Yahoo Finance Sydney castle with a tower goes on sale: Extremely rare
Ever wanted to be lord or lady of your own castle? Well now you can be, with an extremely rare Sydney property hitting the market.
Named ‘Pangloss’, the landmark property in the north shore suburb of Castlecrag was designed in 1939 by Australian architects Walter Burley Griffin and Eric Nicholls.
The property at 3 The Bastion, Castlecrag, includes a ‘Martello tower’. Martello towers were traditionally coastal forts built by the British in the 1800s.
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It’s thought to be one of only two Martello towers in the Southern Hemisphere, with the other one located at Fort Denison in Sydney Harbour.
The tower is flanked by two symmetrical wings, all made from natural sandstone.
The single-level property includes four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a pool and an outdoor shower, and stretches over 636 square metres.
From the rooftop there are views of Sailor Bay and glimpses of Middle Harbour.
The property was originally built by Griffin - the American architect who also designed Canberra - and Nicholls for Guido Baracchi - one of the founding members of Australia’s Communist Party - and his wife, writer Betty Roland.
It is believed they gave the house its name Pangloss after a character in Voltaire’s satire Candide.
The round room was reportedly used to host Baracchi’s weekly Marxist classes and to stage Roland’s plays, with the circular tower offering superior acoustics.
Heritage architect Robert Moore later made some additions to the house and reworked the wings into a bedroom, bathroom, laundry and storage.
The Castlecrag suburb itself was designed and developed by Griffin and his wife, architect Marion Mahony Griffin, who moved to the suburb in the mid-1920s.
He gave Castlecrag its name after a crag overlooking Middle Harbour, known locally as Edinburgh Castle.
The property was last sold in September 2018, for $4.1 million.
The property goes to auction on November 24. It has a $4.8 million price guide.
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