Breffni

Warrawee NSW

Until 1998 Breffni was a rare surviving example of the domestic work of architect C. Bruce Dellit (1900-1942).

Dellit is usually associated with designs for interwar commercial buildings and public buildings and most particularly for the Anzac War Memorial in Sydney’s Hyde Park. He was commissioned to design the Warrawee house by Sydney company director Henry Reginald Scorer and his wife Dorothy in 1941. The Scorers sold the property in 1950 to the Honourable (later Sir) Edward Aloysius McTiernan, a Justice of the High Court of Australia. It may have been McTiernan who named the house Breffni.

Breffni was a sprawling single-storey bungalow built on a large block of land. The main living rooms were interlinked by glass doors and were of generous proportions; some had bays or large windows to take advantage of the park-like surrounds. Justice McTiernan subdivided the property in 1968 and a new house was built on the subdivided parcel but McTiernan and his wife Margaret remained owners and occupants of the original house Breffni. The house was sold in March 1997 following Margaret McTiernan’s death in November 1996 at the age of 95. The house was demolished in 1998 following a further subdivision of the land.

Photographer: Lindy Kerr

Date Photographed: March 1997

Original image format: 35mm mounted slides

Copyright: Caroline Simpson Library & Research Collection, Photography © Lindy Kerr

Documenting NSW homes

Garden study, Harrington Park
Documenting NSW Homes

Recorded for the future: documenting NSW homes

The Caroline Simpson Library has photographically recorded homes since 1989

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