Casino District Historical Society Inc

A“NOBEL” Place: “Dogwoods”,“Sarsaparilla”, and Patrick White’s Castle Hill

• Minnesota Historical Society
• Historical Society Of Philadelphia

A HOUSE WITH CHARACTERS:

A LITERARY CONNECTION TO LOCAL HISTORY

1. Notes: pages that have a broken link marker were down or unavailable when last checked. They will be rechecked periodically and updated as necessary. Where a link has been unlinked (ie can't be clicked) the website appeared to have malware.
2. Casino & District Family History Group Inc: P.O. Box 586, CASINO NSW 2470: Central Coast Family History Society Inc: P.O. Box 4090, EAST GOSFORD NSW 2250. Parramatta & District Historical Society Inc, Family History Group: PO Box 1384, PARRAMATTA NSW 2124: Parramatta Female Factory Friends - Parramatta Female Factory Action Group Inc.

“All the houses I have lived in have beenrenovated and refurnished to accommodate fictions.The original structure is there for anybodywho knows: ‘Lulworth’ for Voss;‘Dogwoods’ for The Tree of Man and The Solid Mandala . . . In some cases ithas not been so much architecture as atmosphere which has transferred the houseto the page.”[i]

The Sale Historical Society meet on the 2nd Thursday of every month at 7:pm at the Sale Museum. STRATFORD & DISTRICT HISTORICAL SOCIETY Postal: P.O. Box 145, Stratford, Vic, 3862 Phone: 0418 573 828 Address: Hobson St, Stratford. Stratford Historical Society maintains a Museum in the former Methodist Church.

- From Patrick White’sautobiography, Flaws in the Glass.

Artist rendering of “Dogwoods”circa. 1994.Image reproduced courtesyof the Rowlandson family.

In the middle of the suburban landscape ofCastle Hill, on one of its busiest roads, stands a house that is driven by (andprobably admired) thousands of times each day; however, few residents of theHills District know that this house, known as “Dogwoods”, was once owned andlived in by Nobel Prize-winning Australian author Patrick White.

Patrick White, Australia’s first recipient ofthe Nobel Prize for Literature (1973) for his novel Voss, and his life-long partner Manoly Lascaris, purchased the 6.4acres of property in February of 1948.Then called “The Glen”, the couple changed the name within the year to“Dogwoods”, named so after the Dogwood trees they planted on the property. White had left Sydney for Cambridge in 1932and “expected never to return.”[ii](Marr, Letters, p.6)

Unfortunately, none of those planted by White remain on the property.

But return he did.

Interestingly, though, Patrick White’s timeat Castle Hill is relatively unknown when compared to his writing life ingeneral and his time at his family home in Centennial Park, in which he andManoly resided after leaving Castle Hill in 1964. (The couple would hold ontothe property for three more years.)

“Dogwoods” has been privately owned and,therefore, not open to the public, since White sold the property in 1967. Andin a way, the fact that the historical significance of the house, situatedwithin a suburban area, is relatively unknown,only adds to its intrigue.

Anybody whose literary interests in PatrickWhite fuels a need for more, and is aware of the author’s connection to CastleHill, cannot be dissatisfied when viewing first-hand the house in which many ofWhite’s characters were not only created but lived and breathed.

“Dogwoods” as it exists today.

A heritage-listed building, it stillmaintains its original character.

“. . . before very long [the Brown family]were living really and truly on the land they bought . . . down TerminusRoad.First, of course, there was thehouse to build, and they used to come out from Barranugli on Sundays tosupervise the building . . . the classical façade of the brown weatherboardhouse . . . something about the Classical which Dad called ‘sacrosanct – in amanner of speaking.”[iii]

- From The Solid Mandala.

One can certainly perceive both thearchitecture and the atmosphere of “Dogwoods” within this brief description ofthe Brown family house in The SolidMandala.A resident of Castle Hillneed only pick up a copy of the novel to get a feeling of the place soengrained in it.

