Balmoral House

46 Waterview Street, c.1855, balcony above the portico added 1969

Built for Balmain’s first doctor, Frederick Harpur, Balmoral House is a fine example of a Victorian Georgian villa. Its basic structure follows the conventions of the times: two storeys, five upstairs windows, two downstairs windows either side of a central front door, chimneys at either end of a hipped roof. The architect Edmund Blacket’s home, Bidura House (357 Glebe Point Road, built in 1858) is on a similar scale and follows an almost identical pattern.

Harpur, however, had grander aspirations than Blacket. Unlike the humbler brick of Bidura, Balmoral House proudly displays its expensive stone walls, and its conventional twelve-paned windows are given a touch of grandeur with ornamental lintels supported by stone brackets above each window, and decorative stonework panels below the sills.

In spite of its restrained ornamentation, Balmoral House, like Bidura, relies mainly on harmonious proportions for its beauty. In this, as well in its ornamentation, it harks back to the buildings of ancient Greece which inspired so many colonial architects.

A photo c. 1890 shows the house much as it looks today, except for the balcony above the portico and a balustrade along the verandah.