The Grace Building (Grace House) – 77–79 York Street, Corner of King and Clarence Streets, Sydney – Grace Bros' Gothic Tower, the American Wartime Headquarters and the Grace Hotel – 1930 to Today

Walk down York Street towards King Street and look up. On the corner, rising above the traffic, is a cream tower trimmed in green, with flying buttresses, pointed windows and pinnacles, like a Gothic cathedral turned into an office block. Most of us know it now as the Grace Hotel. Older Sydneysiders still call it the Grace Building, or Grace House. It was meant to be the pride of a department-store empire, but it ended up as wartime headquarters for the Americans and a government office block, and later it became a hotel. Here's its story.

The new Grace Building in 1930, photographed by a young Max Dupain. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

Grace House, the Grace Building or the Grace Hotel?

All three names mean the same place, on the corner of York, King and Clarence Streets. The State Heritage Register calls it the Grace Building, 77–79 York Street. The old Register of the National Estate gives the full frontages as 124–140 Clarence, 55–67 King and 77–79 York Streets. I couldn't find any other "Grace House" in Sydney's history that fits as well, so this is the one.

The Grace Brothers

The Heritage Register tells how it all began. On 1 August 1885 two English brothers, Joseph Neale Grace and Albert Edward Grace, opened a small shop at 203 George Street West, the stretch we now call Broadway. In 1887 they moved to 5–7 The Broadway. In 1896 they hired the architects Morrow & Gordon to design a store on the corner of Bay and Grose Streets, and by 1911 there was a seven-storey building in Grose Street. By 1923 Grace Bros had 250 departments and nearly 3,000 staff. Those Broadway stores, with their twin clock towers, still stand.

The clock towers of the old Grace Bros stores on Broadway, 2014. Image: Jason Tong, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The perfumery department at Grace Bros, Broadway, October 1938, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Like Anthony Hordern's down at Brickfield Hill (see my post on Anthony Hordern & Sons), Grace Bros wanted a big presence in the middle of the city.

A Bet on the Bridge

In 1926 Grace Bros bought the land bounded by York, King and Clarence Streets. The site already had a showbiz past. The Grace Hotel's own history calls it the site of "Sydney's first Opera House". A sketch on Wikimedia Commons labelled "Opera House, King & York Streets" says that theatre opened in 1880 and closed in 1900, and was later used as a warehouse by W. & A. McArthur. Whether it was really Sydney's first opera house depends on what you count. Several earlier theatres put on opera, so take the hotel's claim with a grain of salt.

The Opera House on the corner of King and York Streets, 1882. It stood on the site the Grace Building later took over. Image: unknown artist, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The Heritage Register explains why the brothers chose a spot halfway between Wynyard and Town Hall stations, off the busy George and Pitt Street strip. They "believed that the opening of the Harbour Bridge would change transport patterns in their favour". The hotel's history says the company letterhead even gave the address as "on the Harbour Bridge Highway". York and Clarence Streets were going to be the new main roads into the city from the north.

Chicago Comes to York Street

In 1928 Grace Bros commissioned Morrow & Gordon, the firm that had designed their Broadway store more than thirty years before, to design the new building. The State Library of NSW says the design dates from 1928. The hotel says the builders were Kell & Rigby, working "under close surveillance" by the architects.

The model was the Chicago Tribune Tower, finished in 1925 after a famous international competition. The hotel's history says the Grace Building "was based on the Chicago Tribune building". The Heritage Register calls it "a fine example of commercial Gothic, with a soaring vertical emphasis and prominent 'Gothic' corner tower, complete with flying buttresses, pointed windows and quatrefoils". The walls are faced in glazed cream terracotta with green trim. The National Estate listing says it "would have been Wunderlich's most extensive and well executed terracotta facing job in the 1930s".

The Chicago Tribune Tower of 1925, the model for the Grace Building's Gothic corner tower. Image: GualdimG, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The Grace Building's tower, with its buttresses and pinnacles in glazed terracotta. Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The Lord Mayor, Alderman E. S. Marks, opened the building on 3 July 1930, ahead of schedule according to the hotel. The State Library and the hotel both give that date. Inside, the foyer had marble-lined walls and Gothic plaster ceilings. The offices had Queensland maple partitions and stippled green tiles. The National Estate listing says those fittings now survive only on the fifth floor.

The Grace Building when new, about 1930, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: State Library of NSW, via Wikimedia Commons (no known copyright restrictions).