Of course, being able to physically locatesuch an important Australian literary figure (and characters) within anexisting physical structure is exciting and posits a significant historicallandmark within Castle Hill. However, what is just as interesting is what canbe learnt about Patrick White’s Castle Hill – the sense of place, its residents,and its link to today’s social and political environment – when looked atthrough this literary perspective.

A “NOBEL” PLACE

Castle Hill and its surrounding areas(then considered the Baulkham Hills Shire), during White’s residence, wassemi-rural, with only about 10,600 residents but was quickly growing.In just over ten years it grew to almost17,000.Today it has over 133,000 withthe suburb of Castle Hill aloneboasting of approximately 28,000 residents.[iv]This “suburbanization” of Castle Hill became,arguably, an important factor to White’s writing and his life.

“Our acres are just beginning to come alive . . . I am sure Ihave been right in returning to the land.'

- PatrickWhite, Aug 6, 1948

“I realize I have never liked Castle Hill, only thisplace [“Dogwoods”], which has been good to my work and necessary for it.”

- Patrick White, Sept 13, 1964

White’s relationship with Castle Hill wasobviously somewhat ambivalent.The abovetwo quotes from the year White arrived in Castle Hill and the year he left,respectively, show how, for White, Castle Hill was a place of isolation,necessity and inspiration.[v]Two of the place-names White affixes to hisfictional rendering of Castle Hill, or “Sarsaparilla”, as seen in the abovepassage from the novel The Solid Mandala,are particularly illustrative of this relationship.

The Solid Mandala,

originally published in 1966,written

predominantly during the lastyear of

White’s residence at“Dogwoods” in Castle Hill.

White’s choice of the place-namesBarranugli (Bare and Ugly) and Terminus Road (as a final point, as farout as one can be) at least help us to understand the anxieties White heldabout the place that, ultimately, gave him so much.These descriptions were not an attack onCastle Hill; rather, they were a bemoaning over the encroachment of suburbia onthe rural.As White wrote about havingto leave “Dogwoods”: “it was impossible to continue living in what had become asuburb.”

Showground Road in CastleHill as it looked 1951,

three years after White andLascaris purchased “Dogwoods”.

However, there is no denying White’sappreciation of Castle Hill as a place of literary inspiration andpeacefulness, away from the distractions of noisy city life. “The idealAustralia I visualized during any exile and which drew me back, was always, Irealize, a landscape without figures . . . [the landscape is] more sensual,sympathetic to human flesh.”[vi]Theordinariness of life with which Castle Hill was able to provide White wascrucial to his creativity, as Australian-ness and the Australian landscapebecame one of White’s most popular motifs.

Postcard sent from White andLascaris to their neighbours, whose cow

spent some time in the couple’sbackyard at “Dogwoods”.

Image reproduced courtesy ofEnid Turbit.

The above image is wonderful to behold:Patrick White, internationally renowned author, possibly waxing nostalgic whiletraveling the world, about his little piece of Australia (on which he kept aneighbour’s cow) in the semi-rural outskirts of Sydney, his “landscape withoutfigures”, to which he was eager to return.[vii]In fact, it was exactly the ordinariness oflife at “Dogwoods” in Castle Hill, in which White received inspiration for oneof the major themes that resonated throughout his work: the Immanent God.

“During what seemed like months of rain I was carryinga trayload of food to a wormy litter of pups . . . when I slipped and fell onmy back. . . . I lay where I had fallen, half-blinded by rain, under a palesky, cursing through watery lips a God in whom I did not believe. . . . It wasthe turning point.My disbelief appearedas farcical as my fall.At that moment Iwas truly humbled.”[viii]

This importance of place to White’s workcannot be understated.All that one candeduce from White’s time at “Dogwoods” – the duality of human nature, anxietyover suburbia, the presence of God, and the Australian landscape – all helptoilluminate the history of the author’s connection to Castle Hill, the placewhere the Nobel Prize-winning novel Vosswas written.

