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.
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.
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.
Photography © Nicholas Watt courtesy of Sydney Living Museums
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