NOBODY strolling along the picturesque Ettalong beachfront in the late 1930s could have missed it — the gleaming white three-storey mansion facing the ocean.
Next to the old holiday guesthouses that still stood at that time — this was the epitome of architectural style — sleek curved modernist lines reminiscent of the bridge of an oceanliner.
This building on the corner of Beach Street and The Esplanade made a statement. It screamed money and power.
The extraordinary structure was the retirement home of one of Sydney’s most notorious underworld figures of the 1920s and 30s.
Phil ‘The Jew’ Jeffs was a violent career criminal involved in all kids of illegal enterprises — sly grog, theft, prostitution, cocaine and illegal gambling.
He was a hard and violent standover man, well known to police and rightly feared.
Read the article in the Daily Telegraph.