Pretty vacant

The Terminus Hotel has been sold at last.
I've heard that the new owners intend to relaunch it as a boutique hotel, over 30 years after it last traded. The Pyrmont Point Hotel will finally have its old competition back.
The 'For Sale' sign is still perched on its awning, so I thought that I would paint a few canvases before the renovations start in earnest.

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

I'll be curious to see how this poster-child for urban decay will look after renovation.

The vines covering most of the northern facade of the Terminus, which add to its 'Miss Havisham' air, will probably have to be removed.
The vines are actually Virginia creeper, not ivy, as is commonly stated.
The old late Victorian mansion behind the Harris street tennis courts, which used to belong to the CSR Refinery Manager, has a similar covering of Virginia creeper. The 'Rum Store' of the former CSR Refinery, and current Jacksons Landing development, used to also be completely covered in this spectacular vine.
I particularly love painting the Terminus Hotel in late autumn, as the Virginia creeper is changing colour from lime green to burgundy over the burnt orange Federation brickwork.
Burgundy, claret and wine colours seem appropriate to an old hotel.
This might be the last autumn to paint the vines.

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available
The legs of the Anzac Bridge straddle the end of John street. It is easier to see in autumn, as the plane trees are losing the leaves which obscured them.

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

During the demolition decade of the 1990s many Pyrmont hotels stopped trading : the New York in Edward Street, the Pyrmont Arms at 42 Harris Street, the pub on the corner of Mount and John street. These are now, respectively, a medical centre; apartments above a bottle shop and yet more apartments.

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

Other attractive heritage buildings and quirky industries disappeared without trace. Nobody really remembers much about what happened to them. The Terminus seemed to always have had an intangible charisma that set it apart from the rest. Why, out of all of these neglected and forgotten buildings did the Terminus alone become a legend?

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

How any of the pubs except the Pyrmont Bridge Hotel survived the Pyrmont diaspora decade of the mid 1980s - late 1990s is possibly the greatest mystery of all.

One reason it was so hard to pin down when the Terminus was finally shut is that by the end of the 80s, Pyrmont in the daytime was nearly deserted.

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

The industries that provided the customers for the traditional 'early opener' pubs were winding down and moving out. The last sugar ship left in 1991 or 1992; the CSR were winding down their operations and had only a skeleton staff; Pier 19, 20 21 had almost ceased to be a working wharf ; the cruise ships stopped coming to Pier 13 by 1992.

Starting a plein air nocturne oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

The Royal Pacific was seriously down at heel and unless a few familiar faces were drinking there I would feel a bit ill at ease walking around there late at night as there was sometimes a fairly dodgy looking crowd there and some of the locals would say quite flatly that it used to be full of gangsters. The Terminus seemed to be mostly full of boxers & bikies, so, take your pick!

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

By the early 1990s both places seemed very quiet, day or night, so it was hard to pin down exactly when the Terminus had shut.

Starting a plein air oil painting of the Terminus Hotel,

corner of Harris and John streets, Pyrmont.

Available

You can still see the 'ghost sign' saying 'Royal Pacific' on the eastern facade of the Pyrmont Point Hotel.

City's mysteries up for sale (smh.com.au)

For more information about the Terminus and Pyrmont Point Hotels see My Pyrmont page in this blog

Related Posts

Paintings of Pink Pubs

The Boiling Frog

My page of Pyrmont Paintings

A Tale of 2 Pyrmont Hotels - The Terminus and the Point

To the Point

Terminus Redux

In the pink- Former 'Pyrmont Arms Hotel'

Darling House, Millers Point- It's not dear it's darling

Darling House, at 8-12 Trinity Avenue, Millers Point, is an exquisitely restored Georgian-style Old Colonial sandstone building only a stone's throw from the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It's as sweetly pretty as the proverbial chocolate box. But it has a chequered past, & more than its fair share of scandal, conflict & controversy. 

The land upon which Darling House now stands was granted to Susanna Ward by Governor Darling in 1823 and transferred to Susanna Elizabeth Douglas in 1831. The name of the house refers to the original land grant by Governor Darling.

MP28 'Darling House' 2014 

oil on canvas 51 x 41cm

Available for sale

 

 

 

 

Previously there had been a sandstone quarry on this site & the convict hand carved sandstone blocks from which the house is built were probably from the original quarry.

