22nd July

There were some developments this week on finishing off the house, however, gigantic rains have once again stalled the finishing.

Greg and Ritcho came down and sorted all the little things like putting a weather strip on the front door, straightening up a couple of kitchen doors. They pulled up the green, outdoor, soggy carpet and began to lay the timber decking replacement. It was funny to see them lifting the long timber up the front of the building.

I have spent a few hours tracing the history of this building and have found several more photographs of it. It seems the property was owned by the Kemp family, then Edward Parnell had an interest in it. He sold it to  Joseph Morris who was the hotelkeeper at The George Hotel - the old hotel that was pulled down after the earthquake on the corner of Scott and Watt sts. In the 1925's he built a structure on the site (a hotel?) and negotiated the party wall with the AMP Society. By 1935 it was owned by the Queensland Insurance Company (started by Burns and Philp - later QBE) and the architect William Jeater altered the building and used on its face four inch thick glazed terra cotta which had been the fashion on banks in Martin Place in Sydney but not previously used in Newcastle. Some time in the late 1950's or early 1960's the building was purchased by MacDonald Hamilton Shipping Agents who were the agents for P & O Lines in Australia until the late sixties. The building may then have been directly owned by the P&O Line as the sign still sits out the front. I don't think the re-modelling of the front into a shop-front occurred until the late 1980's or even later. It subsequently housed many shops, including The Wilderness Society headquarters for a long time. Then we bought it...and turned downstairs back into offices and began to re-modelled upstairs...the rest is history ...as they say...!