Caerleon

15 Ginahgulla Road, Bellevue Hill

Maurice Adams of London, reworking plans by Harry Kent. Begun 1885. Brick.

Size

Two storeys, on a block of 3,300 sq m. No dimensions found, so the whole drawing is estimated from photographs

Material

Red brick with stone dressings, terracotta shingles on the upper walls and roof, leaded windows, painted timber verandahs

Status

NSW heritage listing and the former Register of the National Estate. A private house

Charles B. Fairfax, of the family that owned the Sydney Morning Herald, built this house at Bellevue Hill. The Sydney architect Harry Kent drew the first plans, but they went to London and were reworked at length by Maurice Adams, and Kent’s name was left off when the design was exhibited there. A dispute followed. Kent nevertheless supervised the building, and Woollahra’s local history credits the house to Adams alone.

It arrived largely as a finished idea from England. Much of the material was imported, including metal casement windows and terracotta roof tiles, and the heritage entry takes the painted timberwork of the verandah as further evidence of English supply. The same entry calls the design “extremely avant garde”. It has red brick walls, leaded glass, bay windows, balconies and tall chimneys, and inside its joinery and plasterwork follow Robert Adam and eighteenth-century French taste.

Sources differ on how to rank it. Some call it the first Queen Anne house in Australia, the Dictionary of Sydney says one of the first, and the heritage entry says the first major example. The style that followed is usually called Federation Queen Anne, although Caerleon went up sixteen years before Federation. It is still a private house, and it sold for about $22 million in January 2008.

Sources

1. Caerleon, Bellevue Hill, Wikipedia
2. Local history fast facts: C, Woollahra Municipal Council
3. Bellevue Hill, Dictionary of Sydney
4. Bellevue Hill heritage, Federation Details