The original Salvation Army site on the hill above Dee Why is currently being redeveloped. It was gifted to the army by Elizabeth Jenkins in 1892, and she built a Home of Rest on it for officers of the young army.
The original structure of the home still stands, and it is required to be kept in the new development. While this is very welcome, it will unfortunately be buried within the new complex of residential units and not be visible or accessible to the public.
If you would like to see the building, now is the perfect opportunity. All the other, later structures on the site have been demolished, and there is an unobstructed view of it from the Fisher Road frontage as well as from the Northern Beaches Council carpark.
The Home of Rest is a happy (or unhappy) exception for the Northern Beaches in that it has survived. Locally, we have a very poor record of preserving our built heritage.
Many would be aware of the loss of the grand homes such as Fairlight House and Dalley’s Castle around Manly. But, to me, it is the lack of interest and unthinking destruction of the more vernacular dwellings that is more tragic, the tragedy compounded by the fact that many of them were demolished relatively recently.
In the Dee Why area, the loss of the original circa 1840 Wheeler Homestead at South Creek in the 1980s was unforgiveable. Similarly at Brookvale, several of the original farmhouses survived through to the same period only to be lost.
An example was Eucalyptus Cottage, built from locally quarried sandstone in 1875 by Brookvale’s original settler William Frederick Parker for his daughter, Elizabeth. It survived until 1973, its only trace today being a small public reserve at the end of Ankali Place, North Manly, located where the cottage stood.
