Queen Victoria Sanatorium Wentworth Falls site listed
The 372-hectare Queen Victoria Memorial Hospital site in the Blue Mountains has been relisted for sale.
The former Edwardian hospital at Wentworth Falls – once a major facility for the treatment of tuberculosis – will go to September 20 auction through MMJ Real Estate agents Chris Johnson and Bob Houston.
It was closed in 1999 then sold in 2000 for $2 million to Longevity Management Systems, which proposed a retirement village before receivers took possession.
The Tableland Road property then sold again for $2 million to interests associated with coalmining tycoon Max Dunbier. Dunbier is a former MLA in New South Wales State Parliament and former managing director of Heggies Bulkhaul Limited and Helensburgh Coal Pty Limited. He is currently the founder and managing director of Sada Pty Limited.
Buddy Wakim, of the Sydney entrepreneurial Wakim Group, who had the property under option since 2006, didn't succeed with its 2008 listing and has let the option lapse.
Set on the Kings Tableland Plateau, the heritage-listed property is four kilometres south of the Great Western Highway.
An 1890 country cottage built by Sir Kelso King became the nucleus of the tuberculosis sanatorium in 1903, which was run by Dr Malcolm Sinclair.
The climate of the Blue Mountains was deemed highly suitable for recuperation.
King had offloaded the property in 1901 after the death of his first wife.
The hospital complex was designed by George Sydney Jones. After 1911, the Queen Victoria Homes became a state-funded hospital.
It remained a chest hospital until 1958, when it was converted to a hospital for the aged.
After World War II the hospital garden was partly re-designed by the gardener Paul Sorensen, who introduced more lawn and shrubs.
