The mystery of the remarkable house at Kanahooka named ‘Rondanella’

Key points

• A local history writer has long sought the architect of Rondanella, an unusual house at Kanahooka on the shores of Mullet Creek. Land title searches by researchers Wendy and Terry Nunan showed Charles Ormond Smith owned the property by 1914.
• The property passed to William James Johnson by mortgage in 1916 and was sold to Major Richard Pudsey Dawson in 1936.
• The writer suspects the Howard Smith family's architect, Verton Howard Bruce Smith, may have been involved, but says the link remains unproven.