Wyldefel Gardens 8A Wylde Street, Potts Point, is not an apartment block with a strong face to its street. In fact, its principal facade is deliberately pointed to the harbour instead.

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It is a classic 1936 Art Deco 20-apartment block designed by architect John Brogan. It was built for a wealthy, prominent art collector, connoisseur and entrepreneur, William Crowle, whose three-storey home on the waterfront was also built into the new terraced design. It emulated the modern European architecture he had seen overseas on sloping blocks.

Crowle was an Adelaide-based bicycle enthusiast who 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 the agent for American Wurlitzer electric organs.

The Crowles spent six months a year touring Europe by caravan or cruising the Mediterranean in their private yacht, moored in Sydney Harbour opposite the Wydelfel Gardens site.  A recently-discovered sepia 1930s photograph shows their single masted yacht, Dindemah, moored in front of the in-house boatshed. The other six months of the year they entertained in lavish style in Sydney.

In 1937, a year after completing Wyldefel Gardens the Crowles went away for three years.

World War II broke out in 1939.

They returned to find the Navy had decided to extend Garden Island and that their house would go. 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. So, in 1941, Crowle had his own apartment/home moved piece by piece, put on a barge and ferried from Potts Point to its current location at Kurraba Point on the north shore where it still stands. The operation attracted widespread media interest as his home floated across the harbour. The other apartments including apartment 11 remained where they were. He then commuted to the city in a launch.

His home was filled with treasures purchased by 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 is a Moderne style/Art Déco complex that cascade 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 [curved] glass … The 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 as much an experiment in living as it was a town planning or architectural project.”

by Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions