Hopewood House – 13–15 Thornton Street – Darling Point – NSW
Art Nouveau / Federation grand house · Morrow & De Putron for Lebbeus Hordern · Demolished 1966 — Hopewood Gardens apartments; landscape remnants LEP-listed
Beside Retford Hall on Thornton Street, Lebbeus (“Billie”) Hordern’s great harbour house lasted barely two generations before strata-title Darling Point erased it — leaving a tower that kept the name and a scatter of gates, rotundas and palms.
At a glance
- Address / site: 13–15 Thornton Street, Darling Point NSW 2027 (also cited 13–17); Woollahra; adjoining historic Retford Hall grounds
- Traditional Custodians: Gadigal / Cadigal (DoS Darling Point)
- Client: Lebbeus (“Billie”) Hordern (1891–1928), Anthony Hordern family (Wikipedia Hordern family / DoS)
- Architects: Morrow & De Putron (Babworth SHR; Federation Home)
- Dates: design/build variously 1914 (Babworth SHR note), 1918 (DoS), or completed c.1924 (SMH 1949 sale copy)
- Scale (1949 sale copy): about 40 large rooms; 2½ acres; verandahs to harbour on three sides (SMH via Federation Home)
- Heritage (remnants): Woollahra LEP local items I185 (13–15 Thornton) and I186 (21 Thornton) — fences, gateposts, gates, balustrade, rotundas, significant palms/trees
- Fate: Sold out of Hordern hands (sale notices 1930 family histories; major press sale 1949 £46,000); finishing school / Rosary Villa 1950; wartime Services use; private hospital; demolished 1966; Hopewood Gardens apartment tower on site (DoS)
Site & setting
Yarranabbe / Darling Point western harbour slope above Rushcutters Bay — Gadigal Country; villa allotments from the 1830s Mitchell/Yaranabee subdivisions that also carried Retford Hall for Anthony Hordern II (DoS). Hopewood took a generous residual parcel beside Retford Hall with three-sided harbour verandahs (period press). Strata-title boom after the 1961 Conveyancing (Strata Titles) Act accelerated mansion clearances; DoS pairs Hopewood’s 1966 loss with Retford Hall’s demolition the same decade.
Timeline
- c.1914–24 – Morrow & De Putron design/build Hopewood for Lebbeus Hordern.
- 1928 – Lebbeus Hordern dies (family chronologies).
- c.1930 – Property leaves Hordern occupation (family summaries).
- 1930s – Cazneaux photographs interiors and grounds (Federation Home photo trail).
- Sep 1949 – SMH reports sale for £46,000; copy describes ~40 rooms, 2½ acres, built “in 1924” (Federation Home quotation).
- 16 Nov 1950 – SMH: Sisters of St Joseph of California convert house to finishing school / female accommodation as Rosary Villa (DoS n.70).
- WWII – Used as Services headquarters / accommodation (SMH colour via Federation Home; DoS lists Hopewood among Darling Point homes used for naval personnel).
- 1966 – House demolished; multi-storey Hopewood Gardens rises on the site (DoS).
- Today – Apartment estate; LEP-listed remnant fences, gates, rotundas and trees.
Architecture & interiors
Period descriptions stress wide verandahs to the harbour on three sides and “attractive architectural design” at very large domestic scale (SMH). Historians group it with Morrow & De Putron’s Hordern domestic work beside Babworth — Art Nouveau / early twentieth-century grand house language (Babworth SHR; DoS “Art Nouveau style”). Harold Cazneaux recorded perron, lobby, interiors and grounds in the 1930s (Federation Home). Period photographs and press descriptions are the safest guide to the interiors; treat “about 40 large rooms” as the sourced scale rather than a measured survey.
People & anecdotes
Lebbeus Hordern — younger Hordern generation; also associated with a separate Hopewood at Bowral and pastoral stations. Brother Sir Samuel Hordern’s Babworth (same architects) still stands uphill. The house’s afterlife — finishing school, wartime billet, hospital, then total clearance — is a compressed parable of Darling Point’s twentieth century.
What stands today
The mansion is gone (1966). Hopewood Gardens apartments occupy the house site; remnant landscape and garden structures are locally listed — view from Thornton Street only; private grounds. Pair with Retford Hall (demolished Hordern neighbour), Babworth (standing Morrow & De Putron sibling), Greenoaks, Lindesay and Swifts.
Sources & further reading
- Dictionary of Sydney — Darling Point (Patricia Jacobsen, 2016), Hopewood demolition note and n.70 (SMH 16 Nov 1950)
- NSW SHR — Babworth House (#01300) — Morrow & De Putron / Lebbeus Hopewood cross-reference
- Woollahra LEP 2014 Schedule 5 — remnant Hopewood items I185 / I186 (13–15 and 21 Thornton Street)
- Federation Home — Morrow and De Putron (SMH 30 Sep 1949 and 16 Nov 1950 quotations; Cazneaux gallery)
- Wikipedia — Hordern family
Related on this blog
- Retford Hall – Darling Point
- Babworth House – Darling Point
- Greenoaks – Darling Point
- Lindesay – Darling Point