The house Cintra in Regent Street, Maitland, NSW is arguably, along with the later Belltrees near Scone, the most important residential building designed by the Hunter Valley’s leading nineteenth century architect, John Wiltshire Pender, and one of the region’s most significant surviving Victorian buildings.

Built in 1878 and then extended in 1887, it is an excellent example of the Victorian Italianate style, with prominent tower and fine cast iron lacework, and surrounded by its original landscaped gardens, stables and ornamental gates. It forms a commanding presence in Regent Street, a residential heritage precinct which includes a dozen buildings designed by the Pender practice, of which Cintra and its neighbour the benevolent home Benhome (1884) form the dominant features.

Apart from its intrinsic architectural quality and importance within its physical context, Cintra also has a particular historical significance within its region. Its architect, John W. Pender, played an important role in the development of the Hunter region during the nineteenth century, as an architect, manufacturer, entrepreneur and civic leader, and his architectural practice was continued after him by his son Walter and grandson Ian.

Their record of 125 years of continuous architectural practice, probably the longest in Australia, has been preserved in their original drawings, specifications and other records which are now conserved in the library of the University of Newcastle, including the documents for Cintra, one of their finest buildings.

Cintra also is significant in terms of its original owners, the connected Levy and Cohen families, important merchants in Maitland, Newcastle and Sydney, as well as in the UK. Benn Levy, who was Pender’s client for the first stage of Cintra in 1878, was nephew of David Lewis (Levy), the founder of the celebrated Lewis’s department store in Liverpool UK, while Neville Cohen, who built the 1887 extensions, was cousin of George Cohen, the ‘doyen’ of Australian banking and chairman of the CBC Bank at the end of the nineteenth century. Benn Levy and his siblings donated the Levy fountain at the Woolloomooloo gates of the Botanical Gardens in Sydney.

Barry Maitland
Emeritus Professor, BA, Dip Arch, MA, PhD, LFRAIA