Courtesy Walter Burley Griffin Society Inc
(click for larger)
The suburb of Castlecrag incorporates Australia’s most significant and complete urban landscape designs and buildings by the architect Walter Burley Griffin. The GSDA land purchase from the Association of North Sydney Debenture Holders in 1920 included 92 acres in the peninsula on the south side of Edinburgh Road, which Griffin named the Castlecrag Estate as the prominent rock in what is now Tower Reserve reminded him of the ‘Castle Rock’ on which Edinburgh Castle stands. Griffin sub-divided the estate in early 1921 and construction commenced of two demonstration houses owned by the company. They were completed for the first auction sale of Castlecrag Estate lots on 26 November 1921. Four dwellings funded by GSDA shareholders in The Parapet were completed by the end of 1922.
The early houses were constructed of sandstone quarried from the roads, but from 1924 several houses were constructed using knitlock roofing and wall tiles. These concrete blocks had been developed by Griffin in Canberra with assistance from David Jenkins and Malcolm Moore and were patented in 1917. The machines to make the bricks were designed by Moore and a simple factory was established in Castlecrag to manufacture the knitlock tiles.
Walter and Marion Griffin moved permanently to Castlecrag in the autumn of 1925 and the following year they purchased two additional portions to the east of the Castlecrag Estate. Named The Haven Estate, this land was developed as an extension of the existing sub-division. In both the Castlecrag and The Haven Estates, the foreshore land was designated as bushland reserves. The Griffins’ vision for Castlecrag was of a community quite different from a typical Sydney suburb. The design of the roads and allotments responded to the rocky landscape with the winding roads following the contours of the landforms. Communal areas were linked together with a network of walkways and reserves to provide open spaces, retain views and achieve maximum amenity for all residents. Equally important was respect for the native Australian landscape which the Griffins had come to understand and admire.
In summary, they set out to demonstrate in Castlecrag that architecture and landscape should be integrated so that ‘…each individual can feel that the whole of the landscape is his. No fences, no boundaries, no red roofs to spoil the Australian landscape; these are some of the features that will distinguish Castlecrag.‘
Their vision was not widely shared by Sydney home buyers and land sales languished, while only 15 of the many buildings that Griffin designed for the suburb were constructed. Road construction in the rocky terrain proved expensive and as economic conditions worsened during the decade the GSDA found itself in a difficult financial position. Nevertheless, the Griffins sought to protect the foreshore land from development by ensuring that many kilometres of Middle Harbour natural bushland foreshore was protected from building.
The post-war housing boom finally saw rapid residential development in the suburb. While many of the buildings lacked sympathy with the Griffins’ concept, a number of outstanding buildings to designs by leading modern Australian architects were also built, including examples by Griffin’s partner Eric Nicholls, Hugh Buhrich, Peter Muller, Bill Lucas, Harold Smith, Harry Seidler and Alex Popov.
The Castlecrag village shopping centre dates from 1924 when four shops and a residence were constructed to Walter Griffin’s design. The shops, which housed the suburb’s first baker, mercer, greengrocer and butcher, have now been incorporated into the much larger Griffin Centre. Shops on the north side of Edinburgh Road are located on the site of the former 2FC radio station transmitter, which was reserved for commercial purposes in 1928-29. All the lots were sold by 1938, but the first shops were not completed until 1941-42 and the last were opened in 1950.

Village on 15 August 1978.
WDHS Archives, donated by Harry Fox.
Proposals for a large shopping complex on the south side of Edinburgh Road generated community opposition regarding its scale and style at the entrance to the suburb. The plans were referred to the Local Government Appeals Tribunal, which required a significant reduction in scale and The Quadrangle Shopping Village was formally opened by the Mayor of Willoughby, Alderman Noel Reidy, on 15 August 1978. In recent years the shopping village has become a popular food and wine venue, with a range of restaurants and sidewalk eating areas.
Click here for Castlecrag map
Griffin Conservation Area
The Castlecrag and Haven Estates are outstanding early examples of subdivision which respected the landscape character of an area, created community environments and provided shared views. The Griffin Conservation Area encompasses these two estates to the extent that Griffin developed his road system (The Bulwark and The Scarp) in the early 1930s.