Cover of Voss (1957),

Patrick White’s NobelPrize-winning novel

A CONTINUING LEGACY?

Castle Hill holds a significant place in White’s life andwork.As the place that White embraced –and the place that embraced him – this literary connection is held withpride.Almost two decades after Whiteand Lascaris left Castle Hill, White published his “self-portrait”, Flaws in the Glass.Published in 1981, the same year that theSydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras took to its first summer parade, it is ahighly important work to consider alongside today’s struggle over full equalityfor the LGBT community.

White’s autobiography, Flaws in the Glass: a Self-Portrait,

originally published in 1981, thesame year the

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Grashad its first summer parade.

White’s fearless account of his life withLascaris was written at a time when anxieties over sexuality (at their heightduring the years at “Dogwoods”) were coming to a head with dramatic force.The openness of White and Lascaris’srelationship while living at “Dogwoods” is a testament to the acceptance andenlightenment of the people of Castle Hill during the not-so-progressive era ofthe 1950s.Allowing White to have thelast word, Castle Hill’s place in the continuing legacy of the life and work ofthis fascinating man is clear:

“I am sure our ghosts will alwayshaunt Showground Road, the dark little house with cracks in its walls and whiteants in its foundations.Those who arepsychic or unhappy may still catch a glimpse of us running out naked bymoonlight amongst the regimented boxes which now stand where the trees were cutdown.Perhaps my laughter will be heardon Nobel Avenue . . . where I fell on my back in the mud . . .”[ix]

Acknowledgements

Theauthor would like to express sincere gratitude to Pam Trimmer and the HillsDistrict Historical Society for providing the opportunity to research and writethis history of the connection of Patrick White to Castle Hill; the currentowners of “Dogwoods”, the Rowlandson family for granting access to thiswonderful historical building and allowing photos to be taken and shared withthe public to ensure the posterity of the site; Enid Turbit for sharing thepostcards sent to her parents by Patrick White and Manoly Lascaris and agreeingfor the images to be shared with the public.Your contribution to this public history project will help work toward agreater and more enthusiastic engagement with the local history of Castle Hill andthe Hills District.It is the author’shope that schools and the general public support and acknowledge the tremendouswork conducted by the staff of the Hills District Historical Society topreserve our history.

[i] White, Patrick, Flaws in the Glass, Penguin, 1983, pp. 153-4.

[ii] Marr, David, ed. The Letters of Patrick White, Sydney : Random House, 1994, p.6.

[iii]White, Patrick,The Solid Mandala, Australia:Penguin, 1972, p. 223.

[iv] Australian Bureau of Statistics HistoricalCensus Data

http://www.abs.gov.au/websitedbs/censushome.nsf/home/historicaldata

[vi] White, Flaws,pp. 49 & 51.

[vii] A second postcard from Patrick White andManoly Lascaris to the Crooks family reads: “Beginning to feel I could head forhome. We have seen too much already, I think.”

[ix] ibid, p.148.

The Welcker's Resort Historic District is located in Gibraltar, Wisconsin, United States.

History[edit]

The district largely consists of buildings from the resort founded by German immigrant Dr. Herman Welcker in 1907 with a regimen influenced by European health spas of the time, catering initially to Germans from Milwaukee. District includes former cottages of the resort, the current White Gull Inn, and the current Whistling Swan, which was the Lumberman's Hotel in Marinette before Welcker had it hauled across Green Bay on the ice to become his 'Casino.'^[2][3][4]

References[edit]

Minnesota Historical Society

1. ^'National Register Information System'. National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. November 2, 2013.
2. ^'White Gull Inn History'. White Gull Inn. Retrieved 2014-01-18. Includes reminiscences of Welcker's era.
3. ^'Henriette'. Architecture and History Inventory. Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 2014-01-18.
4. ^'Welcker's Casino'. Architecture and History Inventory. Wisconsin Historical Society. Retrieved 2014-01-18.

Historical Society Of Philadelphia