 The current sandstone building now standing on the site was built over an earlier structure built in the early 1830s. Darling House retains traces of the foundations, retaining walls, stonework, cobbled paving and part of a brick cavity wall from the original building. The existing sandstone house now known as "Darling House" was built by Joseph Farris in 1842, during a period of financial depression in Sydney. It was a large fashionable house of 8 rooms (when most houses in Millers Point were only 2-4 rooms). With the increasing number of wealthy merchants and wharf owners moving into Millers Point and Dawes Point, it became an affluent enclave, with Argyle and Lower Fort Streets known as 'Quality Row.'

Farris was a well known publican, holding licences for the Whalers Arms Hotel on the corner of Windmill Street & Lower Fort Street, the Young Princess Hotel (now the Hero of Waterloo) and the Shakespeare Hotel. It seems that Farris never lived at Darling House, but leased it out to various middle-class, educated residents, including artists, musicians, teachers and police officers. 

During the 1860s the ground and first floor Victorian verandas were added, & the first floor windows were converted into French doors. English bald faced buildings give little protection against the sun while the French doors and veranda allowed for greater air circulation through the house during summer. Australian architectural styles were forced to change from traditional English styles to adapt to the vastly different Australian climate. 

Caraher's Stairs, named after Owen Joseph Caraher, a local soap merchant, was built in 1857. These flanked the northern wall of Darling House & gave access up to Princes Street (now the site of the Sydney Harbour Bridge) making a thoroughfare between Millers Point and the CBD. However there were many complaints that it was the haunt of thugs & street gangs, the infamous Rocks 'Push'. During the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Caraher's Stairs were demolished. There are still small remnants of this lost stairway at the northern boundary of Darling House. A fragment of the original material, part of the original sandstone side wall and coping remain, and a darker colour to the brickwork on the building that was built while the stairway existed shows the outline of the stairway.

The Farris family leased the property out, until after the outbreak of bubonic plague in 1901, it was resumed by the Sydney Harbour Trust. The Sydney Harbour Trust resumed almost every property in The Rocks, Millers Point & Darling Harbour between 1900 and 1902 to set quarantine measures in place. As many houses, even streets were demolished at this time, Darling House was lucky to survive. However, the area went rapidly down market & upon resumption, the Sydney Harbour Trust converted Darling House into a boarding house. One of the most notorious residents was Rosaleen Norton, the so-called 'Witch of Kings Cross', who lived in Darling House in the early 1900s. She scandalized the society of Sydney when she published her 'satanic' drawings in local tabloids.

 In 1948-49 Darling House was converted into a warehouse, resulting in the demolition of most of the internal walls and outbuildings on the property to allow vehicle access to the back of the house. The house was then leased to various commercial companies. 

The last known commercial tenant of Darling House was Lep Transport who installed a petrol tank and bowser. After they left the property became vacant and increasingly dilapidated.

“The Rocks Cottage Type Hospital” (later Darling House) was the first major project of the newly formed Millers Point Resident Action Group (MPRAG) in 1975. After much community effort a lease was signed with the State for the site in 1983. During that time funds were raised through “raffles and jumble sales of  chocolate wheels, and games of housie.” (Darling House – A Community Achievement – Shirley Fitzgerald 2015 )

By 1993 the Committee had capital funding of $500,000 from the Federal government approved. The State Liberal government promised a matching amount, the City Council promised $20,000 and a matching $20,000 from the community. At that time the State Housing Commission “couldn’t believe the value they got for their $500,000.” (Shirley Fitzgerald)

In 1994 Darling House underwent extensive renovations under the design of heritage architect Howard Tanner, including the construction of a new dwelling on the southern allotment, in order to convert the house into an aged care facility. The conversion into an aged care facility was a community initiative of MPRAG in Partnership with the Rocks Cottage Type Nursing Home Committee. It was a community funded and supported organization from the time of its opening on 4 October 1994 until 2015. In 2014 the State Government decided to sell 293 Government owned houses in Millers Point and Dawes Point to private purchasers. In 2015 the State Government of New South Wales decided that instead of a “peppercorn” rent of $50 p.a. the full market rent would be charged – hundreds of thousands of dollars. This led to the closure of the aged care facility in 2015, just twenty years after it had opened, and its subsequent sale..

Apart from the uncosted community time and effort in 'sweat equity', specific payments of over $200,000 have been noted, as well as about $500,000 for ongoing maintenance.

In February 2016  Darling House property was purchased for $7.7 million from the New South Wales Land and Housing Corporation at public auction by Dr Shane Moran. MPRAG was not reimbursed for their time, effort or money spent. It has been estimated that at least 20% of the value of the property & probably more, was directly attributable to the efforts of MPRAG, so they should have been reimbursed over $1.5 million from the sale. 

