Strickland House in Sydney’s suburb of Vaucluse has been the setting for several movies.
The house and its beautiful gardens became a backdrop for Thank God He Met Lizzie (1997) starring Richard Roxburgh, Cate Blanchett and Frances O’Connor, The Sugar Factory (1998) with Matt Day, Rhondda Findleton and Anthony Hayes, and The Road from Coorain (2002) starring Juliet Stevenson, Richard Roxburgh and Katherine Slattery.
The property portrayed the White House in the Dennis Hopper, Melanie Griffith and Portia de Rossi movie The Night We Called It a Day (2003), but the scenes never made it into the final cut.
More recently Strickland House played a starring role in the Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman movie Australia (2008) and Mao’s Last Dancer (2009) with Chi Cao, Bruce Greenwood and Kyle MacLachlan.
Nowadays, the estate is back in the spotlight as the Heritage Council of NSW moves to preserve the area surrounding the property.
Jonathan Chancellor reports on the Property Observer website
The Strickland House estate, also known as Carrara, set on the Vaucluse harbourfront in Sydney’s east, seems set for an expanded heritage-listed curtilage.
The Heritage Council of NSW has proposed extending the property’s listing by including a large area adjacent to the Vaucluse Road boundary and Nielsen Park, which has entrance gates, garden, and tiled 1930s Neo-Georgian former dormitories.
Woollahra mayor Isabelle Shapiro has welcomed the move, which comes 21 years after Strickland House’s initial heritage listing.
“I applaud the Heritage Council of NSW for making a commitment to preserve this magnificent site for future generations,” Shapiro says.
“Retaining an appropriate area of land around a heritage item is an important step in protecting the properties heritage value and significance.”
Strickland House is a 1850s marine villa with a largely unaltered landscape setting.
The five-hectare land parcel closely reflects the original subdivision from the land grant made to pioneer settler William Wentworth in the 1830s.
It contains buildings landscaping and other structures relating to the history of the site from Aboriginal ownership through its colonial history as a grand maritime estate to its 20th-century use as a convalescent home and later aged-care facility.
The original Victorian Italianate mansion, Carrara, remains essentially intact, with the two-storey residence constructed of dressed sandstone walls and an attic storey made of timber.
John Hosking substantially developed the grounds of Carrara. Subsequent occupants including Henry Moore and members of the Allen family, leading political figures in the 19th century.
The original villa, Carrara was built in the 1850s in a large landscaped setting, including a strong relationship between the house and the water. The two-storey segmental bay projection is striking and represents a relatively early use of such a feature. The remnants of the sandstone wharf adjacent to Milk Beach contribute to the strength of this association.
The proposal is supported by Woollahra Council, the Woollahra History and Heritage Society, with a final decision not expected for a number of months.
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