Rot Eats Away At Future Of Historic Homes
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday April 9, 1996
As a caretaker, John Kemp tends one of the most envious locations in Sydney.
He has looked after historic Strickland House at the Carrara Estate, on Sydney Harbour at Vaucluse, since 1979. He eats his lunch sitting on a circular balcony overlooking manicured lawns, spreading fig trees with views up the length of the harbour.
But for the past seven years, Mr Kemp's only regular company among the eight buildings that dot the 4.9 hectare estate has been a gardener. At weekends, an occasional wedding party hires the showpiece front rooms of the grand mansion, and the only other disturbance is a trickle of sightseers who sometimes picnic on the beautiful grounds.
To the frustration of Mr Kemp, who is retiring this week, the property is rotting away while politicians and bureaucrats delay making a decision about its future.
It is not in danger of collapse, but decay is inevitable. The grand front doors desperately need a coat of varnish but the Public Works Department will not even agree to pay $150 for the job.
A few kilometres down the road, a second Sydney real estate landmark - the Victorian Gothic mansion called the Swifts - faces a similar fate.
Behind the locked gates and tangled shrubbery of the 1.4 hectare property, the spacious lawns are dead and the 42-room house is slowly rotting away.
The mansion was built for the Tooth family in 1880 and has had a succession of owners, including the Resch family and the Catholic Church.
St George Bank, the current owner, recently withdrew a development application to Woollahra Council that proposed converting the building into four apartments and building a 23-storey residential tower.
But a bank spokesman said yesterday that negotiations with the Heritage Council could pave the way for the permanent preservation of the building.
That would please the Mayor of Woollahra, Councillor Neville Gruzman, who is concerned that the two properties are being neglected.
"It is very important that these two properties are preserved and it is not good enough for the Government to put the Strickland House issue in the too-hard basket," he said.
Strickland House, built in the 1850s, was acquired by the Government in 1914 as part of a foreshore resumption scheme, and was used as a convalescent home for 75 years.
When it was closed in 1989, the Government proposed a $120 million subdivision plan that was howled down by heritage and local action groups. The property has been almost unused ever since.
The Liberal MP for Vaucluse, Mr Peter Debnam, said the issue was a heritage nightmare.
"I can't understand why there is such indecision about the future of this estate," he said.
"I am fearful that the silence from the current Government means they are considering leasing the property for commercial use."
A spokesman for the Minister for Public Works, Mr Carl Scully, said the Government was considering its future. "The bulk of the time it has not been used was under the previous government," he said. "The house is in fair condition for its age, and any damage is superficial and not irreparable."
© 1996 Sydney Morning Herald