style: Greek Revival / Colonial Regency villa — severe unfinished exterior; celebrated oval domed saloon and cantilevered stair
Original owner: Alexander McLeay / Macleay (Colonial Secretary of NSW), with wife Eliza
Estate: c.54 acres (22 ha) grant by Governor Darling; internationally famous gardens
Heritage: NSW State Heritage Register #00006; grotto & works SHR #00116
Current use: Museums of History NSW house museum; free entry; events hire

Site & setting

The Aboriginal name recorded for Elizabeth Bay is Gurrajin. This was Cadigal Country on Sydney Harbour and, under Governor Macquarie, the site of Elizabeth Town, a fishing settlement associated with Bungarees group. Soon after Macleay arrived as Colonial Secretary in January 1826, Governor Darling granted him about fifty-four acres with commanding harbour views.

Macleay did not clear-fell and start again. With assigned convict labour and gardener Robert Henderson, he kept indigenous trees, cut picturesque walks, and layered in a private botanic garden of walls, grottoes, ponds, gravel paths, Cape bulbs, and fruit from half the globe. The Sydney Gazette (May 1831) sang the transformation; Joseph Hooker in 1841 called it a “botanist’s paradise.”

Subdivision from the 1840s onward carved the estate into the suburb we know. Onslow Avenue sliced the famous front lawn; Billyard Avenue edged what became Arthur McElhone Reserve (landscape architect Ilmar Berzins, 1948–50). Today the villa sits tight among flats, looking north to a fragment of garden and the harbour beyond. The grotto and stone walls survive as rare fabric of that early landscape.

Timeline

c.1815–1820s – Macquarie’s Elizabeth Town Aboriginal settlement at Gurrajin / Elizabeth Bay; bay named for Elizabeth Macquarie.
24 Jun 1767 – Alexander McLeay born Ross-shire, Scotland.
1794–1825 Linnean Society secretary; FRS 1809; amasses leading private insect collection.
14 Jun 1825 – Appointed Colonial Secretary; arrives Sydney January 1826 with Eliza, daughters, library and collection.
c.1826 – Granted about 54 acres at Elizabeth Bay; begins estate works.

1826–1830s Garden laid out; Deas Thomson helps engineer walks; Verge ledger entries for garden structures 1833; grotto/walls c.1832–35.
1832 – Villa plans in hand; construction delayed.
1835–1839 – House built by James Hume; Verge & Bibb; occupied 1839. Intended Doric colonnade never completed.
2 Jan 1837 – McLeay quits Colonial Secretary’s office under Bourke; loss of salary deepens debt.
1839 – William Sharp Macleay joins family in Sydney; furnishings ordered in London.
1840s – Depression; subdivision fails; library and furniture sold; drawing-room pieces go to Government House in 1845.
1845 – William Sharp takes over debts and house; Alexander and Eliza withdraw to Brownlow Hill.
18 Jul 1848 – Alexander dies at Tivoli, Rose Bay, after a carriage accident.
1845–1865 – William Sharp lives largely alone; scientific salon; dies 1865; estate to brother George.

1865–1903 – George subdivides and leases house to Sir William John Macleay and Susan; collections grow; Macleay Museum at University of Sydney endowed in the 1880s–89.
1875, 1882 – Further subdivisions; garden shrinks.
1891+ – House passes to James William Macarthur-Onslow; maintenance and 1890s portico/balcony works.
1903–1926 Leased then sold to George (Col.) Michaelis; first non-Macleay owner.
Sep 1926 – Sold for £42,500; final land sales 1927; kitchen wing demolished; artists squat through Depression.
1935 – Renovated as fashionable reception house; celebrity weddings.
1941 – Converted to fifteen flats; Donald Friend among artist residents.
1948–50 – Arthur McElhone Reserve created on former front lawn.
1961–63 – Early National Trust listing; Cumberland County Council purchases house.
1972–76 – Scholarly restoration; first intended as Lord Mayor’s residence, then public museum.
1977 – Opened to the public.
1981 – Among first properties of Historic Houses Trust of NSW; now Museums of History NSW.
2 Apr 1999 – Entered on NSW State Heritage Register (#00006).

Architecture & interiors

Elizabeth Bay House is a two-storey Greek Revival villa on a centralised Palladian plan — square vestibule opening into an oval, domed saloon where a cantilevered Marulan sandstone stair rises to an arcaded gallery under a lantern. Cedar joinery, blackbutt floors, Grecian architraves, laurel-wreath plasterwork and imitation-bronze cast-iron balusters made its reputation.

