Blue Mountains sandstone ruins sell for $1.2 million

The 1882 Faulconbridge residence, Eurama, one of the grandest NSW castellated pioneer homes, which is now sandstone ruins has been sold for $1,225,000 to the Donghua Group.

The house on the 93 hectare holding has been dilapidated since being gutted by a 1968 Blue Mountains bushfire.

It sold through Jonathan Crisp at Chapman Real Estate under mortgagee instructions.

It was built by politician land dealer Andrew McCulloch after the property was bought from the retired chief justice, Sir Alfred Stephen, for 3800 pounds. Costing about #13,000, colonial architect George Mansfield designed it with furnishings by Lyon, Cottier & Co. But by the late 1880s McCulloch was bankrupt. McCulloch's coat of arms, however, remains above the its missing main door, Vi et Animo meaning By Strength and By Courage.

The neighbours included other powerful colonial figures such as the Father of Federation, Sir Henry Parkes, and Sir James Martin, the former premier of NSW.

By the late 1880s, after McCulloch was bankrupt Eurama sold to importer J.W. Cliff, one time owner of Elizabeth Farm, and his wife, Jessie, the parents of 16 children.

Part of the Eurama castle estate comprised individual building lots has already been sold with homes under construction.

The latest 93 hectares of land had been offered as divided into 15 lots. The estate came with an ornamental lake, once used for small sailing boats.

Originally known as Weemala, an aboriginal word said to mean an expansive view, the name changed in 1907 to Eurama, a Greek word meaning much the same.

The sandstone ruins can be seen from the train and from the Great Western Highway opposite Todarello’s Fruit House at Faulconbridge.

This article was first published in the Sunday Telegraph.