My Day At Swifts: A historic sandstone mansion, never open to the public before

The day started at the impressive front gate. The house rests on the top of a hill overlooking Sydney Harbour. The view is not what it once was with houses and tall units blocks being built all round. There are still glimpses but frankly with a house like this would you ever be looking at the water. We were conveyed to the leafy, luxurious harbourside locale in the equally luxurious Peugeot 508 eHDI micro-hybrid but more about that next week. Swifts is a mansion of European proportions being built mostly of sandstone. It’s had a chequered career but is now back in private hands as a family home. Only the ground floor rooms were on view as the first floor is occupied by the family. It was nice to see evidence of family occupation such as the TV and DVD player. 27 Million AUD was spent on the renovation so that says a lot about what condition it had been left in. There are some touches yet to be added such as some of the chandeliers and other such fittings. These all disappeared during the years of dereliction. The house was  left to the Catholic Church along with a huge sum for renovations but this money was taken by the church for use elsewhere and the house was allowed to crumble. The pics loosely follow our tour though this magnificent home so please enjoy.