The Hampton apartments, 15 Bayswater Road, Rushcutters Bay, is now a nine-storey, high-end apartment block of 121 apartments, but was also once a glamorous hotel.

Apartment 615 is currently for sale through Angelo Bouras and Thomas Arthurs https://www.rwebay.com.au/8076283/ 

It’s adaptive reuse part of a continuing evolutionary renaissance of the area as a prime residential area. 

Local playwright and distinguished author, Louis Nowra, says in his recent book, “Kings Cross: A Biography,” … it’s always been a place of transformation and invention.”

The former Hampton Court Hotel was closed in 1998 for a complete rebuild. Conversion of old hotels to apartments was a trend after the 2000 Sydney Olympics which removed over 2,000 hotel rooms from the market, mainly around inner-city fringe districts. Converted hotels included well-known landmarks such as The Gazebo, Top of the Town, Sebel Townhouse, Oxford Koala, Chateau Hotel and The Rex.

The Hampton is the site of former Goderich Lodge, one of the original 1830s grand villas in the wider Darlinghurst area. Goderich Lodge, named after a British Prime Minister and designed by John Verge, also architect of Elizabeth Bay House, was sold in 1841 and rented by the First Bishop of Australia, Rev. Dr. William Grant Broughton. His wife died in the house in 1849. The next tenant was Surveyor-General, Samuel Augustus Perry, and in the 1850s it was purchased by Frederick Tooth of Tooth’s Brewery fame who later sold it to a shipping merchant, Captain Charles Smith. Captain Smith died at Goderich in 1897 and his wife Marjorie stayed on at the home until 1904 when her daughter married. It was demolished in 1915 and the Hampton Court Hotel erected.

The hotel was famous and hosted celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and the rock group AC/DC.

In 1966 the hotel was partly the subject of a movie, “They’re a Weird Mob”, (1966) starring ‘Chips’ Rafferty and Walter Chiari, tracing the humorously naive antics of an Italian new arrival, Nino, in Sydney. 

Footage shows original 1960s streetscapes and nightspots.

See this snippet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw–7pQipBY

By Andrew Woodhouse, Director, Heritage Solutions