This 20-apartment block at 8A Wylde Street, Potts Point, was designed by architect John Brogan and completed in 1936. It was built for a prominent art collector, connoisseur and entrepreneur, William Crowle, whose three-storey home with built-in boat storage was also built into the new design, and later moved to Cremorne Point. The whole design emulated modern German architecture.

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Crowle, who died in 1948 aged 67, was a former Adelaide-based bicycle enthusiast and made his fortune from the motor industry as the first local importer of Citroёn and Buick cars. He preferred to drive a Rolls Royce himself. He introduced Kelvinator and Frigidaire refrigerators into Australia and was also the Wurlitzer organ agent.

Crowle had originally lived in a grand mansion Wildfell, with its slightly different spelling, which stood at the top of the current block having purchased the site in 1923. It was part of a grant made in 1822 to John Wylde, a judge advocate. Wylde divided his land into three parts and sold six acres to Joseph Hyde Potts, a clerk with the original Bank of New South Wales. In 1855 this land changed hands again and Robert Moore built a house called Berryfield on it. Berryfield was demolished and replaced with a two-storey Victorian mansion, Wildlfell, completed in 1887. The Crowles moved into this house in 1923. They spent six months a year travelling, touring Europe by caravan or cruising the Mediterranean in their private yacht which was often moored in Elizabeth Bay. The other six months were spent entertaining lavishly in Sydney.

The unusual terraced design meant that the apartments did not block each other’s view or the view from Wyldefel, the original Crowle family mansion at the top of the site. After the apartments were constructed, Crowle had Wyldefel converted into a luxury boarding house, while a maisonette was built for himself at the Harbour’s edge with a boat house

In 1937, a year after completing Wyldefel Gardens, sometimes spelt Wildelfel, the Crowles went away for three years. They came back to find the Navy had decided to extend Garden Island because of World War II and that their house, a part of Wyldefel, would go as part of land reclamatioons in the area. Because land reclamation by the Government during the war in Potts Point adjacent to the Naval dockyard meant that the house had to be demolished or removed, Crowle had his own section of Wyldefel moved piece by piece in 1941, put on a barge and ferried from Potts Point to its current location at Kurraba Point on the north shore where it still stands. Media interest in the event was heightened with contemporaneous photos of the period showing barges carrying the house across the Harbour.
He then commuted to the city in a launch housed in the boatshed on the ground floor. His home was filled with treasures purchased on international travels. Special niches were made in the walls to display Lalique plaques from Paris and built-in bookshelves displayed his vast book collection.

Wyldefel Gardens, Potts Point, then became a social page fixture, as Sydney’s wealthy continued to embrace apartment living.

Wyldefel Gardens is a Moderne style/Art Déco complex that cascades down its sloping block in Potts Point. Its heritage listing describes it as “an important example of a client-driven application of aesthetics drawing from European examples in Germany and Italy in combination with more traditional influences from Canada. It demonstrates the early use of bent glass … The [original] Art Déco interiors feature functional kitchens with new formica and magnesite finishes.”
It was described as “”arguably the most modern and striking example of residential architecture in Australia. It is a thoroughly integrated concept, combining interior with exterior, building with terrain, yet ensuring privacy from adjoining buildings with the openness of “democratic” and communal central gardens.
It is as much an experiment in living as it was a town planning or architectural project; its social objectives formed part of the news commentary of the day.”

by Andrew Woodhouse
Heritage Solutions