Heritage Facade Consultancy

Pollen Services operated a share-office scheme within the Trust Building for a number of years, and during that time Wayne Mullen served as Secretary of the Owners’ Corporation. Due to his considerable heritage and project management expertise Wayne has accepted a contract to continue co-ordinating the $12M project to remediate this building’s magnificent state significant facade. If you’re interested in Wayne’s services in client-side representation you can contact him using the contact details in the navigation bar on this website.

The Trust Building is an unsurpassed example of a building exterior in the Edwardian Grand Manner, equalled only in public buildings of the period. The exterior fabric is one of the best buildings designed by the architectural firm Robertson and Marks who were responsible for a large number of Sydney buildings, and includes outstanding examples of architectural detailing in the stonework, ironwork and cupola roofing.

It is now, in its altered state, a rare surviving example of non-domestic art deco interiors by Samuel Lipson. The Trust Building is historically significant as one of the major buildings erected in Sydney in the period before WW I, and, together with Culwulla Chambers, as one of the leading examples of the first generation of skyscrapers in Sydney.

It was originally the site of the Daily Telegraph offices, Sydney's highest circulating daily newspaper at the time it was built, and is one of four surviving former newspaper offices from the period 1900-1930 

After the Telegraph was absorbed into Associated Newspapers in 1929, the building was sold to a consortium which engaged Ross and Rowe to remodel it into the Hotel Savoy in the same year, with a great deal of additional plumbing. The hotel failed in the Depression in 1932 and the Southern British National Trust bought the hotel very cheaply, hired as architect Samuel Lipson and re-employed Stuart Bros to refurbish the building.

Bowral trachyte was now used as cladding, and art deco informed the new interior for the insurance company. Now known as the Trust Building, it was however sold in 1936 to the Bank of New South Wales (now Westpac), who again made alterations in 1938, using Robertson and Marks, the original architects of 1912.

Cornelius Furs opened their well-known shop in the lower ground floor and the main building was until recently a bank with tenants above and below. After Westpac vacated the main banking chamber became a retail space, currently vacant, that is currently being refurbished for a luxury brand tenant.

From entry in State Heritage Register [Item 00676]