Members Hour: Elizabeth Bay House
Welcome to Members Hour at Elizabeth Bay House.
Colonial secretary Alexander Macleay was the second most important public official in the colony of NSW, with a salary and aspirations to match. In 1835 he started to build the ultimate trophy house on a magnificent waterfront site near the fashionable suburb of Woolloomooloo Hill, now Potts Point. The ‘finest house in the colony’ when it was completed, Elizabeth Bay House covered 54 acres (22 hectares) of prime harbourside real estate, set among rugged sandstone outcrops and spectacular landscaped gardens, and took in sweeping views up the harbour towards the Heads.
Guided by our museum experts, members will have the unique opportunity to explore the servants’ quarters in the attic, which are rarely open to the public and reveal the differences between the lives of domestic servants and of the family they served. You’ll also see the servants’ stairs, screened from the saloon and providing discreet access to all levels of the house.
You are invited to stay and enjoy the site after Members Hour.
Bookings essential; registrations open soon.
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Members Hour provides members with exclusive access at our properties. Members enjoy exclusive events, experiences, discounts and priority access to tickets
Find out moreElizabeth Bay House Stories
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Watch pockets
Watch pockets hung on the head cloth of a four-post bedstead and originally served in place of bedside tables, which were uncommon in the 19th century
Here and there: concert playlist
Experience a concert at Elizabeth Bay House showcasing a magical evening contrasting two different musical worlds
Florilegium plants
Queensland kauri pine
The kauri’s journey from the rainforests of Queensland to the garden at Elizabeth Bay illustrates the close links between gentlemen gardeners and the Botanic Garden
King's Cross: bohemian life In Sydney
Artists, intellectuals, writers, radicals, revellers and misfits made Sydney's King's Cross home from the early years of the 20th century well into the 1970s