The retirement village, 24km south of Sydney's CBD, was opened in 1980 solely for aged Dutch migrants.
It is now open to all seniors but the story behind Juliana Retirement Village is part of a new display at Sutherland Shire Historical Society and Museum in nearby Sylvania.
It was the culmination of a dream by Dutch migrant Johan (Jan) Logeman, a house painter who had arrived in Sydney with his family in 1952 to escape war ravaged Holland.
While he was in hospital recovering from a heart ailment in 1959, it dawned on him how lonely it could be for elderly Dutch migrants away from their childhood home. The idea of building a Dutch retirement village was born.
The display at Sutherland Shire Museum tells the story of Jan's efforts to raise the funds, the research he undertook to run a retirement village and how he found the builder to build it.
The Dutch government awarded Jan the Order of the Orange Nassau (a Dutch knighthood) for his services to the Dutch in Australia.
