Obtaining the Heritage House building itself was an early example of creative recycling. A former Brunswick Heads brothel, the business had fallen on hard times, and – the story goes – owed Byron Shire Council a decent amount of back rates. An enterprising Bangalow local, Betty Dengate, offered Council’s General Manager of the day a way out of a tricky situation. Bangalow’s Historical Society had a mountain of historical documents and items going mouldy in members’ garages, while the old brothel was lying empty. Why not relocate the building to Council-owned parkland in the heart of Bangalow and use it to house a museum for Bangalow?
And so it happened. In 1994, the building was relocated to its current pleasant site, a generous local donated enough money to construct a welcoming – and very useful – verandah, and the rest (sorry!) is history. The building had its official opening as a museum on Australia Day, 1995.
