Philanthropist Lady Mary Fairfax will be farewelled with a Sydney funeral after dying at her famed waterfront property Fairwater at the age of 95.
Lady Fairfax's children say her health deteriorated rapidly before she died at the family estate at Point Piper on Sunday night.
"This is a deeply distressing time for the family," they said in a statement on Monday, requesting privacy.
The widow of publishing magnate Sir Warwick Fairfax, she was a doyenne of Sydney society and generous benefactor to many charities, particularly the arts.
She started life as Marie Wein in Warsaw, Poland on August 15, 1922 before migrating with her parents to Australia in the late 1920s.
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Her funeral service will be held at St Mark's Anglican Church in Darling Point on Friday before a private burial.