The Grace Building from the street corner, photographed by Arthur G. Foster. Image: Foster, A. G. (Arthur G.), via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The Grace Building lit up at night in the 1930s, photographed by Sam Hood. Image: Sam Hood, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Advertising for the Grace Bros "12 Days Sale", 1930. Image: Powerhouse Museum from Sydney, Australia, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

The White Elephant

It didn't work out. The Depression arrived just as the doors opened. When the Bridge opened in 1932, the traffic didn't turn York and Clarence Streets into a shopping strip. The hotel's history quotes Grace Bros' own company histories calling the building "a dream turned sour", "the white elephant" and "a commercial gothic monster". The company put its money into the suburbs instead, and the building in town turned into a financial burden.

The Americans Move In

The war changed everything. In 1942, the Heritage Register says, the ground floor windows were boarded up with hardboard screens and an air-raid shelter was built in the basement. The building became home to a range of Commonwealth departments and to "the United States Armed forces' headquarters in Sydney". The hotel's history adds that the US Army Small Ships section was based there, supplying Australian and American forces.

This is where the stories start to disagree. The hotel and the State Library both say the building was the headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Commander in the South-West Pacific. The hotel puts the requisition under 1939, which is too early for the Americans, who didn't arrive in force until 1942. The wartime histories of MacArthur's command, like the Queensland government's WWII Places site and the OzAtWar records, put his General Headquarters first in Melbourne. From 18 April 1942 it was at 401 Collins Street, and from 21 July 1942 it was in the AMP Building in Queen Street, Brisbane, now MacArthur Chambers. So the Grace Building was a major American headquarters in Sydney, and MacArthur may well have used it when he was in town. His actual General Headquarters, though, was in Melbourne and then Brisbane.

There's also the famous tunnel story. The Heritage Register mentions "anecdotal evidence" linking MacArthur's name with tunnels under York Street running to Circular Quay and Victoria Barracks. It says the tunnels were built before the war and that at least one probably held emergency telephone equipment. The hotel says only that "it was thought" the tunnels connected to the basement. Nobody seems to have proved it.

Taken by the Commonwealth

In November 1945 the Commonwealth compulsorily acquired the building. The City of Sydney Archives holds a council file on the acquisition dated from 23 November 1945 to July 1946. In May 1946 a conference decided who would get the floor space. The winners, the Heritage Register says, included the Postmaster-General's Department, the Repatriation Commission, the War Service Homes Commission, the Film Censorship Board and the Department of Labour and Industry. A telephone exchange opened there in December 1948. For the next fifty years, if you dealt with a federal department in Sydney there was a good chance it was in the Grace Building.

Grace Bros fought it. According to the hotel's history the company issued two writs in the High Court between 1946 and 1948, arguing the acquisition was invalid. In 1953 Grace Bros was awarded about £1.3 million in compensation, and the hotel says the money paid for its push into the suburbs. So the white elephant ended up paying for the suburban stores.

From Offices to Hotel

Decades of government fit-outs stripped out most of the original interiors. The building was listed on the Register of the National Estate on 21 October 1980 and on the State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. In 1995 it was bought by the Malaysian Low Yat Group, and conversion to the Grace Hotel and Grace Plaza began in 1996. Premier Bob Carr opened the hotel in August 1997. The hotel says the conversion kept the high ceilings, original lifts and stairwells, wide hallways, marble floors and decorative ironwork. Today it has 387 rooms around a central atrium, and a rooftop pool where Grace Bros once kept its offices.

The Grace Hotel entrance under the original awning. Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Christmas in the Grace Hotel lobby, among the original columns and marble, 2019. Image: Kgbo, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

The cream and green terracotta of the York Street facade. Image: Tony Hisgett from Birmingham, UK, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The Grace Building's tower next to its Victorian neighbour on King Street. Image: Ales Proimos, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The Grace Building today, 2017. Image: Edward Howard, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

The corner of York and King Streets, with the Grace name still over the door. Image: Jason7825, via Wikimedia Commons (public domain).

Next Time You're on York Street

Stop on the opposite corner and look up at the tower. It's a 1920s bet on the Harbour Bridge that never paid off, and Sydney's own small copy of Chicago. It was also a wartime base for the Americans and, for half a century, where you went to sort out your war service home or your pension. Grace Bros has gone now, taken over by Myer in the 1980s, but the name is still above the door on York Street.

References

• Heritage NSW, State Heritage Register, "Grace Building", 77–79 York Street, Sydney.
• Australian Heritage Database, Register of the National Estate, "Grace Building, 77–79 York St, Sydney" (Place ID 2226).
• State Library of NSW, "Grace Building" (Temples of Commerce).
• The Grace Hotel, "The History of The Grace Hotel Sydney".
• City of Sydney Archives, "Acquisition of Grace Building by Commonwealth Government, York Street Sydney, 1945".
• Queensland Government, WWII Places, "MacArthur Chambers"; OzAtWar, "Trustees Executive & Agency Co. Ltd. Building, 401 Collins Street" and "GHQ SWPA in the AMP Building".