News
9 February, 2026
Old Sunshine Lodge on the market
The old Sunshine Lodge in Mittagong has hit the market with a price tag of around $3 million.
The old Sunshine Lodge in Mittagong has hit the market with a price tag of around $3 million.
The Alice Street site is being described as a “development trifecta” with “history, location and extraordinary potential”.
It comes with DA approval for a community housing facility, but is being described by agent Sydney City and Country Realty as being “perfect for a 100 placement childcare centre”.
The heritage-listed property was originally built in 1926 as a convent connected to St Joseph’s Catholic School before being used as a community hostel for the disabled and mentally ill from the early 1970s.
It closed in 2012 due to serious safety breaches and was badly damaged by fire in 2013. It has been uninhabitable since that time.
The breaches related to food standard and adequacy, medical management, staffing and failure to report a sexual assault within 24 hours.
Wingecarribee Shire Council has previously rejected an application to demolish existing buildings on the site and to build 14 residential units and a boarding house with 29 individual rooms.
It acknowledged at the time that the existing building was “clearly badly damaged” but it should be possible to retain and reuse a significant portion of it.
It later approved plans for a boarding house with 48 single rooms and two detached dual occupancy dwellings each containing three bedrooms and two bathrooms.
The approved plans would see the original Sunshine Lodge building flanked by new two storey buildings to the north and south and a three-story building to the east.
The approved plans also include a basement carpark for 25 vehicles, 10 motorcycles and 10 bikes.
The Alice Street property has a colourful history.
A Coronial Inquiry into the deaths of three men in 2011 was extremely critical of the property’s former licensee, Carolina Torregrosa.
A former manager at the site told the inquiry that residents were neglected but his warnings were ignored.
Deputy State Coroner Sharon Freund also found that a fire at Sunshine House in 2013 just days before the inquest commenced was deliberately lit - although she was unable to conclude who was responsible.
Photos posted on Facebook indicate the property has been extensively vandalised.
The 3000-metre square property has a price tag of $2,785,000 to $3,050,000.
An online advertisement describes it as being in a “blue-ribbon location” and just a short a short walk to the Mittagong town centre and Mittagong railway station as well as schools, churches and Lake Alexandra Reserve.
The advertisement says council’s heritage requirements “lie in only preserving the façade of the existing building” - although the approved plans suggest otherwise.
Do you have any memories of the old Sunshine Lodge? Please share them with The Southern Wire by emailing sc@thesouthernwire.com.au
Read More: Southern Highlands, Mittagong