Kerever Park, Burradoo NSW

Kerever Park, Burradoo 

Caerleon, Bellevue Hill, 1885

The original residence was built in the 1880s as a gentleman’s retreat for Charles Fairfax, and has been substantially added to over time and is now complemented by various cottages and outbuildings. The residential buildings offer in excess of 100 rooms.

Kerever Park was built for Charles Fairfax while he also built Caerleon, Bellevue Hill, the first Queen Anne Style house in Australia in 1885.

• See also Federation Queen Anne style

This building also has the asymmetric gables and ribbed chimneys of the Queen Anne Style, but owes some design ideas to the Gothic Revival for the 90 degree gables, and Arts and Crafts styles for the sweeping verandahs.

• See also Venice, Randwick Heritage
  
  

Kerever Park, Burradoo NSW- The former convent at Kerever Park, Riversdale Avenue, Burradoo, is expected to sell for about $4 million.

Kerever Park occupies over 2 hectares at the corner intersection of Hurlingham Avenue, Ranelagh Road and Riverdale Avenue at Burradoo, near Bowral. 

For much of its life Kerever Park has been under the care of the Sacred Heart Society and Missionaries, who used it as a boarding school, a House of Retreats, a House of Prayer and Retirement for elderly Sisters and a Centre of holiday relaxation for young and old.
After 1965 the old property found a new role as a family holiday, conference and retreat centre. Kerever Park was famous for its flower displays and gardens up to the 1990s.

The garden includes a number of old and very significant trees including a large Sequoiadendron giganteum and one of only two known mature examples in New South Wales of Caucasian fir Abies normanniana, Picea smithiana, Cedrus atlantica, Cryptomeria japonica, a multi-trunked Cryptomeria japonica elegans, Thuya plicata, several oaks, and birches at the western end of the property. 

A formal driveway enters the property from the corner of Ranelagh Road and Riversdale Avenue, and there are formal gardens, large shrubs and pathways on the northern side of the buildings.

Some of the buildings and landscaping date back to the 1880s when Charles Fairfax built a substantial home, coach house, stable and hayloft there. The property, which was much larger at the time, was run as a dairy farm.

In its C130 year history the property has seen life as a grand residence, a school, a convent and today continues to be a property of great diversity.

The land has an area of 2.68 hectares and offers three street frontages.

References

• What’s Happening to Kerever Park Burradoo? By Laurel Cheetham -
  http://www.gardenhistorysociety.org.au/branches/southern_highlands/inflorescence_winter_2012.pdf accessed 15-09-2012
• KEREVER PARK BOWRAL/BURRADOO -http://www.bowrallandsales.com.au/bls_properties/kerever-park-burradoo.htmlaccessed 15-09-2012
• Domain Title Deeds by Margi Blok -http://smh.domain.com.au/real-estate-news/the-10-million-view-20120914-25vne.htmlaccessed 15-09-2012