The Griffiths Teas Building: Sydney’s Iconic Flat-Iron Landmark with a Colourful Past
- neighbourhoodmedia
- Jul 27
- 4 min read
From tea empire to urban revival: How a century-old Surry Hills warehouse became a luxury landmark — and home to Chin Chin.
For over a century, the Griffiths Teas building has stood with prominence at the point where Wentworth Avenue and Commonwealth Street meet Goulburn Street in Surry Hills. Once a warehouse for a famous tea company, it fell into dormancy for 30 years until a major redevelopment saw it rightfully restored to glory.
Thanks to its irregular roads, based more on random paths created by horse-drawn carriages than diligent city planning, Sydney has a variety of unusually shaped buildings. Many of our most distinctive structures are wedge-shaped buildings (known architecturally as flat-iron) designed to fit on triangular plots of land formed where two streets meet at a tight angle.
The Griffiths Teas buildings is an excellent example of a flat-iron building. It was designed by Henry Budden of Kent, Budden & Greenwell Architects and completed in 1915, but its history, arguably, goes back much further.
History Of Griffiths Teas
In 1882, John and James Griffiths, two brothers who immigrated to Australia from England, established the Griffiths Brothers Tea company in Melbourne. They began by importing tea (as well as cocoa and coffee), catering for what was then one of the highest tea-consuming populations in the world. Later, they experimented with growing tea locally.
Within a few short years, Griffiths Brothers Teas was successful enough to expand into Sydney, Adelaide, and Brisbane, commissioning bespoke warehouse/retail buildings in each city.
It wasn’t just the quality of their products that underpinned the success of the Griffiths brothers, they had a particular acumen for marketing. They were among the first tea merchants to sell factory-packaged branded tea (at the time, many grocery items were sold loose, weighed and packed by a grocer).
The Griffiths brothers also used promotions such as selling hampers that included confectionary items, tea accessories, treats and, of course, packs of Griffiths Brothers tea. One canny idea (excuse the pun) was packaging their teas in smartly designed tin canisters that could later be repurposed in the kitchen to hold other items such as flour, spices etc.
Their most famous marketing concept — one that outlived the product itself — was the placement of signs at railway stops and along transit routes giving the mileage to the nearest Griffiths Brothers Teas outlet. The distinctive blue and white signs became as iconic as the famous red and white Coca Cola signs.
By the 1950s, Griffiths Brothers had diversified into several other horizontal ventures, including finance, retail furniture and electrical goods. Tea became a diminishing interest for the brand until it became virtually non-existent.
In 1970, the company sold its famous warehouse building in Surry Hills, however, its legacy lives on in the large white “Griffiths Teas” lettering that remains on the parapet.
New Owners
The new owners of the property were the famous, wealthy, socialite couple, Susan and Isaac Wakil, whose own story has become a colourful part of Sydney’s history.
Immigrating to Australia in the 1940s (Susan from what is now Romania, and Isaac from Iraq), they met and married in 1955, then proceeded to amass a fortune via the clothing industry. They were very high profile, arriving at exclusive parties and events in a cream Rolls Royce, dressed in European designer couture.
In the 1970s, they began building their extensive real estate portfolio, mainly purchasing disused or derelict ex-commercial properties close to the city and inexplicably leaving them empty and untouched for decades. As well as the Griffiths Teas building, they owned the Terminus Hotel in Pyrmont which became rundown and overgrown with ivy.
In the midst of an ever-worsening housing crisis, the Wakil’s indifference drew ire from activist groups. In 2012, frustrated protestors breached the Griffiths Teas building, demanding that it and other empty properties be used for housing. Their cries were ignored.
Then, in 2014, the Wakils began selling off their properties, with the bulk of the proceeds being donated to philanthropic causes. Susan Wakil died in 2018. Isaac is still alive and the 98-year-old has recently put the couple’s Vaucluse home of 65 years on the market. Its estimated value is $70 million.
Major Makeover of Griffiths Teas Building
Back to the Griffiths Teas Building; it was purchased for around $22 million by Cornerstone Property Group and received a makeover designed by PopovBass architects and constructed by Growthbuilt.
Featuring 31 luxury apartments, seven penthouses and two retail levels, the refurbished warehouse has preserved the original facade and retained many interior elements. The interiors honour the building’s industrial history through exposed brick and timber beams, large sash windows and open spaces. At the same time, there is a strong sense of modernity and elegance, with wooden floors and stylish fixtures helping to create a sense of domesticity.
One of the building’s main public attractions is Chin Chin restaurant, which occupies the entire ground floor. The acclaimed Asian establishment, whose flagship Melbourne store is a local icon, debuted its Sydney restaurant in 2017 as part of the opening of the Griffiths Teas Building. Integrating its interior with the general industrial-cum-urban aesthetic of the building, Chin Chin has an scintillating atmosphere that complements its cuisine. If you’d like to try it out, join the (very long) queue that invariably winds around the corner.
Comments