Issue 59

The Life Outside Issue

Introducing the Life Outside issue of Habitus magazine. With life increasingly being absorbed into a digital space, there is never a more important moment to hold something tangible. In this context, the power of nature to have a physiological impact on our sense of wellbeing has never been more important. So how can we cultivate the benefits of the our natural environment in the most intimate of places – our homes? This was the question that helped to bring this issue of Habitus to life.

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Elizabeth Bay House

Australia

The location of our feature shoot for Habitus Issue 26 was Elizabeth Bay House. Amanda Talbot re-imagined it as Picasso’s summer house; here, we see it in its original glory.

With commanding views over Sydney Harbour, Elizabeth Bay House gleams like a Greek temple. Once surrounded by famous landscaped gardens, it is one of the most splendid private houses ever built in Australia and still arouses our delight and astonishment.

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Its elegant rooms and fine proportions, sweeping staircase and lavish furnishings reveal the tastes and aspirations of its original owner, Alexander Macleay, after the governor, the most important public official in colonial Sydney. But it was his magnificent gardens which most keenly expressed his tastes and passions, and in the economic downturn of the 1840s pushed him towards ruin.

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Elizabeth Bay House is an iconic Sydney home, with an iconic Sydney back-story of obsession for property and position stretched beyond means and undone by changing financial times.

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Elizabeth Bay House

Address
7 Onslow Avenue, Elizabeth Bay NSW 2011

Telephone
02 9356 3022

Open hours
Friday, Saturday and Sunday, 11am – 4pm

Admission
General $8, Concession $4, Family $17

Sydney Living Museums
sydneylivingmuseums.com.au

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Elizabeth Bay House

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