Lost Villas of Sydney: Crows Nest House 1869

Original

Today (Google)

In 1821, Mr Wollstonecraft (hence the suburb) built a cottage with great views he called "Crow's Nest", an old ship term for a high lookout. The first grand villa, though, was later built in 1845 when his brother-in-law, Mr Berry, (hence the bay) inherited the estate and called it "Crows Nest House".

The mansion was expanded in stages (which I show in images below), and like so many other estates, the land was progressively subdivided from the 1880s. In 1933, the house was ultimately demolished, but its stone entrance gates remain intact on the Pacific Highway.

The original photo above from 1869 was so poor and degraded that I was determined to restore it. Despite the quality, on examination there were still a lot of details to be discerned. The main part of the house was obviously a simple colonial Georgian villa, with a shallow breakfront and ground-floor classical Regency/Georgian colonnade with circular stone columns. Later additions at each side had shallow oriel front windows, even quoins, and double-arch hooded chimney caps. So after loads of attempts and modifications, I arrived at the restored image above.

Taking all those details into an elevation, I arrived at this architectural representation of what Crows Nest House would have looked like in 1869.

1869

And then taking that another step by removing the additions, we can see the likely form of the house as built in around 1845; a straightforward Georgian villa style that became familiar in old Sydney.

1850c

In this 1880 view, the oriel windows have been replaced by Victorian bays, the verandah is double-storied, and a dormer added in the attic. The Norfolk Pine in front is huge but sparse from the 1869 view.

These 1920 photos show the eastern wing has had another level and balcony added, and the Norfolk Pine is dying off.

1920

1920

Just apropos, this early map from about 1840 shows Wollstonecraft's Crows Nest in its original huge land grant in the baby colony.