By ANNA USHER

It sits quietly at the end of a bush-lined cul-de-sac, mostly hidden from the street. A sandstone retaining wall, a carport, a few concrete steps disappearing into the canopy. Nothing announces it. Nothing needs to.

But climb those steps and the world opens. A long white pavilion stretches across the ridge, its wide balcony framing a view north through the treetops to Balmoral Beach. Inside, the original kitchen has its cork tiled floor, varnished plywood cabinetry and red laminate, unchanged since 1960.

For 60 years, this was the Dwyer house.

In July 2020, it sold for $4.63 million. But the new owner had a different vision for the site.

What followed was a four-year campaign to demolish one of the last intact works of Sydney Ancher, the architect Robin Boyd called one half of a “two-man revolution” in Australian domestic design, and replace it with something new.

Ancher designed the house in 1959 for Dr Brian and Jacqueline Dwyer, who had spent years searching for an architect willing to take on their steep bush block, overlooking Balmoral.

The result – white-painted brick, a flat roof, wide north-facing balcony, and walls of glass oriented to the harbour – became a textbook example of his work. It was completed in 1960 and photographed by Max Dupain before the road was even sealed.

The couple who commissioned it were remarkable.

Dr Brian Dwyer (1925-2006) directed the Department of Anaesthetics at St Vincent’s Hospital for 30 years, establishing its first intensive care unit and the first pain management clinic outside the United States. Jacqueline Dwyer (1925-2020) was a Franco-Australian historian who completed a Master of Philosophy at the Australian National University at the age of 90 and was appointed a Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Merite in 2014. They had six children. Jacqueline lived at the house until she died there in 2020.

Two attempts

The first development application arrived in May 2024: demolish the building, construct a new dwelling. Council raised concerns and the owner withdrew it.

In July 2025, a second application arrived — a $4,230,662 three-storey, four-bedroom replacement with a lift and subfloor garage, requiring the removal of eight trees and proposing a floor space ratio 30 per cent above Mosman’s permitted limit. Council refused the application on 29 July 2025.

The fight back

A local resident lodged a request for an Interim Heritage Order the same month. The National Trust of Australia (NSW) and the Twentieth Century Heritage Society of NSW and ACT both wrote in support. Council issued the order on 26 September 2025.

It was a protection that was a long time coming. In 1988, a Mosman Heritage Study had already identified the Windward Avenue and Amaroo Crescent precinct – one of the suburb’s most intact clusters of mid-century modernist architecture – as worthy of heritage listing. The Dwyer House had never been included.

Independent consultants GML Heritage were engaged to assess the property. Their January 2026 report concluded the Dwyer House was the last substantially intact Ancher-designed residence in Mosman and recommended it be heritage listed.

The Mosman Local Planning Panel voted unanimously in support in February 2026. Council endorsed the planning proposal in March.

The proposal is now on public exhibition until June 2. If endorsed, the Dwyer House will be formally listed as a heritage item under the Mosman Local Environmental Plan, providing it with statutory protection.

Read more, see the documents and add your voice with a submission, HERE.