Haunted Morella mansion, Sydney: How did an $8m estate become an abandoned squat?
HAUNTINGS, a contested will and family machinations colour the tale of an $8 million mansion that has fallen from glory.
The mystery of the derelict Morella estate stoked the public’s imagination this week, with the once stately Mosman abode trashed by vandals and laying in ruin.
It has emerged that a family “bun fight” is brewing over the Walter Burley Griffin era mansion which, vacant for decades, was owned by the late Anthony Parer.
There are rumours that it is haunted, with tragic events having driven Mr Parer away from what was once his beloved family home— leaving it in such a state of disrepair that neighbours have complained it poses a threat to public safety.
With its foundations crumbling and squatters making their home within its walls, Morella needs a lot of work.
But its future hangs in the balance, with the executor of Anthony Parer’s deceased estate poised to decide whether to knock Morella down, or fix it up.
And a potential Supreme Court battle complicates thing further, with several family members convinced a woman hired as Parer’s carer is poised to contest his will.
One family member, who did not wish to be named, said Chew Ho Hong— named in Mr Parer’s obituary as his “loving partner”— claimed she was in a de facto relationship with the man she nursed through his final years.
But the beneficiary of Mr Parer’s will, believed to be his sister Marianna Parer, would have none of it, she said.
“Tony’s sister lives overseas in Montreal, but she was here for the funeral,” the family member said.
“She believes the estate should be left to her. She’s told us there is no way she was going to let Chew Ho Hong get the estate.”
Morella, designed by Burley Griffin protege Eric Nicholls, was built in 1939 for Leo Parer, who founded and ran the Stanford X-Ray Company with his cousin Stan Parer.
The pair manufactured X-Ray machines from their Wooloomooloo factory during World War II and were among Sydney’s most noted residents.
Generations of Parers have forged a distinguished record throughout Australian history, from war photographer Damien Parer to aviator Ray Parer and, more recently, the late Warwick Parer— a Queensland Senator under the Howard Government.
In the mid-twentieth century, Leo Parer and his wife Helena are said to have hosted prime ministers at Morella, which featured in a six-page editorial in the April, 1943 edition of Australian Home Beautiful magazine.
But family legend holds that he was prone to disappearing, either onto his boat at the end of the wharf or a flat he kept on the top floor of the Forbes St factory.
And when he was home, “Uncle Leo had a room which had a ladder to reach and trapdoor which he would close behind him,” Robert Parer said.
If this had an impact on the young Anthony Parer, it would have been compounded by the tragedy that befell the family after his father’s death.
While Leo died in 1968 at the ripe age of 75, his daughter Sarita’s life was cut short in mysterious circumstances eleven years later.
The 42-year-old pharmacist was killed, along with her daughter, in a 1979 plane crash in Mexico.
“Her body was never returned— they sent the wrong body,” Zorba Parer told news.com.au.
“There was always this dark spectre that maybe she wasn’t dead.”
When Leo’s wife Helena fell ill soon after, Anthony Parer took responsibility for her care at Morella.
It was when she, too, passed away that the burden of maintaining the estate became too difficult.
“Poor Tony such a gentle person caught between his parents,” Robert Parer said. “His Dad was his hero and he loved his mother.
“Tony told me he looked after his mother when she was bedridden. At that stage he didn’t even have a stove that worked so couldn’t invite me over.”
A recluse who never married, Anthony’s health declined after he suffered a stroke, followed by the onset of dementia.
“He felt saddened by the fact that vandals were entering the house and would attend the council meetings to request assistance in preserving the property,” a family member said.
“He often rang my mother to discuss how to deal with the house and felt his other sister, Marianna, should come back to Australia to help him.”
But this never eventuated, and Morella was left to crumble.
Anthony moved into an apartment with his carer Chew “Chewee” Ho Hong, understood to have been hired by the family. They lived together until his death on May 6, 2015.
At his funeral, Anthony Parer, 84, was remembered as “a gifted intellectual” who was “generous to a fault”.
“He was always coming up with seemingly outlandish wonderful creative ideas,” Robert Parer said in his eulogy.
Nine months after Anthony Parer’s death, his estate— of which Morella is understood to be only a small part— is yet to be distributed.
But lawyer Daniel McGirr hosed down rumours of a contested will.
“My client’s been granted administration; it’s gone through Supreme Court probate,” Mr McGirr told news.com.au. “One person inherited the estate, that’s all there is to it.”
In NSW, potential beneficiaries have twelve months to contest a will.
Mr McGirr would not reveal the identity of his client, believed to be Marianna Parer.
He said his client was yet to decide what to do with Morella and was “going to sit down and address all of the options”.
“Everything’s on the table,” he said.
Photographed at her brother’s funeral, 84-year-old Marianna appeared deep in conversation with a woman understood to be her solicitor.
A family member told news.com.au she had “seemed very fit, alert and determined that her brother’s estate was not going to be left to his ‘carer’ (as she called her).”
One option that has been proposed is for a family trust buy the property, restore it and set up a historical society at Morella.
Zorba Parer, who is rallying support from among the extended clan, hopes to convince his relatives to band together and save the historic mansion.
“At a good family gathering, there’s 400 people; together, we could have a big working bee,” he said.
“Then it becomes something people can share, and it’d be good for the wider community.
“To me, it’s always been this exotic place my dad remembered, from being a child in the 1940s and 1950s.”
While it is listed as a heritage item under Mosman’s Local Environment Plan, the property was never added to the NSW Heritage Council register, despite efforts stretching back more than a decade.
“The big picture is to try and get the property restored to some state that’s worthy of its location,” Zorba Parer said.
But it all depends on the whim of Anthony Parer’s mystery heir.
Meanwhile, Mosman Council has ordered the executor of the estate to repair Morella’s fencing and secure the site to keep squatters out.
After all, Morella is both a catacomb of family secrets and a historical jewel.
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