ELIZABETH BAY HOUSE

Elizabeth Bay House is an iconic Sydney home whose story is one of obsession with ownership and status that was stretched and undermined by changing financial circumstances. Now restored and cared for Elizabeth Bay House continues to delight, impress and amaze.

Elizabeth Bay House has stunning views of Sydney Harbour, and resembles a Greek temple and is it is one of the finest private homes ever built in Australia.

The mansion’s elegant rooms with refined proportions, the splendid sweeping staircases as well as the luxurious furnishings reflect the taste and aspirations of its original owner, Alexander Macleay, Colonial Sydney’s most important civil servant.

Macleay had created the famous and magnificent gardens that best express the taste and passion of the period. During the recession of the 1840s the house and gardens fell into disrepair.

HERITAGE LISTING “Elizabeth Bay House is one of the most sophisticated works of architecture of the early 19th century in New South Wales, once known as “the finest house in the colony”. Elizabeth Bay House’s incomplete state reflects the 1840s depression which devastated a class of prominent colonial civil servants, pastoralists and merchants. The house is significant for its association with the history of the intellectual life of NSW in the areas of scientific (natural history, particularly entomology, botany) and aesthetic endeavour through its association with three generations of Macleay family”