The Garibaldi, Heritage retail building in Hunters Hill, Australia.
The Garibaldi is a two-storey building of local golden sandstone on the truncated corner of Alexandra and Ferry Streets, with eight-pane sash windows and a slate roof. A door sits in the cut corner, and above it a niche holds a statue of a woman cupbearer. Attic rooms are contained within the roof.
John Cuneo, a stonemason from Genoa who arrived in 1854, built The Garibaldi of local golden sandstone from 1861 to 1862 as Hunters Hill's first hotel; rate books show it unfinished in 1861 and substantially complete by 1869, with rooms added until 1881. It lost its licence after 1911, when a local option vote in the Lane Cove district cut hotel numbers, and by 1912 Mrs Nelly Rehm rented it as a confectioner's shop. The Taniane family held it from 1934 to 1976, buying it from the Cuneos in 1949; a 1971 Amoco bid to demolish it for a service station was stopped by local residents, and a Permanent Conservation Order followed on 16 October 1981.
The inn's name honours Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807–1882), the Genoese-born leader of Italian unification, chosen by fellow Genoese John Cuneo. The Cuneo family ran it as a hotel, shop and gathering place; 'Cuneo's Corner' was the centre of the suburb's social activity, and the family also had a jazz band and raced yachts.
The Garibaldi stands at the truncated corner of Alexandra and Ferry Streets, with the entrance door set into the cut corner beneath the statue niche. The building is now used as offices, and the surrounding site was redeveloped with offices, shops and underground parking. Its physical condition was recorded as excellent in January 2013.
The niche above the truncated corner door holds a statue of Hebe, the cupbearer of the gods. The original was stolen in 1973; the figure seen today is a replacement. The attic rooms behind it once housed the Italian stonemasons working in Hunters Hill.
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