[1] Palma Rosa is a three-level sandstone house built in 1886–87, possibly as a speculative venture for, and to the design of, prominent Brisbane architect Andrea Stombuco.

[1] Andrea Stombuco was an Italian sculptor and builder who had travelled widely and was involved in various business enterprises, including stone quarrying at Cape Town in South Africa, before emigrating to Victoria in 1851.

After trying his luck on the goldfields, he established himself in Victoria as a sculptor, monumental mason, builder and architect, and found a patron in the Roman Catholic Church.

With his eldest son, Giovanni Stombuco, whom he took into partnership in 1886, he also designed St Joseph's Christian Brother's College at Nudgee, erected 1889–90.

Among his more prominent non-Catholic works were St Andrew's Anglican Church at South Brisbane (1878–83) and Her Majesty's Opera House in Queen Street (1885–88).

[1] Stombuco designed a number of large houses in Brisbane, including Friedenthal (1886–87) at Eagle Farm for WH Heckelman; and Rhyndarra (1889) at Yeronga for W Williams.

Giovanni Stombuco retired from architecture when his father left Queensland in 1891, moving with his mother to Spring Vale Farm at Kuraby.

[1] Whether Palma Rosa (originally named Sans Souci -'without care') was built as a speculative venture, or whether it was intended as the Stombuco family home, is not clear.

The main hallway was decorated with an arch supported by fluted columns with corinthian capitals, and had tessellated Minton tiles on the floor.

The three floor plans virtually replicated each other, and included a generous hall, 10 feet (3.0 m) wide, running centrally north-south on each level.

Through the 1890s and early 1900s, Palmarosa was home to a number of socially prominent people and their families, including Joseph Bennett (possibly a Fassifern grazier) 1892-93; Reginald E. Finlay (manager of the Queensland Investment and Land Mortgage Company) c. 1894-97; Captain T. M. Almond (Queensland portmaster 1890-1902) in the late 1890s; and William Hood, MLA, in the early 1900s.

The Palmers were well known in Brisbane society for their race-day verandah parties at Palmarosa, overlooking the Albion Park Raceway, with "bookies" said to have visited the house to take bets.

Title to the house block was transferred a number of times in the 1950s, and in the late 1950s or early 1960s the place was converted to a private convalescence hospital.

[1] In 1972 the property, on a reduced site of just over 1 rood (11,000 sq ft; 1,000 m2) was bought at auction by Ralph Holden on behalf of the English Speaking Union (ESU), a Queensland branch of which he had established in Brisbane in 1968.

The ESU, based in London, is an educational, cultural and social society advocating English as an international means of communication.

Repair works for the ESU were undertaken at Palma Rosa between 1972 and the mid-1980s, including reconstruction of the verandahs, and in 1996-97 the Union commissioned a substantial conservation report on the building.

[3] Palma Rosa is located on a hillside block at Hamilton overlooking the Albion Park Racecourse and Breakfast Creek.

It is an excellent example of the domestic work of prominent Brisbane architect Andrea Giovanni Stombuco and is a splendid example of an 1880s elite residence in Queensland.