Cintra House

This prominent white landmark villa on ‘Cloudland Hill’ came from humble beginnings as a smaller stone Georgian affair designed by Benjamin Backhouse in the early 1860’s. After its first owner George Webb, GM of the 19th century steamship line AUSN died, the house was bought by pastoralist, prominent businessman and 1888-1890 Queensland Premier Boyd Dunlop Morehead, after whom two nearby streets in the vicinity are named. During his time as Premier he distinguished himself by having the Assembly sit for a record 97 hours.

Boyd had the house considerably extended to accommodate his 8 children, with the iron lace wraparound verandahs added to transform it into a grand villa and lived there until his death in 1905. The subsequent owner Archeson Overend sold it in 1925 whereupon it underwent the fate of so many grand Victorian houses and was divided in two with the south end becoming a nursing home and later the other part a convent for the nearby Lady Of Victories Church.

Although it escaped Occupation by the army in WWII its immediate neighbour, a rambling bungalow also called Cintra housed the US Army’s photographic laboratory.

In the 1970s high profile developer Noel Kratzmann bought it and undertook its restoration to a fine family home, which, after a brief stint in the 1980s as Cintra Galleries, it remains today.