National House, Heritage building in New South Wales, Australia

The National House is a historic building featuring classical architectural details mixed with Australian building methods and design sensibilities. The structure shows how local craftspeople combined traditional proportions with materials suited to the regional climate and conditions.

A two-storey brick and stone Bristol Hotel stood on this site in 1891. Sydney investor John Thomas Neale bought the property in 1892 and had a warehouse built, designed by James Alexander Meek; it was first listed in Sands' Sydney Directories in 1894. Neale's descendants sold it in 1920 to the National Bank of Australia, which converted it into a branch. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.

The building's name comes from the National Bank of Australia, which bought it in 1920 and ran a branch here for decades. Since 1995 it has housed the Hotel CBD, one of the Hemmes family's first hospitality ventures, so the former banking floor now serves as a pub.

National House stands at 75 York Street, on the corner of King Street, in the Sydney central business district. It now operates as the Hotel CBD, so the interior is entered as a pub rather than a museum; the 1929 bank entry on the corner, beneath a projecting bay with three windows, is the doorway to look for. The building is a short walk from Wynyard station and other York Street bus stops.

The interior was remodelled for the 1995 conversion to Hotel CBD, but the original structural cast iron columns survive, growing more elaborate from the fourth floor down to the ground level. Look up inside to see the change in their ornament.