Site Overview
site name:
Wyldefel Gardens
architect(s):
W.A. Crowle & John Brogan
date of commission:
1935
date of completion:
1936
address:
8a Wylde Street, Potts Point, Sydney NSW
classification/typology:
Residential /Housing (RES)
submitted by
S. Robertson, et. al. in 2014
Description
Wyldefel Gardens is a complex of 20 two-bedroom apartments cascading in two rows down a Harbour side site so that the roof of each apartment forms the terrace of that above. The two rows of dwellings are arranged around a shared garden. The Potts Point complex was the brainchild of William A Crowle, car importer, art collector and philanthropist, who was inspired by a similar hillside complex observed during a European trip.
The terraced design meant that the apartments did not block each other’s view or the view from Wyldefel, the Crowle family mansion at the top of the site. After the apartments were constructed, Crowle had Wyldefel converted into a luxury boarding house, while a maisonette was built for himself at the Harbour’s edge. This was removed during the War to accommodate expansion of Garden Island dockyard. Wyldefel Gardens became a social page fixture, as Sydney’s wealthy continued their embrace of apartment living. It remains one of Sydney’s most sought-after addresses.
Heritage Listing:
– Sydney Local Environmental Plan 2012 (I1197)
Text adapted from an entry by Caroline Butler-Bowdon and Charles Pickettin Australia Modern: Architecture, Landscape and Design 1925-1975, Hannah Lewi and Philip Goad (2019, Thames and Hudson).