Wilhelm's Hoehe

This villa was built in 1887 for Bavarian migrant John Leonard Wuersching. He disembarked at Brisbane in 1866, having previously lived and worked as a baker in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1867, he established a successful Fortitude Valley/Spring Hill bakery and retired in 1885. Fellow migrant and prominent Brisbane solicitor Heinrich Ludwig Ruthning sold a large block of land in Heaslop Street to Wuersching in 1887. Wuersching had his retirement home built on the land and he named his villa “Wilhelm’s Hoehe” (Kaiser William’s Lookout” after the reigning German King who was a cousin of the reigning British monarch Queen Victoria. During the 1890’s, the house became a rental property. From 1907 to the 1950’s, it was owned by the Hart family who renamed the villa “Lexington”.