| Historical notes: | Nos. 63 to 69 Katoomba Street occupy lot 21 of James Neale’s land sub-divided in the 1880s. The purchaser was William Newlind in 1886 (LTO, DP 692; vol.374 fo.169).
The four shops, nos. 63 to 69, were built on Newlind’s land in 1909 (photograph in Paragon). The three to the north, nos 63 to 67, including the future Paragon, were all owned in 1911 by the Rev. John Russell, who was the Anglican rector of St Hilda’s across the street from 1902 until 1913 (Church of England Historical Society Journal, 8 iii, Sept. 1963, 405). Since Russell did not own the fourth shop, it is likely that he was not responsible for building on the site but merely bought existing new shops as an investment. He continued to own the properties as an income-earner until 1924, retaining thereafter only one another investment property, nos.100-102 Katoomba Street (Rate Books). The income from the various shops was no doubt useful to Russell when he went to Sydney as senior curate to the rector of St James (Cable, 42).
Russell leased his shops as three separate entities. No. 63 was by 1914 leased by a jeweller, L.P. Goldstein, who bought the freehold from Russell in 1924. The shop was later occupied by another jeweller, H. Lloyd, and is currently Mine Shaft Jewellery. This is remarkable consistency of use over a period of almost ninety years.
No. 65 was leased by Russell to a series of shopkeepers, Sullivan in 1914-6, Dagon from 1917 to 1919. By 1923 it was leased to Zacharias Simos as refreshment rooms, called the Paragon, and in 1924 Simos purchased both nos. 65 and 67 from Russell (Rate Books).
Simos was a Greek migrant who had arrived in Sydney early in the century. After working and saving energetically, he arrived in Katoomba in 1916 (Low, 77). After a period working as a caterer, in 1921 Simos bought the refreshment rooms owned by Miss Kelly and previously run by Mrs Banning at 110 Katoomba Street. At the same time he also bought Miss Kelly’s adjacent premises at nos. 112-114, then leased by the estate agents, Soper Brothers (Rate Books).
Simos was able to earn and save enough to retain nos. 110 to 114 Katoomba Street while paying 9250 pounds in 1924 for nos. 65 and 67 (Rate Books). Simos and his wife were responsible for the Art Deco restyling of the Paragon in 1925 and for the addition of the Banquet Hall in 1934 and the Blue Room in 1936, utilising space behind no. 67 as well as no. 65 (Old Leura and Katoomba, 200).
The high reputation of the suitably named Paragon was preserved by Mrs Simos after Zacharias’ death and the tea-room has remained as a remarkably intact example of Interwar Art Deco, outside and in, though it is no longer owned by the Simos family.
The fourth shop in the suite, no.69, was never owned by Russell. From the outset in 1909 it was owned by Reuben S. Hofman, who seems to have used it as his own draper’s shop. After his retirement, Hofman leased no.69 initially to E. Luce, also a draper, in the early 1920s, but it became a confectioner’s in the mid-1920s, competing with the Paragon. It was bought in the 1930s by Mrs Mary Simos, wife of Zacharias, so that the three shops, nos. 65, 67, and 69, were all in the Simos family control (Rate Books). No.69 was always leased for income and is at present a pharmacy. |