Stead House 2.3

Stead House, a grand Victorian Italianate residence located in Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney's Inner West, was initially established as "Waterloo Villa" sometime in the early 1850s by Archibald Mitchell on part of the 30 acre grant known as "Wain's Farm". Stead House is an excellent example of a remnant grand estate house that is the product of a series of alterations and additions by owner Samuel Cook, manager of The Sydney Morning Herald in the late 19th century and The Salvation Army who purchased the property in 1911, following Cook's death in 1910.Description and backgroundThe current Italianate presentation of the house to Leicester Street was carried out by Samuel Cook in 1892, as an embellishment of Mitchell's "Waterloo Villa", renamed "Frankford Villa" in 1864 and subsequently "Frankfort House" during Cook's ownership. The Italianate makeover can be dated precisely due to detailed surveys found in the various field books of Public Works Department surveyor D. C. White who surveyed "Frankfort House" in 1891, and again in 1893 (see 'Style analysis').During Samuel Cook's ownership the house was set in a renowned garden with stands of exotic trees, a large Moreton Bay Fig, carriage loop and much vaunted rose beds to the east. Following the demise of Cook in 1910, his children subdivided the estate and sold it off, primarily as housing lots, but retaining a parcel of land associated with the house (including four house allotments to the north on Victoria Road, and one to the south fronting Leicester Street) at the corner of Victoria Road and the then newly created Leicester Street.