Vaucluse House

Vaucluse House is a historic estate in Gothic Revival style in the harbourside suburb of Vaucluse in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The suburb takes its name from this house. Vaucluse House is a 19th-century estate with house, kitchen wing, stables and outbuildings, surrounded by 28 acres (9 hectares) of formal gardens and grounds. It is managed by the Historic Houses Trust of New South Wales as a museum that is open to the public.

The original Vaucluse House was built by Sir Henry Brown Hayes, who had been transported to New South Wales in 1802 for kidnapping the daughter of a wealthy Irish banker.Governor King considered Hayes "a restless, troublesome character" and was keen to move him 3 km away from Sydney. So in 1803 Hayes was granted permission to purchase the land and house, which was originally granted to Thomas Laycock in 1793 and Robert Cardell in 1795. An avid admirer of the 14th-century poet Petrarch, Hayes named the house after Petrarch's Fontaine de Vaucluse, the famous spring near the town l'Isle sur la Sorgue in what is today the Department of Vaucluse in the South of France. He built a small but charming cottage and several outbuildings. 50 acres (20 hectares) were cleared for agriculture and several thousand fruit trees were planted, none of which survive. Newspaper accounts describe it as a small but very charming farm. There is some warrant for the story that Hayes surrounded his property with turf from Ireland to keep out the snakes. In 1812 Hayes was pardoned by Governor Macquarie and sailed to Ireland where he lived another 20 years. Ownership of the property became uncertain until it was acquired in 1822 by Captain John Piper.

...
Wikipedia