But this didn't happen, & the residents were furious at their betrayal by the State Government.

Since its acquisition by Provectus Care in 2016, the property has been refurbished into a boutique luxury retirement home. The extensive restoration has preserved Darling House’s original Georgian features  including original Victorian marble fireplaces, historic lead-light windows and period joinery.

However, Mr John McInerney, Chairman of MPRAG, said that although he wasn't opposed to the new aged care facility he was angered that the New South Wales government "has taken a community facility, cashed it in for $7 million odd dollars and has now made it inaccessible to the bulk of residents around here".

 

Related posts 

 

Tie a yellow ribbon 

 

No place like home 

 

Stairway to nowhere 

 

Another one bites the dust 

 

There goes the neighbourhood 

 

Banners, Millers Point 

Hotel Palisade redux

There's just so much history in the walls of the Palisade.
It was the scene of the last drinks for many Anzacs before they left Australia during the First World War, and the 'local' for the engineers and navvies working on the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Desperate wharfies seeking work at the Hungry Mile during the Great Depression would either drown their sorrows or celebrate their good fortune in finding a day's work, depending on luck. It was the haunt of 'colourful characters', the much loved centre of the Millers Point community and the headquarters of activists during the era of the Green Bans and the Patrick's dispute. 
It stood on the corner of Argyle and Bettington streets in Millers Point like an exclamation point at the end of High street. For many years it was the tallest building in Sydney, and overlooked the wharves of East Darling Harbour which provided most of its clientele. At the time of its building, workers terraces to house the wharfies were being constructed in High Street which was carved into the sandstone escarpment above the Fingerwharves and Bond stores below.
This painting shows one of the landbridges over Hickson Road, and the railings preventing revellers falling into the deep cutting in front of the Palisade. This strange configuration of the landscape makes the quirky, slightly ramshackle style of the Palisade even more startling.

In 2014, when I painted this canvas, there was a small park in front of the Palisade. It was overgrown, but its figtrees were a welcome source of shade in summer. Since the redevelopment of this area, the park is now a wide green lawn with a few saplings which will need a lot of time before they provide shade.

MP7A Hotel Palisade 2014
oil on canvas 36 x 46cm
Available
There had been an earlier, much smaller hotel built on this site in the 1880s but it was pulled down in the frenzy of slum clearances at the beginning of the 20th century.
After the end of the bubonic plague crisis in the first decade of the 20th century, the population in Millers Point increased so much that the Sydney Harbour Trust had to build replacement hotels to cater to the port workers. Henry Deane Walsh was commissioned to build the new Palisade Hotel, one of 4 that were built by the Trust, the others being Dumbarton Castle, the 'Big House' (Moretons in Sussex Street- now the Sussex Hotel) and the Harbour View Hotel.

MP30 The Reopening of the Palisade
2015 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm

Enquiries about similar paintings
The 5 storey hotel was built in 1915-16, and was one of the last Sydney buildings to be designed in the 'Federation Free' style, with parapets, and sandstone banding decorating the red brick masonry.
From the 1920s the head lease for the hotel was owned by Tooth and Co. who sub let it to various licensees.

MP30 The Reopening of the Palisade
2015 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm

 Enquiries about similar paintings 

From 1936, when the role of the Sydney Harbour Trust was taken over by the newly formed Maritime Service Board, title to the hotel was issued to the MSB, although Tooths continued to lease it until 1950. At that time the licensee, P. K. Armstrong, obtained the lease.
In February 1987 title passed from the MSB into private ownership, then in 1994, Palisade Properties Pty Ltd obtained title.

MP30 The Reopening of the Palisade
2015 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm 

Before redevelopment, the Palisade loomed abruptly on the hill overlooking the wharves. Many wharfies joked that they didn't need to have built the Harbour Control Tower, just use the roof of the Palisade.

MP30 The Reopening of the Palisade
2015 oil on canvas 51 x 25cm 

Enquiries about similar paintings

The Barangaroo Headland Park has been terraced up from the shoreline so that the path leads to the Palisade.

There's also now a series of sandstone steps from the edge of High Street leading to nothing in particular that serve as a prelude to the Barangaroo Headland Park further down.

Related Posts

Sign of the Palisade

 

No Place like Home

 

The Last of the Hungry Mile 

Sydney Sandstone - Painting the Lands Department building

The Lands Department building 22-33 Bridge Street Sydney, is one of the most outstanding surviving Victorian buildings in Sydney. The building had been used continuously for the purpose which it was designed for - as the administrative head office of Department of Lands.
Unfortunately, this will soon change.
I don't know whether all the original features which makes this building so wonderful will be retained, but I thought that I should attempt to paint it while it is still in its original state.
I managed to set up my easel in Macquarie Place Park, directly opposite the corner of Bridge and Gresham street.

