Castle Hill home inspired by house Hitchcock's in North by Northwest listed for sale

When it comes to escaping Sydney life, the landmark Castle Hill home in Sydney’s north offers less a geographic retreat and more a retro one to the Alfred Hitchcock movie idyll of half a century ago.

After all, when the late acclaimed architect Bruce Rickard was commissioned to design it for the late John Reid, he was pointed towards the house in Hitchcock’s spy thriller North by Northwest for his inspiration.

“He even rang Hitchcock when he was in Sydney to ask about the house in the movie, and was told it was a film set, but Hitchcock still organised for MGM photos of the house to be sent to Reid to give him an idea of how it should look,” says Harriet France, the Sotheby’s International agent enlisted to sell the mid-century residence.

SOLD - $5,800,000

372 Old Northern Road, Castle Hill NSW 2154

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The result is Mirrabooka, a five-bedroom residence completed in 1963 to a design by Rickard, renowned as a member of the post-war Sydney school of architecture.

Built by master builder Don Fraser featuring Sydney sandstone, timber, copper, concrete and glass, it stands as one of the most intact surviving examples of the Organic Modernist houses in NSW, scoring it state heritage protection along with much of the surrounding Japanese-inspired garden.

The north-facing residence with five bedrooms and four living rooms overlooks a vast koi carp pond over which there are stepping stones to the entry and a waterfall.

The Reids were avid gardeners and, as members of the International Dendrology Society, collected plants and trees from around the world that make up Mirrabooka’s extensive garden, complete with a swimming pool.

However, as France adds, the state protection extends to more than half of the two-hectare block, leaving the rest of it with subdivision potential for the future.