The Manor is a mansion in the Sydney suburb of Mosman. Built circa 1911 loosely in the Federation style, it stands in the harbour front street of Iluka Road, in the Mosman locality of Clifton Gardens.
The manor's original owner, a Mr Bakewell, initially planned a cottage of eight rooms, but the project kept growing until it was a mansion with over thirty rooms, most of which were lined with beaten copper. It became known locally as Bakewell's Folly.[1] In 1922, the Theosophical Society rented The Manor for a community of some fifty people, headed by Charles Leadbeater, a claimed clairvoyant, and a heavyweight in the Society. The Manor became an important centre for the Society and was regarded as a great "occult forcing-house".
The English writer Mary Lutyens stayed at The Manor in the 1920s and described it as "a huge and hideous villa".[2] The young Indian Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was presented as the new "World Teacher", was staying in nearby David Street with his brother Nitya while Lutyens—his eventual biographer—stayed at The Manor.[3]
The Theosophical Society bought the house in 1925, holding it under a trust deed. In 1951, they set up The Manor Foundation Ltd to own and run the house. The Society still uses The Manor today.