The exterior is another story. Soft Sydney sandstone under sand paint; blind windows for symmetry; a light iron-and-wood portico that was not part of the 1830s design. The house was meant to wear a single-storey Doric colonnade on three sides — the sort Conrad Martens painted into existence. Money ran out; the colonnade never rose; the façade stayed severe. The small portico arrived only in the Macarthur-Onslow years. Service wings and stables are gone; the kitchen wing was sacrificed in the 1927 carve-up. Cellars remain under the house. Museum interiors today interpret 1839–1845 through inventories, paint scrapes and furniture trails.

People & anecdotes

Alexander McLeay / Macleay was Colonial Secretary, Linnean secretary, Fellow of the Royal Society, and a collector whose insect cabinets were said to be unmatched in private hands in England. He worked twelve-hour days for Darling, fought Bourke over education and exclusivism, lost office in 1837, took the Speakership in the 1840s, and still found time for bulbs, botanic-garden politics and a harbour showpiece he could not afford. ADB files him as McLeay; the Australian family settled on Macleay.

Eliza Macleay ran the household through the rise and fall. William Sharp Macleay — Cambridge scholar, pre-Darwinian theorist and recluse — paid debts, sold drawing-room glories, posted dog-warning signs and kept the house as a scientific salon until 1865. Cousin Sir William John Macleay and Susan turned the collections into a public legacy: the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney. Through daughter Rosa’s Onslow marriage, the house later brushed the Macarthur-Onslow world of Camden Park.

Twentieth-century chapters are pure Sydney scrapbook: Michaelis family life; Snow and the Estates company; Charm School artists camping in a decaying mansion; reception-house glamour; fifteen flats without gutting the fabric; then the conservation rescue that helped invent the Historic Houses Trust. No Mitchell owner belongs in this story — only the Mitchell Library, which holds the plant and seed books.

What stands today

Elizabeth Bay House stands, and unlike many on this blog it is a working house museum.

Visit: 7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay — Museums of History NSW. Free entry; typically open Sundays and Mondays 10am–4pm — confirm at mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/.
Walk the reduced curtilage and cross Onslow Avenue into Arthur McElhone Reserve for the harbour outlook and lawn fragment.
Seek the grotto remnant, taking care with private property boundaries.
Pair with Vaucluse House and the Verge survivors Tusculum and Rockwall.

Sources & further reading

NSW State Heritage Register — Elizabeth Bay House (SHR 00006): https://apps.environment.nsw.gov.au/dpcheritageapp/ViewHeritageItemDetails.aspx?ID=5045185
NSW State Heritage Register — Elizabeth Bay House Grotto Site and works (SHR 00116)
Museums of History NSW — Elizabeth Bay House: https://mhnsw.au/visit-us/elizabeth-bay-house/
Dictionary of Sydney — Elizabeth Bay House: https://dictionaryofsydney.org/building/elizabeth_bay_house
ADB — Alexander McLeay: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/mcleay-alexander-2413
ADB — John Verge: https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/verge-john-2757
Scott Carlin, Elizabeth Bay House: a history and guide, Historic Houses Trust of NSW, 2000

Joy Hughes, Macleay entries, Oxford Companion to Australian Gardens, 2002
State Library of NSW, Villas of Darlinghurst exhibition catalogue, 2002
Sydney Barani — Elizabeth Town: https://www.sydneybarani.com.au/sites/elizabeth-town/
Daily Telegraph, 30 September 1926, “Historic Home Sold” (clipping on existing blog post)
Existing scrapbook post: https://historicsydneymansionsmanorshouses.blogspot.com/2016/06/elizabeth-bay-house-elizabeth-bay-new.html

Related on this blog

Tusculum – Potts Point (Verge neighbour)
Rockwall – Potts Point (Verge neighbour)
John Verge – Colonial Architect
Vaucluse House – Vaucluse
Tiranna – Elizabeth Bay

Friday, September 25, 2026

Kincoppal story – Elizabeth Bay mansion + Rose Bay Sacred Heart – NSW

At a glance

Site & setting

Timeline

Architecture & interiors

People & anecdotes

Image gallery guidance

What stands today

Sources & further reading

Related on this blog

Saturday, September 5, 2026

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

Tiranna – 17 Billyard Avenue – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

At a glance

Site & setting

Timeline

Architecture & interiors

People & anecdotes

Image gallery guidance

What stands today

Sources & further reading

Related on this blog

Friday, July 10, 2026

Tudor – 106 Elizabeth Bay Road – Elizabeth Bay – NSW

At a glance

Site & setting

Timeline

Architecture & interiors

People & anecdotes

Image gallery guidance

What stands today

Sources & further reading

Related on this blog

Thursday, February 21, 2019

Tresco – 97 Elizabeth Bay Road – Elizabeth Bay (often filed under Potts Point) – NSW

At a glance

Site & setting

Timeline

Architecture & interiors

People & anecdotes

What stands today

More on Tresco

Sources & further reading

Related on this blog

Historic live gallery

Friday, September 14, 2018

Sources

Thursday, June 2, 2016

Elizabeth Bay House -

7 Onslow Avenue

Elizabeth Bay - New South Wales

Alexander macleay arrived in Sydney from England in January 1826, with his wife Eliza, 9 of 10 surviving children, and his extensive entomological collection. At the time he possessed the finest and most Extensive collection of any private individual in England.

