This magnificent and decrepit homestead in Sydney's Inner West has quite a complex back story.
Locals report the house was inhabited by an eccentric elderly woman for the past 20 or 30 years. It was during her stay in Brooklyn that the house fell into a state of disrepair. She relocated, selling up the property in mid-2000s to a company that owned the site until 2015 when Brooklyn went up for auction and sold for $700, 000.
Although the homestead is a crumbling disaster zone it has a conservation order due to its historic significance. William Richards, the designer & builder of the Appian Way houses, purchased Brooklyn in 1903 from Miss Mary Spain. He was a self taught designer and builder who came from Wales with his young wife Gwenda Jane originally in 1879 but due to homesickness returned and finally settled in Australia in 1881. Although he did not have any formal architectural training he had extensive building experience in the United Kingdom, Mittagong, and Bowral and had built several City buildings.
His reputation as a reliable builder was probably well established by the time he came to Burwood and he was contracted to build the 36 houses in George Hoskin’s model housing estate. While in Burwood he also built shops in Burwood Road, the tower on Saint Paul’s church and the observatory (now demolished) at the rear of George Hoskins’ Saint Cloud.
By the time of my visit in 2017 the house was still a sad case of neglect; its grounds progressively growing a healthy, tough forest of weeds and cobblers pegs.
Behind the padlocked doors and boarded up windows, no one was looking through the torn curtains on the upper level. As the rain gently fell from its eaves, Brooklyn was sitting in absolute silence; unaware to the outside world.
Source: Burwood & District Historical Society Inc; Domain.
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