The estates are a larger more complete demonstration of principles the Griffins had developed in the United States and during their first seven years in Australia. These innovative principles involved subdivision, contoured roads embedded in the sandstone topography and engineering processes that were aimed at conserving the sandstone terrain, stream systems, indigenous bushland and harbour foreshore, and provided extensive reserves and walkways through the estates that created an integrated open space network.
The estates embody the sense of community and social connection from the Griffins, the first investors and the Griffins’ friends sought a community with a strong sense of connection to the place. Long established community facilities include the Haven Amphitheatre, the Community Centre, the Griffin shops, tennis courts, reserves and walkways. The estates are unique in their application of small lots in a spectacular harbour setting with public vistas and filtered views providing the suburban ideal, though subordinated to the landscape.
Heritage Items
Castlecrag has 35 heritage listed items within its boundaries relating to early European settlement in the area, the works of Walter Burley Griffin and his partner Eric Milton Nicholls and examples of outstanding designs by modern Australian architects.
Waterfront Cottages
WDHS collection
Griffin Centre shops
RF McKillop photo.
GSDA demonstration houses
WDHS collection
RF McKillop photo
Johnson House, 4 The Parapet
This is one of the demonstration houses financed by a GSDA shareholder, Sir William Elliot Johnson, MHR and Speaker of the House of Representatives. The design uses a 40ft (12.23m) square constructed of local sandstone with prominent corner piers. The house is orientated towards the harbour view with a bank of French windows leading to a portico and dramatic rounded windows set within radiating voussoirs on either side. The garage, constructed in 1965, was designed by Eric Nicholls. The present owners have restored many of the original features since 2006.
Grant House, 8 The Parapet
RF McKillop photo
PG Mercer House, 10 The Parapet
RF McKillop photo
Moon House, 12 The Parapet
RF McKillop photo
Cheong House, 14 The Parapet
Photo courtesy Robin Phelan
Griffin Memorial Fountain
Harry Fox photo, WDHS collection
RF McKillop photo
O’Malley House/Cabarisha Hospital, 152 Edinburgh Road
WDHS collection photo
In 1933 Rivett engaged Griffin to design extensions to provide for a 20-bed hospital, which he called Cabarisha after a legendary American Indian healer. In 1933 Eric Nicholls prepared the design for his first Castlecrag building, the Cabarisha Hospital nurses’ quarters at 6 The Battlement. Nicholls designed further additions to the hospital building in 1940 and there have been several additions and remodelling since then. Now the Castlecrag Private Hospital, the complex is operated by the Ramsay Health Care Group.
Felstead House, 156 Edinburgh Road
Max Dupain photo courtesy Walter Burley Griffin Society.
The Felsteads occupied the house until 1929, when it was bought by Edward Beeby, the son of the prominent NSW judge and former politician, Sir George Beeby. A solicitor, Edward had represented Walter in his legal conflicts with Melbourne-based GSDA shareholders during 1926 and in the 1928 Rivett court case. He had been drawn to Castlecrag by the Griffins’ ideas and the family, Edward, Ruby and their four children, became engaged with the Castlecrag community. Edward, however, abandoned his wife and family shortly afterwards, so Sir George stepped in to support his daughterin-law and grandchildren. Edward retained title to the property until September 1941, when it was transferred to his mother, Lady Helena Beeby.
RF McKillop photo.
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Guy House, 23 The Bastion
Photo courtesy Walter Burley Griffin Society
Pangloss/Camelot, 3 The Bastion
RF McKillop photo
For the Baracchi house, Nicholls successfully executed an unusual plan on a steeply sloping escarpment, providing a central sandstone Martello tower that was clearly intended to be used for live theatrical performances. This evidently adopted a core feature from Griffin’s unbuilt project home for JS Symington in The Rampart, a single-storey circular house with a central fireplace. For daily living, the turret provided a stunning living room with a focal sandstone fireplace to the southwest, while an entry foyer and bedroom wing was located on the southern side and a kitchen, dining room and garage formed the northern wing.1
There were delays when the builder was bankrupted during construction and it was not until August 1939 that the couple was able to move into the house. Betty Roland wrote:
Eric Nicholls had excelled himself. He had designed much more impressive buildings, huge office blocks and houses only millionaires could afford. Ours was small and elegant, a jewel of a house built of honey-coloured stone and even now, when Castlecrag has been discovered by the millionaires, it is unique.2
Betty later wrote:
The large circular room that was the hub of the house had been planned so that it could be converted into a stage by the simple expedient of pushing back the folding doors that opened onto the wide verandah with its cantilevered roof and the terraces lawn beyond. Good weather was, of course, imperative, as the audience sat outside and gazed upwards at the performance taking place on stages one [the living room] and two [the turret roof].3
pool replacing the former ‘play viewing area’ and the new residential annex in the background.
