Tanilba House

Tanilba Bay's first white settler was Lieutenant Caswell, who received a grant of fifty acres in 1831 for his services to the British Admiralty. With the help of convict labourers, a stone house was built. Blocks of local stone were cemented with mortar made from lime obtained by burning oyster shells. Blocks of Sydney sandstone transported as ballast in visiting ships were also used. Features of the house include half-metre thick walls, and decorative quoins that define the building edge and outline the door and window openings, high ceilings, archways and large rooms. It was a sailor's home by the water. Caswell also had a larger farm of 1920 acres at nearby Balickera.

For fourteen years the Caswells, William, Susan and nine surviving children, lived at Tanilba House. The building has had many owners in the intervening one hundred and sixty years. It has been well cared for and is protected by a permanent preservation order. Sited on the shoreline of Port Stephens, surrounded by koala habitat, Tanilba House, together with its small gaol, elaborate stone gazebo and one hundred and seventy year-old olive tree, is open to the public.

Those lucky enough to visit the house may catch a glimpse of the resident ghost. First sighted around 1900, the ghost, a young woman with long brown hair and floor-length dress, is believed to be that of Elizabeth Gray, a governess who lived there in the 1830s. She has been seen gazing through the French windows, at the doorway to the front parlour, and sitting on the end of a bed.