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

James Barnet was the architect mostly responsible for the design of the Lands Department building, although Walter Liberty Vernon and William Edmund Kemp also made contributions.

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

The foundation stone was laid in 1876 by the Minister of Lands and it was completed in 1893. The Renaissance Revival Style facades are of dressed Pyrmont sandstone

The ground, first, and second floors have pilasters and entablatures of the Doric, Ionic and Corinthian orders respectively, each standing on appropriate pedestals.  

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

A large copper dome, 55' square at the base, but changing to an octagon at the top, rises above the Bridge Street facade.
The clock tower has a copper onion-shaped dome which was allegedly influenced by the shape of the water carafe of Sir Henry Parkes.

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

The best of Classical tradition was fused with the most cutting edge technology for the period. Heating, lighting, ventilation and a system of communication involving speaking through tubes and operating pneumatic bells was incorporated in the design.

Builder John Young introduced one of Sydney’s first reinforced-concrete floor slabs, with concrete vaults to improve fire resistance.

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
 2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

There are 12 niches on each facade, which were all intended to be filled with sculptures of explorers or legislators who made a major contribution to the settlement of the nation.

Although 48 men were nominated by the architect as being suitable subjects, most were rejected and only 23 statues were commissioned, leaving 25 niches unfilled. 

In 2010-11 a new statue of colonial surveyor James Meehan (1774-1826) was created and placed in an empty niche on corner of Loftus/Bent Streets.

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

In my painting the statue of the botanist Sir Joseph Banks is on the left, and the statue of the explorer Sturt on the right.

U235'Statues of Explorers', Lands Department
2015 oil on canvas 31 x 31cm
Enquiries

In the late 1980s the building was earmarked by the NSW Governnment as one of the potential sites for conversion into a casino.
To protect the building from unsympathetic development, a Permanent Conservation Order was passed by the NSW Heritage Council. 
However, although it is one of the most beautiful and historic buildings in Australia, it still faces an uncertain future.
Both Sydney’s historic
The hotel will open in 2021 after the government employees finally leave in 2018.

Sydney sandstones to become luxury hotel

Related Posts

In the shadows - Painting the Justice and Police Museum

Pyrmont Sandstone - The Lizards of Oz

In the Shadows- Painting the Justice and Police Museum

The Sydney Open will be held next Sunday. For just one day a year, the secrets of Sydney’s most treasured and architecturally significant buildings are revealed to the public.
So, in the spirit of this event, I decided to paint one of Sydney's most beautiful sandstone buildings.
Although it was difficult, bordering on the impossible,I managed to set up an easel and paint 'en plein air' right in the heart of the CBD.

Plein air painting of the "Justice and Police Museum"
2015 oil on canvas 13 x 18cm

 

Enquiries

The Justice and Police Museum is one of the city's most overlooked heritage gems. It is hidden away on the quiet leafy corner of Phillip and Albert Streets, a stone's throw from Circular Quay.

It was a tight squeeze for the bendy bus!

Plein air painting of the "Justice and Police Museum"

2015 oil on canvas 13 x 18cm

 

Enquiries 

It incorporates the old Water Police Court (1856), designed by Edmund Blacket; the Water Police Station (1858), attributed to Alexander Dawson and the Police Court (1886), designed by James Barnet. 
The complex had remained in use as a police station as late as 1985, when the area was a busy legal hub.
Today the museum tells the story of the seamy side of Sydney’s past.

Plein air painting of the "Justice and Police Museum"

2015 oil on canvas 13 x 18cm

 

Enquiries 

The golden sandstone, graceful columns and dappled shade give a deceptive impression. 
Behind the elegant facade lurk dingy 1890s holding cells, offices, charge room and courts. A century of underworld Sydney is contained inside.

Plein air painting of the "Justice and Police Museum"

2015 oil on canvas 13 x 18cm

 

Enquiries 

The guilty, the innocent and the unknown. 

Mug shots of bushrangers, sly groggers, drifters, razor gangs and "colourful racing identities" rub shoulders with cops and judges.

Plein air painting of the "Justice and Police Museum"

2015 oil on canvas 13 x 18cm

 

Enquiries 

So very Sydney.

Related Posts

Sydney Sandstone - Painting the Lands Department Building