RF McKillop photo
The present owners, who purchased the house in 1974, have a deep respect for its design and social history. They have added a compact residential wing and a swimming pool located on the former forecourt lawn. There has been considerable expenditure on maintaining its features and the house is immaculately presented.
Camelot is listed by the National Trust (NSW) and on Willoughby City’s LEP as being of local heritage significance. It was assessed by the heritage architects Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners in 2004 as an outstanding example of Eric Nicholls’ architecture and it is one of four Nicholls buildings in the LGA rated as being of State significance. The National Trust ‘Classification Report’ states:
RF McKillop photo
Although atypical in suburbia generally, an unconventional and artistic lifestyle was typical of the bohemian occupants of Castlecrag. The layout of the Pangloss, particularly the small kitchen, study and large living area intended for theatricals, provides physical evidence of the Castlecrag resident’s [sic] unconventional lifestyle, their literary pursuits and the active social life that existed in the suburb before World War II.”4
–Bob McKillop
Acknowledgement: I am grateful to Bob and Jenny Wright for their assistance in documenting this tribute to Pangloss / Camelot.
Mower House, 12 The Rampart
Built in 1926 on rocky and steep terrain, this was the first knitlock house with a flat roof, a feature that led to significant problems with leaks. The small rectangular house was orientated to gain advantage of the view and straddled the rocky ledge. The setting enabled easy access to the roof via a small ‘bridge’. There have been numerous alterations and additions to the house over the years and little of the original structure is visible from the street.
Creswick House, 4 The Barbette
This small knitlock house constructed in 1926 was the first of three Griffin-designed houses sited on top of the ridge in The Barbette with setbacks staggered to allow views past each other to Middle Harbour. The present owners have constructed a new residence below the ridge, leaving the Griffin house, which retains its original form, free from new rooms and services. It is accordingly one of the most intact of the Griffin houses, retaining its original door and windows, and most of the original joinery. Its view from the street has, however, been severely restricted by vegetation.
Wilson House, 2 The Barbette
Completed in 1929 for Roy and Beryl Wilson, this linear stone house is one of the most intriguing of Griffin’s Castlecrag houses. It features a sequential presentation of spaces with a central hall opening to an octagonal living room at the southern end with a massive stone fireplace. This room was often used for community concerts and play readings. A small self-contained dwelling designed by architect Clive Buhrich was subsequently constructed beyond the house at a lower level.
Duncan House, 8 The Barbette
WDHS collection photo
EA Deans House, 170 Edinburgh Road
Courtesy Margo Watson
Phil Ward photo, courtesy Margo Watson
The house is heritage-listed on the Willoughby Local Environment Plan. While regarded as a good example of the work or Eric Nicholls, unsympathetic additions over the years have reduced its value as an example of the architect’s work.6
The Griffin house, 8 Rockley Street
Designed by the modernist architect Alex Popov- The Griffinhouse won the 1990 Robin Boyd Award, the highest national architecture prize for residential work. The judges as described it: ‘a reverent tribute to Griffin … but a beautiful and liveable building, which responds to the needs of the client and the constraints of the site‘. The house comprises three pavilions (living, dining and sleeping) constructed of deeply contorted brickwork and connected by a columned corridor around a pool and terraces. The Griffin legacy is referenced by areas of sandstone walls as part of the facade.
Fishwick House, 15 The Citadel
RF McKillop photo.
RF McKillop photo
Moriarty House, 215 Edinburgh Road
RF McKillop photo
Audette House, 265-267 Edinburgh Road
Edinburgh Road in 2005.
