[1] The Everglades had borne that name for at least a decade before 1933 (when Henry van de Velde acquired it) and had formed part of a more extensive estate in Leura for over half a century, ever since Captain Reynolds took out a series of conditional leases of Crown land in 1880 and 1881.

More people bought and built in south-east Leura and the golf course which plays an important role in Everglades' story was created on Nardin land.

Mrs Stonier's shrewd appraisal of the landscape led her to build her large home in 1915-16 in that part of the estate where the van de Veldes erected their house 20 years later and enjoying similar spectacular views to the south.

The Everglades was, moreover, given its name by Georgina Stonier and it was she who first manipulated its environment, cleared some of the bush, planted exotics and fruit trees, creating terraces and a driveway supported by low stone walls.

[2]: 6 [1] Henry van de Velde, born in Belgium in 1875, was a modest but wealthy man of astute business ability with boundless energy and wide interests.

Sorensen estimated that Van de Velde spent thousands on the development of the Everglades and considered him to be the greatest patron of landscaping gardening that Australia ever had.

The idea of development over time is a commonly recurring theme in many of his gardens and displayed a profound awareness of the ecological impossibility of fixing the character of a landscape permanently in every detail.

The aim was to create a final landscape, which, although having different qualities of beauty at different times in its development period, would achieve a state of ecological balance in which its continuing maintenance would be relatively minimal.

The view of distant cliffs and valley floor carpeted with dense eucalpyt forest, all softened by the gentle atmospheric blueness so characteristic of the mountains, was one to stir the imagination of all but the most unromantic.

Sorensen decision not to use this view as part of the formal garden but to limit intensive development to the area previously disturbed for the orchard was made very early in the design stage.

The very factors that made the Blue Mountains such a desirable destination for the holiday maker- the spectacular cliffs and the rugged grandeur of the scenery- created immense problems for the garden builder.

[1] Sorensen turned this physical character of the soil into an advantage by hand-digging the whole of the cultivated area to the depth of 600–900 millimetres (24–35 in) and removing all ironstone found in the process, stockpiling it according to quality and colour and eventually for packing and filling.

The walls formed terraces filled level with soil, stepping down the slope to the lookout point, with the garden continuing down to the Grotto pool, created by the placing of a 40-ton rock in its present position.

[2][1] On 28 July 2012, a function was held to celebrate the (re-)installation of an authenticated copy of a bronze stateue called "Boy with a thorn in his foot".

The Norman Lindsay Gallery, Everglades and Woodford Academy were all represented in the Blue Mountains Winter Magic street festival which attracted over 30,000 people.

[1] Everglades contains many species of trees rare to the Blue Mountains at the time for, in his search of perfection; Sorensen was to seek plants from a large number of nurseries.

The backdrop to this theatre is framed by the reconstructed red sandstone entrance porch from the London Chartered Bank of Australia building, designed and built by Architect J.F.Hilley in George Street Sydney in 1866 and demolished in 1938 to make way for Feltex House, the new headquarters of Henri's business activities.

Carefully taken down, transported to Leura and re-erected as the backdrop to the garden theatre, the archway of the entrance porch was flanked with tall Bhutan cypress (Cupressus torulosa) hedges, clipped formally to form the wings of the storage area.

The court was designed as the home for several pieces of classical sculpture, collected by Van de Velde on his travels around the world to add unexpected interest to the garden.

[1] On leaving the court via the archway, a stone flagged area is crossed leading to a broad flight of shallow steps descending to the level of the terrace proper, which comprises a large smooth lawn lined with weeping Japanese flowering cherry trees.

From this point one path leads down past a fern-covered cliff face rich in ironstone to end at the Grotto Pool, which fits so perfectly into its setting that is difficult to believe that it is not a natural feature retained in the garden by Sorensen.

The other path from the lookout leads through bushland to a simple timber bridge, which spans the watercourse immediately above the falls and provides another view of the Grotto pool.

The roof is terra cotta tile and the walls are cavity brick finished in a Mediterranean style stucco; windows are steel framed except for those enclosing Bedroom G.3[1] The exterior of the house has been painted and rainwater gutters and downpipes replaced.

(.Murphy, 1998)[1] Located near the front gate, in an elevated position hard against the northern boundary and opening onto the swimming pool terrace this building is clearly linked to the European Modern Movement with echoes of the Bauhaus and Le Corbusier.

[3][1] National Trust Magazine NSW November 2008-January 2009: completion of much needed work at Everglades funded by a $100,000 grant reinstatement of the traditional internal paint scheme, upgrading of pathways and the production of new interpretative material.

Everglades is of historic value as an largely intact modernist garden, reputedly an example of the earlier work of Paul Sorensen, one of the most accomplished landscape/garden designers in Australia in the period 1920-1970, in collaboration with Henri ven de Velde the owner.

Everglades has associations with Henri van der Velde, an important businessman of the immediate pre-war years, and Paul Sorenson, notable garden designer and contractor active mainly in NSW.

The design qualities of Everglades are of a very high order: the garden is structured to provide a diverse range of spaces, each with a different character, with the unifying theme of the ironstone walls.

Everglades presents the potential to yield information about the transmission, implementation and dispersal of ideas of the modern movement in relation to both house and garden design, as practised in Europe in the early twentieth century, into Australia.

[1] It also presents the potential to yield information on the range of skills and relative contribution of Henri van der Velde, Paul Sorensen and others to a complex, layered place, designed and constructed to high standards of quality, and subject to varying degrees of maintenance and neglect over time.