Award Winning Contemporary Adaptation

This Free Classical style warehouse on Castlereagh Street was built in 1876 as a tobacco manufactory and has now been conserved and adaptively re-used as a bar, restaurant and function rooms designed by Candelapas Associates, supporting a hotel in the adjacent new building.

In 1876, Hugh Dixson engaged architect Mr JF Hilly to build a four-storey building for Dixson & Sons Tobacco Manufactory. The building was used to store loose leaf tobacco and convert it into plugs and figs. A cart way entrance was constructed to give access to the sheds at the rear. In the 1940s, Johnson & Sons, who had purchased the site in 1912, constructed a three-storey extension covering most of the rear yard and above the cartway of 203 Castlereagh Street. They sold the site to leather grindery business Porter and Co, owned by Harry Kallinkos, in 1958, at which time the building was renamed Porter House.

NBRS provided heritage consultancy services for this project since 2017. New uses were designed to carefully integrate with the heritage fabric so that the works included the retention of exposed floor joists and timber posts, and the conservation of sandstone, remnant pressed metal ceilings and the later terrazzo and steel staircase

Conversion of the building into bar and restaurant spaces also presented an exciting opportunity to introduce interpretive photographs, signage and displays to convey the significance of this historic site. Archaeological artefacts are now on display in the stair lobby, painted signage on the side facades has been restored and text from the Australian Town and Country Journal report on the original construction of the building has been inlaid into paving. The ‘Porter House’ signage on the front façade was reinstated as part of the works.