Architect John Verge produced a design for a splendid "Marine Villa" in the Greek Revival Style which was at its peak of trend.

A Nearby grotto with accompnaying stone walls & steps, plus several trees, are all that remain of the original extensive Gardens. It helf Macleays considerable native and exotic Plant Collection, an orchard & kitchen garden.

The main axis of the house is aligned with the Winter Solstice.

For the remainder of the 19th Century & well into the 20th Century Elizabeth Bay House had a Chequered history, With the property being subdivided, the gardens were reduced to a small fragment. The house became home for a succession of tenants inclusing many artists.

In 1961 the National trust started to list and publicise important histporic places and Elizabeth bay house was One of the first 50 names.

in 1977 the house was extensively restored and refurbished. Initially so it could become the offical residence of the Lord Mayor of Sydney, it later became one of the first properties acquired by the Historic Houses trust.

These Include

- Barham (1833) inside the grounds of SCEGGS- Tusculum (1831-1835) On Manning St Potts Pt

The Other 2

Telford Lodge (1831)

- Rockwall (1837)

Are Barely recognisable & have been extensively modified or partially demolishedThe greatest thing about Elizabeth Bay House today is that it's owned by the Historic Houses Trust & is open to the public.

With mounting bills for his homes in Westminster & Surrey, which were undergoing landscaping improvements- as well as his big spends for his entomological collection and Investment Losses, he began borrowing from his eldest son William.

But in 1925, his former colleagues rallied and secured him the Australian post, which came with a 2000 pound Salary and Official Residence that was initally rent free.

The design of the house was as equally celebrated as its gardens and harbour views. The enormous two storey Greek Revival Villa with Cellar, was designed by John Verge & was considered one of the most Extravagent Constructions of the day, with costs totalling around 10,000 Pounds.

Plans for the house were developed in 1832 but construction was delayed until 1835, & the house wasn't completed until 1839

The villa design means the rooms are arranged around the central column or Stair hall and allowed for Architectural experimentation with shaped interior spaces.

The Macleays were forced to sell off furniture to settle some of the debts and in 1846 William took over the Elizabeth Bay House Mortgage and assumed control of the estate.

After less than 6 Years in his Grand unfinished house, Macleay then moved to his country property, Brownlow Hill near camden. Macleay died in 1848 at Tivoli, The Rose Bay Home of his daughter and son in Law.

William Macleay moved into the house in 1845 & lived there alone for 20 years. But lacking the easthetic sensibility of his father, gave no thought to completing the building.

William sounds like a curious character, and during his time at Elizabeth Bay House, the residence was closed to all but the small circle of scientists and Colonial intellectuals with whom he associated. The Boundary of the estate was marked with signs warning potential Trespassers of Guard Dogs.

William died in 1865 and the house was inherited by his brother George, who remained in London. George subdivided the Estate and sold off lots on 99 Year Leases, he sibdivided again only leaving 18 acres. In 1882 Another subdivision was made and there was only 3 Acres of Garden around the house.

George And William's Cousin, William John Macleay, and his wife Susan, were tenants of the house from 1865 to 1903. Susan was the daughter of Edward Deas Thomson, Alexander Macleays Successor as Colonial Secretary, who owned another one of the original Villas - Barham

Snow's shop was on the corner of Pitt St & Liverpool St, and paid 40,000 Pounds before on selling it to Elizabeth Bay estates Limited for 60,000 Pounds.

The final Subdivision of the Estate took place in 1927 with 16 lots put up for auction. 5 lots were sold and were no doubt developed into apartments that exist today. The remaining 11 lots were sold in 1934 and the late 1940's, when more apartment buildings were developed.

In 1935 Elizabeth Bay Estates leased the property to a Mr and Mrs Hall, and a Mrs L Minnett who renovated and redecorated the house as a venue for fashionable receptions.

In 1940, Evangiline Olga Murray, wife of realtor James Daniel Murray purchased the house and immediately began renovating the house into 15 Apartments, which was carried out Sympatheticallu and without damage to the original fabric of the house.

- Barham (1833) inside the grounds of SCEGGS
- Tusculum (1831-1835) On Manning St Potts Pt

Are Barely recognisable & have been extensively modified or partially demolished

The greatest thing about Elizabeth Bay House today is that it's owned by the Historic Houses Trust & is open to the public.

HISTORIC HOME SOLD
ELIZABETH BAY HOUSE