Best 32 Real Estate Agents In Potts Point [2025]

Potts Point Suburb Overview

Potts Point is a small, densely-populated suburb of inner-city Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Potts Point is located 3 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district and is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney.

Potts Point sits on a ridge immediately east of Woolloomooloo, west of Elizabeth Bay and Rushcutters Bay and north of Darlinghurst. The suburb has a roughly trapezoidal shape, and at its greatest extent is no more than 1 kilometre long by 200 metres wide. Potts Point’s eastern boundary is Macleay Street. The suburb’s other boundaries include Darlinghurst Road to the southeast, William Street to the south, Brougham Street and part of Cowper Road to the west.

Kings Cross is not an officially designated suburb of Sydney, but rather a locality encompassed entirely by the suburbs of Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay. Kings Cross is a commercial area that is dominated by bars, restaurants, nightclubs, strip clubs and adult bookstores. Kings Cross railway station is situated beneath Darlinghurst Road and the Garden Island facility of the Royal Australian Navy sits on the north end of Potts Point.

Potts Point is named for Joseph Hyde Potts, who was employed by the Bank of New South Wales. He purchased six-and-a-half acres of harbourside land in an area then known as Woolloomooloo Hill – which he renamed Potts Point.

Much of the area that today comprises Potts Point and the adjacent suburb of Elizabeth Bay, originally constituted part of a land grant to Alexander Macleay, who was the New South Wales Colonial Secretary from 1826 to 1837, and for whom Macleay Street is named. NSW Judge Advocate, John Wylde was another 19th-century public servant who owned land in the area.

The area was further subdivided after Macleay’s time, and a number of grand Georgian mansions were built along the high point of the suburb’s ridge line. Several of these survive , including ‘Rockwall House’ and ‘Tusculum’. Rockwall House, located in Rockwall Crescent, is a two-storey sandstone villa with five bays and a verandah that encircles the house. It was one of the earlier homes designed by architect John Verge and was built from 1831 to 1837. It is the only one of these which has a garden and is in private ownership. The building is now listed on the Register of the National Estate.

Tusculum, located in Manning Street, is a two-storey Regency mansion that was also designed by John Verge. His client was the merchant A.B.Spark, for whom the house was built in 1831-35. It was a twin to Rockwell House and was enlarged in the 1870s by the addition of verandahs on three sides. The first tenant was Bishop Broughton. Tusculum now serves as the headquarters for the NSW chapter of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects. Like Rockwall House, it is listed on the Register of the National Estate.

Other heritage buildings in the area include the Mansions Terrace in Bayswater Road;the terrace and townhouse group extending from 13-29 Challis Avenue;the group of Late Victorian terraces from 1-13 Kellett Street;the gazebo in HMAS Kuttabul;and Bomera and Tarana on the corner of Wylde Street and Cowper Wharf Roadway. These buildings are all listed on the Register of the National Estate.

In 1871, Edmund Blacket built Stramshall in Macleay Street for the Horden family of merchants. Thomas Rowe made further additions in 1877. The house was later known as Jenner House and was taken over by the Department of Defence, who sold it to the horse breeder Tony Peterson in 1998. Peterson sold the house for $15 million in 2009. The house was listed by the National Trust in 1967.

Most of the other mansions, such as Orwell, have survived only as street names. The area also boasts many fine Victorian-era terraces. These are chiefly located along Victoria Street, which bisects Potts Point from north to south, and is widely known for its impressive canopy of plane trees.

Potts Point was the site of some of Australia’s earliest apartment buildings, and from the 1920s through to World War II the area was intensively developed along those lines. As a result, it boasts the highest concentration of Art Deco architecture in Australia. Amongst the most notable examples are the “Macleay Regis”, “Cahors” and “Franconia” apartment buildings in Macleay Street and “Carinthia” and “Carisbrooke” in Springfield Avenue. Arguably two of the finest Streamline Moderne buildings in Australia: the Minerva Theatre and the Minerva Building are in Orwell Street. The Metro Theatre was designed by Bruce Dellit and built in 1940. It was the site of the first Australian production of the musical Hair in 1970, and is heritage-listed.

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