RF McKillop photo
Buhrich House, 375 Edinburgh Road
Described by noted architect Peter Muller as “the finest modernist house in Australia”, this house is nested under a cliff edge beside Middle Harbour at the eastern point of the Castlecrag peninsula. It was designed by the German Jewish architect Hugh Buhrich in the mid-1960s. Hugh and his architect wife Eva had arrived in Australia as Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany in 1939 and this house was largely self-built between 1968 and 1972 as their own home. Its most distinctive features are the copper-clad sinusoidal south-facing roof and floating concrete wall panel. Fitting snugly into its rocky bushland water-side setting, the late 20th century structuralist style house has become a classic cult object “more celebrated abroad than at home.”7
Parks and Reserves
Griffin Reserves and Walkways
A key feature of the Griffin Conservation Area is the network of walkways and reserves behind the residences. Griffin’s plan for the model suburb involved 20 per cent of the land at Castlecrag being set aside for parkland, considerably more than that required by the local council at the time. The reserves, some for active recreational use, buy most for passive, were linked together by a network of walkways, providing the community with ample space for recreation and bushwalking while retaining the bushland setting. In 1940, Marion Griffin gifted the open space of the reserves and walkways, including four kilometres of foreshore land, to Willoughby Municipal Council under a Deed of Trust.
During World War II and the following decades much of the reserve and walkway system fell into disrepair and there was considerable encroachment onto public land by residents. In 1997, Willoughby City Council commissioned consultants to prepare a Plan of Management for the Griffin reserves and walkways. It concluded that the open space management system of Castlecrag is significant in Australia and other countries as an innovative demonstration of the protection of the natural landscape character and the provision of open space in a garden suburb. It set out management principles for the overall system and provided action plans for each reserve, while a Griffin Reserves Advisory Group was established to facility community inputs into the management of the reserves.
Turrent Reserve opens on to The Rampart and is also reached by an outstanding Griffin walkway running from The Postern to The Parapet. This offers excellent views over neighbouring gardens and the escarpment to Northbridge and Middle Harbour. The reserve features uniquely linked sandstone escarpment and rock platforms that offer vistas over Northbridge.
Particular attention has been given by Council contractors to restoring the linked Embrasure and Gargoyle Reserves between Edinburgh Road and The Bulwark. Here the vegetation had become overgrown and access was restricted by encroachments. Access is now available via rebuilt stone stairways and the walkway links though to the Oriel Reserve. This reserve formed a pivotal function in the Griffin open space system connecting five pedestrian access ways and linking lineal reserves beneath a major sandstone escarpment complex. The path from The Citadel to The Bastian via Oriel Reserve provides pedestrian access to the Haven Amphitheatre.
The Haven Amphitheatre
Photo courtesy Walter Burley Griffin Society
Marion had limited involvement in architectural matters during their Castlecrag years, instead pouring her energy into the making of community life at Castlecrag. She was the driving force behind the establishment of the Haven Valley Scenic Theatre, an open-air theatre developed in a natural glen beside the waters of Middle Harbour. Bim Hilder led the team of local volunteers who constructed the theatre using local sandstone to form the tiered seats. Marion was involved in production, set and costume design for more than 12 plays at the theatre between 1930 and 1936.
The productions ceased during the war years and the site became overgrown and strewn with debris. When the community of Castlecrag came together to celebrate its Griffin Heritage as part of Sydney’s American Bicentennial celebrations in 1976, it took on the task of restoring the theatre.
RF McKillop photo
Since that very successful reopening, the amphitheatre has presented many theatrical and musical events including performances by stars of the Australian Opera, the Willoughby Symphony Orchestra, jazz concerts, poetry readings, plays, community events, the occasional wedding, arties and pantomimes and the now legendary Carols on Christmas Eve.
Click here for more information on forthcoming events: http://www.thehaven.biz/
References
1 National Trust of Australia (NSW), ‘Classification Report, Camelot formerly Pangloss, Castlecrag’, August 2004, p 5.
2 Roland, Betty, The Eye of the Beholder. Sydney, Hale & Iremonger, 1984, p 154.
3 Betty Roland, ‘Where’s Pearl Harbour’, in Castlecrag, Castlecrag Infants School Club, 1972, p 52.
4 National Trust of Australia (NSW), ‘Classification Report’, as above, pp 1-2.
5 Margo Watson (nee Deans), interview at Castlecrag, 3 October 2012.
6 ‘The Architecture of Eric M Nicholls in the Willoughby City Council Area’. Monograph by Clive Lucas, Stapleton & Partners, 2004, pp 34-36.
7 Elizabeth Farrelly, http://www.sydneyarchitecture.com/NOR/NOR11.htm