Miss Midgley's

Miss Midgley's, a five-suite heritage guesthouse in Brisbane's New Farm, opened in 2022 inside a 160-year-old stone house that had previously served as a private residence, an orphanage, a premier's home, a hospital and, under its current name, a private school. Architects and mother-daughter owners Lisa and Isabella White bought the derelict property in 2020 and restored it over about a year, keeping its Brisbane-tuff stonework and pink-toned history intact.

The place

James Street, at the crest of a hill in New Farm, Brisbane, in the same design-focused strip that anchors the neighborhood's boutique shopping and dining.

The concept

Built in the 1860s as a private residence known as Cairncross House out of Brisbane tuff (a local volcanic-ash stone with distinctive pink, purple and burgundy tones) the building went on to serve as an orphanage, the home of a former Queensland premier under the name St Claire, and a private hospital, before the Midgley family bought it in 1903. Eldest daughter Annie Midgley then converted it into a private school, Miss Midgley's Educational Establishment, and in the 1950s it became a set of apartments known locally as the Pink Flats. Architects and mother-daughter duo Lisa and Isabella White bought the property in 2020 in a state of disrepair and restored it over roughly 12 months, uncovering original tuff stonework and fan detailing around the front door that had been concealed or damaged over the building's many lives, and working with council to retain heritage requirements (including a picket fence, reimagined in weathering corten steel) while meeting modern fire-safety standards for the original moulded ceilings. The five self-contained suites, each named for a playful nod to the building's school-era past (the Principal's Office, the Locker Room), have individual floor plans, full kitchens and private outdoor space; architectural historian Marianne Taylor was commissioned to write a history of the house and site, with a copy placed in every room.

Dining & wellness

Each suite has its own full kitchen rather than a central restaurant; a solar-heated lap pool and courtyard, used for shared lunches and functions, anchor the communal outdoor space.