Rosemont, Woollahra

About

Rosemont is a heritage-listed residence at 14 Rosemont Avenue, Woollahra, Municipality of Woollahra, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by James Hume and Alexander Campbell. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

Main article: Alexander Campbell (Australian politician) Rosemont was built around 1857 for Alexander Campbell, merchant banker and at one time a member of the New South Wales Legislative Council and his wife Harietta, who lived there. The stone was quarried in the grounds and Campbell was his own architect. Its cast iron came from the foundry of Peter Nicol Russell.

The garden was bounded by Trelawney Street and Ocean Streets and Edgecliff Road, reaching to Merioola. It was not till many years later, when the property was subdivided, that Rosemont Avenue was created.

Woollahra Council was established in 1860. As rates increased and the need for more houses arose, Campbell began to lease some of his garden to various friends. Kalingra Cottage was built by Maclean, whose wife was a Campbell, Kelston by Mrs Dunsmuir, Harll by Mr Trebeck and Lillingston by Mr Caird, whose daughter married a son of Alexander Campbell. Eylstan was a big house on the corner of Trelawney Street built by Miss Cook, and was a school for girls; later the Gilchrist family lived there, and Mr Marks, who also built Trelawney. The terrace to the north of Rosemont gates dates from about 1860, and at one time Mme. (opera diva, Nellie) Melba lived in one of the houses, and all the neighbours could enjoy hearing that exquisite voice trilling scales. Each gate is flanked with miniature stone pillars and the Rosemont entrance of curved stone walls leads to a long, tree-shaded, avenue, one of the few relics of the past.

In 1879 Lord Augustus Loftus, the new Governor of New South Wales, formally opened the Great International Exhibition in the Botanic Gardens. The Garden Palace was a large building which was entirely destroyed by fire in 1882. A big ball was given at Rosemont to entertain the Commissioners and various distinguished visitors. Eighteen thousand people attended the Exhibition on the opening day.

Rosemont was once 80 acres (mostly to the south of the house) with elaborate, highly structured gardens. Its gardener c. 1880 s was Scot Alexander Grant. Grant was born in 1845 at Cullen, Scotland and served an apprenticeship in the gardens of Cullen House in Banffshire. Before migrating to Australia in 1878 he followed his profession in several Scottish gardens, including the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh. Grant arrived in the colony in 1878 and worked first at Yaralla, Concord West for the Walkers for some considerable time, then at Rosemont, Woollahra for Alexander Campbell MLC, then for Mr Tooth at the Swifts, Darling Point, which he planned and laid out. There is no record of where Grant was living while working at Yaralla and Rosemont, though from 1881 he lived at "Willow Cottage in Point Piper Road - west side (later Ocean Street), Paddington " until he moved to quarters in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney in 1882 for work there. It is likely that the positions at Yaralla and Rosemont both included quarters for a single man and that only after he married Margaret Stevenson in January 1880 was he obliged to find alternative accommodation (Willow Cottage).

Alexander Grant died on 8 November 1891 aged 80. His widow died in London on 8 May 1904 aged 72. Rosemont house is surrounded by other houses built after a 1912 subdivision. The house survives but is surrounded by other houses after its 1912 subdivision.

Subsequent owners included the Hon. J. T. Walker, Sir Charles and Lady Mackellar, the father of poet Dorothea McKellar; Sir Samuel and Lady Cohen; and Sir John Garvan. During Mrs J.T. Walker's regime at Rosemont all visitors came away with bunches of her lovely carnations (Dianthus caryophyllus cv's) or roses. She carried on the tradition of both the old gardens at Rosemont and Wallaroy, whose designers planted with such skill. In 1949 Rosemont was the home of Mr and Mrs Charles Lloyd Jones. By 1923 Charles Mackellar had resigned most of his business appointments as health and memory deserted him. He died at his residence Rosemont, Woollahra on 14/7/1926 and was buried in the Anglican section of the Waverley cemetery (Mitchell, 1986, in the Australian Dictionary of Biography ). Russell (1980) adds Dorothea Mackellar lived for some time at Rosemont, Woollahra and from the 1930s at Cintra, Darling Point Road, Darling Point.

- Main article: Samuel Cohen (New South Wales politician) Sir Samuel Cohen acquired Rosemont as the family home. His older son George was sent to a leading English public school. His younger son, Paul would have followed but for the war. In 1920 when their father's speculations in wheat futures went awry, George was recalled, and the Cohen brothers were enrolled instead in a new Sydney school, Cranbrook, Bellevue Hill.

Cohen became a member of parliament for a country seat. The family served charities, local community organisations and hospitals during their lifetime. Dr R.J. Pierce of Maitland Hospital Committee commented that few firms in the colony were as generous to charitable causes as David Cohen & Co. In 1888 Lewis Levy 's family gave to Sydney the marble fountain topped by a bronze figure near the Woolloomooloo gates of the Botanical Gardens. George, Samuel and Neville all held office in the Great Synagogue of Sydney and the family exercised influential leadership in the small Jewish communities of Maitland and Newcastle. Samuel Cohen established the German Jewish Relief Fund which became the Australian Jewish Welfare Society and raised funds, with Commonwealth government support from 1938, to select and provide for deserving refugees to migrate to Australia.

Samuel Cohen, general merchant, migrated from England in the 1830s. His first store, in Campbelltown, failed. His second, in the Hunter Valley, prospered but only after he found a way to undercut his Sydney rivals: he chartered a sailing ship to carry 300 tonnes of merchandise from England up the Hunter River, landing it at Maitland. Cohen stores then followed in Newcastle and other regional centres. Eventually the family settled in Sydney. Successive Cohens joined boards of major companies and donated generously to charity.

Brothers David, Lewis and Samuel Cohen had arrived in Australia between 1831 and 1840. In 1835 Lewis and Samuel bought land in High Street, Maitland which later became the site of their warehouse. In 1836 Samuel opened a shop selling a wide variety of goods and known as Lambeth House. This was the beginning of the Cohen family company in Australia. In 1837 Lewis and Samuel established a business partnership. However, this only lasted until 1839. Samuel continued to trade in Maitland while Lewis set up business in Campbelltown and Sydney. In 1840 their first cousin, Lewis Wolfe Levy migrated to Australia. He lived briefly in Maitland before opening a successful store in Tamworth. Lewis returned to Maitland in 1854. The brother's business interests were consolidated between 1843 and 1845. Samuel Levy filed for insolvency in 1843 and his brother David took over the debts. In 1845 Lewis Levy joined the firm. David Cohen's name (the youngest brother) was given to the firm due to the quality of his reputation and the company became the largest firm in the Maitland district.).

Paul Cullen (later Major General Paul Cullen AC, AO, CBE, DSO & Bar, soldier, company director, pastoralist and Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants) was Sir Samuel's great-grandson.

Sir John Joseph Garvan (1873–1927) followed his father into the insurance business. In 1897 he became general manager and a director of the Citizen's Life Assurance Co. Ltd, and in 1899, managing director. He helped the Australian Widows' Fund and the Mutual Life Association of Australasia by amalgamating them with the C.L.A. to form the Mutual Life and Citizens' Assurance Co. Ltd (MLC) in 1908. At a time when theoretical training in economics and allied subjects was meagre, Garvan proved a skilful, prudent and successful businessman, excelling in financial management. He kept the expenses of the MLC low and strengthened policy reserves; his control helped to turn the company into one of the main insurance groups in Australia.

Garvan was a benefactor of several charities, including the St Vincent de Paul Society. Like his father, he was a keen sportsman, especially interested in tennis and polo. Sometime vice-president of the New South Wales Polo Association, in the 1900s he played a reliable game at full back and was a member of a team that twice won the Countess of Dudley Cup; he donated the J. J. Garvan Cup which is still played for. He had a string of racehorses, including Braehead and The Pied Piper, but they had little success.

Garvan died of coronary vascular disease on 18 July 1927 at his home in Darling Point (Rosemont) and was buried in the Catholic section of South Head cemetery. He was unmarried. His estate was sworn for probate at A£ 156,558. The prime minister, S. M. (Viscount) Bruce, described him as "an outstanding figure in the business life of Australia, and one of its leading financial authorities".

After the Mackellars, the Lloyd Jones family of retail renown owned and lived at Rosemont until 1981. Mrs Hannah Benyon Lloyd Jones (d.1982) was the youngest of thirteen children of a Welsh steelmaker and was described in her son's obituary as "a force of nature...Lady Bracknell played by Edith Evans...". She married Charles Lloyd Jones in Chicago in 1929, a week after his divorce from his second wife in Reno, Nevada. In 1932 they purchased Rosemont, Woollahra's grandest house, from the family of Dorothea Mackellar. It was to remain in the Lloyd Jones family for 50 years as a centre of the most august social activity in Sydney's history, outside Government House. The Lloyd Joneses also bought Summerlees at Sutton Forest in 1937, taking up residence for the summer there in 1937–38. Then they came regularly with their two young sons, David and Charles.

At Rosemont the Lloyd Jones' frequently entertained politicians and overseas visitors. (Sir) Robert Menzies was a close friend. A veteran sailor and member of the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron from 1903, Charles Lloyd Jones was rear-commodore in 1906-08 and commodore in 1949–55. He was a founder of the Rotary Club of Sydney in 1921 and a member of the Australian, Athenaeum and Royal Sydney Golf clubs. Knighted in 1951, he was appointed officer of the Légion d'honneur in 1954. Sir Charles died at Rosemont on 30 July 1958 and was cremated after a service at St Andrew's Cathedral when Menzies gave the funeral oration.

The original property of 80 acres (mostly to the south of the house) has been reduced to less than 1 acre. The original entrance was from Ocean Street, but that section of garden and drive was subdivided off in the 1970s. Its most recent subdivision occurred in c. 1980 when apartments (Rosemont Gardens) were constructed along the former drive, west of the house to Ocean Street.

Louise Warren (1927-2013) was officer-in-charge of the National Trust of Australia (NSW) Women's' Committee House Inspections 1978–81. She organised the auction of the Lloyd-Jones collection (sold on the premises at Rosemont between 7/4/1981 and 10/4/1981). An illustrated edition of the collection (a four-page colour illustrated brochure by James R. Lawson P/L) exists documenting the event. Sir Raymond & Lady Burrell, guided initially by architect Espie Dods and landscape consultant Gai Stanton, have since then rearranged the house and garden with a revised entry through a southern (formerly service) courtyard, which has been given formal emphasis by parterres and trellises. The main rooms have a northern outlook towards the harbour, now enhanced by an understated sequence: grass terrace by the house, stone steps, tennis court and swimming pool.