“The Ritz” - Cremorne Point - Lower North Shore - Sydney

“The Ritz” at Cremorne Point began life as a landmark private hotel / guesthouse on the harbour peninsula. When it opened to the public in 1913 it was promoted as one of Sydney’s finest private hotels — a six-storey white building with scores of rooms and suites, sun lounges, billiards, tennis courts, electric light and a lift, aimed at honeymooners and holidaymakers arriving by ferry to the lower north shore.

Through the mid-twentieth century ownership changed and the building’s fortunes declined. After World War II it was refurbished as a hotel again; by the 1960s–70s it had become a boarding house / bedsit lodging for low-income tenants. Cremorne Point itself is Cammeraygal Country, later granted and subdivided (including pleasure gardens from the 1850s and housing from 1903), and is recognised in local heritage studies as a distinctive Federation-to-Interwar peninsula.

In the mid-1980s developer Simon Symond purchased the rundown boarding house. After prolonged resident protest and council debate — heritage concerns mixed with the loss of low-cost housing — the site was redeveloped in the mid-1990s into a small number of luxury waterfront apartments that retained the “Ritz” name. The existing Mosman Collective flashback link on this post is a good companion piece for local memory of the hotel-to-apartments story.

Further reading: The Ritz – Cremorne Point – North Shore