Aviation pioneer’s Sydney terrace hits the market with $7m hopes

A grand terrace with a century-old piece of Australian history beneath its floorboards has hit the market in Sydney.

The four-storey residence at 44 Roslyn Gardens, Rushcutters Bay was once home to British-born Australian inventor and explorer Lawrence Hargrave.

Hargrave is best known for inventing the box kite and pioneering modern aviation. 

He was born and raised in Greenwich, England, before travelling to Sydney as a teenager to live with his family.

The grand home, known as Airlie, was one of three terrace houses built by Hargrave in the 1890s, funded by the sale of family-owned coal mining land in the Illawarra.

He undertook much of his aeronautical research in the workshop beneath one of the terraces. Hargrave died in 1915 aged 65 following surgery complications from appendicitis.

Over the decades, the terrace has changed hands and undergone many transformations.

Sydney barrister Elisa Holmes SC, of Eleven Wentworth chambers, and her family have owned the property since 2020.

“I fell in love with this big terrace and its incredible high ceilings from the minute I walked in”, Holmes said.

“Just before we bought it, the home had been extensively renovated, it had actually been a well-known art gallery, and the owner did a full top-to-bottom renovation, right down to under house drainage and enclosing balconies to add bathrooms.”

Holmes is selling the five-bedroom property with auction price hopes of $7 million.

“It’s a lot of house for a terrace, and there’s still more scope, there’s a very large storeroom that could easily become another bedroom or a study”, she said.

SOLD

44 Roslyn Gardens, Rushcutters Bay NSW 2011

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“Every level has its own outdoor space, and the two separate entrances make it ideal for multi-generational living or a live-in nanny.”

The property is being taken to auction by Thomas Popple and Ashley Bierman of Ray White Double Bay, alongside co-agent Harriet France of Sotheby’s International Realty.