Cahors is a classic local building with a controversial past.  Apartment 53 is currently for sale through Angelo Bouras and Thomas Arthurs  https://www.rwebay.com.au/8056513/

Cahors, 117 Macleay Street, with its French Royale connection is named after the gorgeous French Provencale village of the same name. Its sky-blue facade colour was given to the village townsfolk by Henry IV circa 1582 after they harboured him. It was the King’s own Colour L’officiel. Cahors apartments adopts this colour.

Cahors harbours a secret. It was used by ASIO to bug KGB Colonel Petrov, a Russian spy and defector in the 1950s inside an apartment. Petrov did not live in Cahors, apparently. Two of the units on the third floor were used by ASIO for his entrapment, one for Petrov’s entertainment and the adjoining unit for recording equipment.

Cahors was built by Joseland & Gilling in 1941, boasted specially imported carpets, a central basement fridge compressor, a “house telephone system” connected to Llankelly Place shops “enabling orders to immediately fulfilled” and the Potts Point Post Office, where today’s chocolate shop now is.

Its exterior Art Deco characteristics include setback windows, a decorative facade and terracotta tracery.In 1954 ASIO persuaded top-ranking Soviet agent Petrov to hand over secrets about other KGB agents operating in Australia. They cultivated him with oysters, whisky and Kings Cross women. ASIO bugged him inside Cahors’ third floor units. His wife, Evdokia, a Captain in the KGB, was rushed back to Russia by the KGB but was dragged off the plane at Darwin in a dramatic diplomatic coup flashed around the world. They later lived in Melbourne under pseudonyms.

See this brief summary about the dramatic Petrov affair:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV-3U38E1rY

By Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions