Mansion on the block
Former nursing home tipped to bring $3.5m
THE owners of a Sandy Bay mansion — who were forced to stop running it as a nursing home some 24 years ago — have decided to sell.
The heritage-listed mansion at 20 Fitzroy Place was built circa 1900 and is expected to fetch a price in the vicinity of $3.5m.
Previously run as the 51bed Derwent Court nursing home until it lost Federal Court approval and funding in 1997, the property has returned to its original purpose, as a residence, with 18 bedrooms, four bathrooms and parking spaces for 10 cars.
The mansion was originally home to colonial merchant Clyde Hamilton before the main building was constructed in 1910 for H.J. Gray, the general manager of the Cascade Brewery.
The sale comes after the owners last year lost a protracted Federal Court challenge against their lawyers for professional negligence, following the property’s deregistration as a nursing home.
The drawn-out stoush started after the Federal Court revoked Derwent Court’s nursing home approval — and therefore its recurrent $1 million annual funding — after reviews of the site found it failed to meet standards for fire safety and dementia, continence and pain care.
Derwent Court’s elderly residents were moved to Rosary Gardens nursing home at New Town.
However, in 1998, the full court of the Federal Court set aside the ministerial decision to deregister Derwent Court.
Subsequently, the operator, Jadwan, a trustee of the Alexander family, tried to sue its
lawyers by arguing they failed to seek an injunction or challenge the government sanctions.
A decision handed down in April, 2020, dismissed Jadwan’s
appeal. The real estate agent now selling the Federation Queen Anne mansion said the property was turned into a nursing home in the 1960s before it was extensively
remodelled in 1979.
In 1984, it was renamed Derwent Court by the present owners and is for sale for the first time in 36 years.
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