Apartment 5, 13 Springfield Avenue, Potts Point, in the Vanderbuilt building is for sale through Angelo Bouras  https://www.rwebay.com.au/5338716/

It dates from about 1925 and includes pine timber flooring, period door handles, high ceilings with decorative mouldings and cornices and original picture rails.

The Venderbilt was designed by prominent architects, Morrow, De Putron and Gordon.

The site is located on land granted to NSW Attorney General, Alexander Baxter, in 1828 and a villa known as Springfield had been erected on the land by 1832. The land around Springfield was subdivided and sold as individual allotments from January 1924 and Springfield Avenue was created by this subdivision.

Springfield Villa was demolished in 1934. Plans for “residential flats” were approved by Sydney Council on October 20, 1924. Vanderbilt Flats first appears in the Sands Directory of 1926 giving a construction date of about 1925. Its name may be derived from the wealthy American van der Bilt family, giving the apartments an acquired grandeur and provenance for sales promotion reasons.

It was part of a movement which challenged the suburban ideal of a single house on a large garden block that had been promoted since 1900.

It features a terracotta-tiled pitched roof with an “eyelid” dormer tucked under the roof and comprises a band of perfectly-square windows. The façade includes Tuscan columns and is symmetrical with the two central projecting bays, which originally featured balconies, now enclosed. The outer bays incorporate double-hung wooden sash windows. All these features are hallmarks of the neo-Georgian classical revival of that period.

The architectural firm was originally founded by David Thomas Morrow (1871-1935) and William de Putron (1872-1925). Percy James Gordon (1892-1992) became  a junior partner and the firm became Morrow, de Putron and Gordon. With the departure of de Putron in 1925 the firm became Morrow and Gordon even after Morrow resigned in 1932, and continued under the same name until 1992. P.J. Gordon was president of the NSW chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architect from 1944 to 1946.

Other notable commercial buildings designed by the firm include the Grace Building, AWA Building, Grace Brothers Broadway store and the Federal Mutual Chambers.

Important domestic commissions include Babworth House at Darling Point for Samuel Horden and Hopewood House, also at Darling Point, for Lebbeus Horden, both of the famous Hordern Department store fame.

By Andrew Woodhouse, Director, Heritage Solutions