Buda was built by a retired Baptist Missionary, Reverend James Smith, in 1861 and originally named Delhi Villa. The original design was a six-roomed brick house with an encircling verandah, based on the Indian Bungalow style. This was considered by Smith to be most suitable style of housing for the Australian climate. Within two years, Smith decided to return with his family to his missionary work in India and the house was put up for auction.
The property was purchased in 1863 by successful businessman, Ernest Leviny. This became the marital home for Leviny and his second wife, Bertha Hudson, whom he married the following year and togehter they raised a family of ten children in the house. Leviny oversaw many changes and alterations to the house, particularly between the years 1890 – 1900. It was around this time that the house was renamed Buda after the capital of Hungary, Budapest.
The house we see today reflects Leviny’s envisaged ‘gentleman’s villa’, a house befitting a successful Victorian businessman with its Italianate façade and surrounding 1.2 hectares of garden. Buda retains its “parsley” green trims and shutters, characteristic of the country homes of Ernest Leviny’s European origins.
The Leviny family inhabited the house continuously for 118 years from 1863 to 1981 when the last surviving daughter, Hilda, died at the age of 98 years. After Ernest’s death in 1905, the influence of the British Arts and Crafts style, embraced by his daughters, became more marked on the house interior. Evidence of this can be seen in interior fittings and colour schemes, handcrafted items, metalwork light fittings and embroidered soft furnishings, mostly made by the Leviny women to decorate their home.
